A week after students across Hamilton returned to school from the summer break, almost 900 of them continue to be affected by an on-going shortage of bus drivers.

Marnie Jadon, media and communications manager for Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board says a total of 898 students from both the Catholic and public boards, were caught up in the shortage as "routes at 10 schools were impacted last week."

The Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board and Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board issued joint statement at the end of August, advising about the shortage continuing for the fourth successive year.

"In our original release we had indicated 15 short. After one week, that would still be our most precise way of reporting it . . . and that's approximately 15 short," chair of HWCDSB, Patrick Daly told CBC Hamilton on Monday.

"The number of routes [being covered] by spare drivers is more than we would like."

Several factors affecting recruitment

Daly said there are a number of factors affecting the recruitment of drivers to fill the vacant slots, but he would not share any specific reason from a board perspective.

"Some will argue wages and compensation as a factor, others will argue the treatment that some parents or students — the way they treat the bus drivers. So there are a number of factors that contribute," Daly said.

Daly said HWCDSB and HWDSB instituted measures last summer, which helped a whole lot in alleviating the some of the effects of the driver shortage.

These include, he said, transferring routes from one company.

"We're still looking at doing that even further. So, we are hopeful that it will improve in our local situation in Hamilton. We're working on improving it but I wouldn't want to guarantee that," Daly said.