Old Lyme — It didn’t take a pandemic to create a shortage of school bus drivers.

But COVID-19 has made the problem much worse.

“We’re always looking for drivers,” said Jon Hipsher, chief operating officer of M&J Bus Inc., the Old Saybrook-based company that provides transportation for 24 school districts in the state, including Lyme-Old Lyme and a half-dozen others in southeastern Connecticut.

“Even before the pandemic there was always a shortage — national, regional, local,” Hipsher said. “There are pockets of the state where you may have some spare drivers, but by and large there generally are never enough. And now it’s worse.”

M&J, like most other school bus operators, has had to replace drivers who decided not to get behind the wheel this school year, either because their age or a health condition made them especially vulnerable to COVID-19’s effects, or because they live with or care for someone who is at risk.

While many school districts are reopening according to hybrid schedules, with only a portion of their students traveling to and from school on a given day, transportation companies still have to operate the same number of buses on those days, meaning they need the same number of drivers.

All of the districts M&J serves are bringing their students back to school, with about half of them resuming classes this week and the other half following suit next week.

Hipsher said M&J employs from 550 to 600 people, and at the moment could use 30 to 35 more drivers. He said applicants should visit the company’s website, www.MJbusinc.com.

“We need more drivers,” he said.

Kelly Nickerson, a dispatcher in M&J’s Old Lyme facility on Four Mile River Road, was on the front line Tuesday, Lyme-Old Lyme schools’ first day of classes. While waiting for drivers to report for their afternoon runs, she said social distancing had not been an issue in the morning.

“Some buses had five, seven, 10 kids,” said Nickerson, an East Haddam resident. “So many parents are driving their kids, there was gridlock at Lyme Street and Halls Road. ... But we’re running the same number of buses.”

M&J buses typically are built for 77 passengers but rarely are called upon to accommodate more than 50 to 55.

Mike Doyle, an M&J driver from New London, said he had five students on his high school/middle school run and three on his elementary school run that morning. Pre-pandemic, he said, he’d expect to have loads of 30 and up to 20 students, respectively, on the runs.

“But it’s the first day,” he noted.

Doyle said he wasn’t worried about the coronavirus, adding that M&J drivers were “taking good precautions,” cleaning their buses four times a day.

“We’re all wearing masks, disinfecting the buses between routes,” Nickerson said. “Drivers are wiping down all touch points — door handles, the tops of seat backs. They make a high school/middle school run, then disinfect before the next run and again at the end of the day. We put all the windows down and leave the doors open when the buses are parked.”

Drivers also are wearing rubber gloves.

Nickerson said 18 vehicles operate from the Old Lyme lot and that she had 12 bus drivers and one van driver, leaving her five drivers short. Fortunately, she said, M&J was able to “borrow” drivers from other districts it serves that have yet to open schools.

What happens when those other districts need their drivers back?

“That’s when we get more creative,” Nickerson said.

“We need bus drivers, van drivers, you name it," she said. "People think it’s easy driving a bus, but our training program is rigorous.”

In Connecticut, a person must obtain a commercial driver’s license and the required license “endorsements” to drive a school bus. To be eligible for the required endorsements, an applicant must have an acceptable driving record, possess good moral character, pass a medical exam and a criminal background check, and not be listed on the sex offender or child abuse registries, and must complete the required training and pass a proficiency exam and road test.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com