A bus driver shrtage that has plagued the country’s school districts for years came to a head in Louisville. After that first chaotic day, the city’s school system, Jefferson County Public Schools, which serves about 100,000 students, abruptly halted classes until at least Aug. 11 for elementary and middle school students and Monday for high school students.

Marty Pollio, the district superintendent, said at a news conference Monday that the district will work to provide bus drivers with everything they need for success, including increasing wages.

“We will continue to have more and more problems throughout this nation unless we address our significant bus driver issue,” he said.

While the situation in Louisville seemed extreme, many school districts have been contending with a shortage of bus drivers, driven by low pay, inconvenient hours and lingering effects of the pandemic.

In Florida’s Hillsborough County Public Schools district, which includes Tampa, there still are 203 bus driver vacancies even though school already has begun, with delays on the first two days of school last week, according to Tanya Arja, chief of communications for the district.

In Charlottesville, Virginia, Albemarle County Public Schools notified the families of 1,000 children — total enrollment is 14,000 — that there was no driver for their route, but that school would go on as scheduled.

Normally, there are up to 6,000 students who are transported a day, but this year the district received requests for 10,000, said Phil Giaramita, public affairs and strategic communications officer for Albemarle Public Schools.

In Chicago, the school district is battling its driver shortage by offering free Ventra cards — which are used for the city’s public transit — for qualifying students and one companion. About half of the district’s bus driver positions are vacant.

The search for bus drivers has been frustrating. The Stillwater Public Schools district in central Oklahoma still has five full-time positions open, said Barry Fuxa, its public relations and communications coordinator.

As in many districts, low pay and odd hours are the biggest issues. Starting pay last year for Stillwater bus drivers was $12.38 an hour, with six-hour days and split morning and afternoon shifts that did not allow enough time for the driver to hold another job.

This year, Fuxa said, the district raised the pay for its bus drivers to $16.57 an hour. But with no budget for advertising the open positions, the district has found it difficult to spread the word, especially with nearby school districts competing for the same workers.