Moms’ careers and personal time are hit hard by school drop-off demands, a poll finds

CHICAGO AP When Elizabeth Rivera s phone would ring during the overnight shift it was usually because the bus didn t show up again and one of her three kids needed a ride to school After leaving early from her job at a Houston-area Amazon warehouse several times Rivera was devastated but not surprised when she was fired Right now I m kind of depressed about it stated Rivera I m depressed because of the simple fact that it s kind of hard to find a job and there s bills I have to pay But at the same time the kids have to go to school Rivera is far from the only parent forced to choose between their job and their kids guidance according to a new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Masses Affairs Research and HopSkipDrive a company that relies on artificial intelligence and a configuration of drivers using their own vehicles to help school districts address transportation challenges Most of parents drive their children to school the survey discovered and those responsibilities can have a major impact About one-third of parents say taking their kids to school has caused them to miss work according to the poll Roughly in say they ve been prevented from seeking or taking work opportunities And say school transportation has even caused them to lose a job Mothers are especially likely to say school transportation requirements have interfered with their jobs and opportunities Smaller paychecks bigger vulnerability The impact falls disproportionately on lower-income families Around in parents with a household income below a year declared they ve missed work due to pick-up demands compared with around in parents with a household income of or more Meredyth Saieed and her two children ages and used to live in a homeless shelter in North Carolina Saieed revealed the kids father has been incarcerated since May Although the family qualified for government-paid transportation to school Saieed reported the kids would arrive far too early or leave too late under that system So she decided to drop them off and pick them up herself She had been working double shifts as a bartender and server at a French restaurant in Wilmington but lost that job due to repeatedly missing the dinner rush for pickups Sometimes when you ve got kids and you don t have a village you ve got to do what you ve got to do reported Saieed As a mom you just find a way around it The latest obstacle a broken-down car She couldn t afford to repair it so she sold it to a junk yard She s hoping this year the school will offer transportation that works better for her family Not all kids have access to a school bus Although about half of parents living in rural areas and small towns say their kids still take a bus to school that fell to about one-third of parents in urban areas A separate AP-NORC HopSkipDrive survey of school administrators unveiled that nearly half stated school bus driver shortages were a major predicament in their district Various school systems don t offer bus institution In other cases the available options don t work for families The region in Long Island New York where police Officer Dorothy Criscuolo s two children attend school provides bus system but she doesn t want them riding it because they ve been diagnosed as neurodivergent I can t have my kids on a bus for minutes with all the screaming and yelling and then expect them to be OK once they get to school be regulated and learn stated Criscuolo I think it s impossible So Criscuolo drops them off and her wife picks them up It doesn t interfere much with their work but it does get in the way of Criscuolo s sleep Because her typical shift is p m to a m and her children start at different times at different schools it s not uncommon for her to get only three hours of sleep a day during the school year The transportation burden falls heavier on moms Mothers are majority often the ones driving their children to and from school with saying they typically take on this task compared with of fathers The greater part mothers say they have missed work have lost jobs or were kept from personal or professional opportunities because of school transportation requirements compared with of dads Syrina Franklin says she didn t have a choice The father of her two high school-age children is deceased so she has to take them and a -year-old grandson to different schools on Chicago s South Side After she was late to work more than times she lost her job as a mail sorter at the post office and turned to driving for Uber and Instacart to make ends meet The majority of the kids they have people that help out with dropping them off and picking them up declared Franklin They have their father a grandmother somebody in the family helps When both parents are able to pitch in school pickup and drop-off duties can be easier Computer programmer Jonathan Heiner takes his three kids to school in Bellbrook Ohio and his wife picks them up We are definitely highly privileged because of the fact that I have a very flexible job and she s a educator so she gets off when school gets out revealed Heiner Not a lot of people have that Parents want more options Although the use of school buses has been declining for years across the U S countless parents would like to see schools offer other options Roughly in parents disclosed getting their kids to school would be much easier or somewhat easier if there were more school bus routes school-arranged transportation services or improved pedestrian and bike infrastructure near school Around a third cited a desire for earlier or later start times or centralized pick-up and drop-off locations for school buses Joanna McFarland the CEO and co-founder of HopSkipDrive announced districts need to reclaim the responsibility of making sure students have a ride to school I don t think the way to solve this is to ask parents to look for innovative ideas McFarland stated I think we really need to come up with innovative ideas systematically and institutionally In Houston Rivera is waiting on a background check for another job In the meantime she s uncovered a new explanation for her family s school transportation necessities Her -year-old daughter who still works at Amazon on a day shift has moved back into the home and is handling drop-offs for her three younger siblings It s going very well Rivera announced The AP-NORC poll of U S adults who are parents of school-age children was conducted June -July using a sample drawn from NORC s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel which is designed to be representative of the U S population The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus percentage points Sanders informed from Washington Source