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States are wrestling with how to dole out Covid-19 boosters after federal regulators set eligibility guidelines so broad that nearly all of the 100 million Americans who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine qualify for a third shot.

People age 65 and older, as well as people 18 to 64 with underlying health conditions or jobs that increase their risk of developing severe Covid, are eligible for a third dose, federal health officials said last week. The sheer breadth of qualifying medical conditions and occupations, plus the lack of any proof requirements, means just about anyone who got the Pfizer vaccine can now seek out a booster. The only hard-and-fast rule is that people must wait at least six months after their initial two shots to get a third.

In West Virginia, where just 40 percent of the population is vaccinated against Covid-19, Gov. Jim Justice — a Republican — is encouraging nearly any adult who has received two doses of the Pfizer vaccine to get in line for a third, citing the growing burden on the state’s hospitals. Vermont, which has one of the nation’s highest vaccination rates, is taking a phased approach, starting with people 80 and older last Friday.

The expanded booster push comes as state and local health officials are struggling to convince many people to get their first round of Covid-19 shots, amid fears that colder weather and the coming holidays could further fuel the virus’ spread. Now they must help the public navigate the ambiguities of the federal guidelines to ensure those who need third shots get them. The task is complicated because many people who would otherwise be eligible for another dose are in limbo until the Biden administration authorizes boosters of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

The booster rollout also will look different in many states than the initial vaccine push last spring. Many people can now get Covid-19 shots at pharmacies, and the mass-vaccination sites that once dotted the country have largely closed.

“In the winter, it was all hands on deck,” said Adriane Casalotti, chief of government and public affairs at the National Association of County and City Health Officials. “Right now, that’s not necessarily the case.”

Local health agencies are facing different resource constraints than they did last winter, she said. While the country has an ample supply of doses and vaccination sites, “that doesn’t always translate to appointments when folks want them with the Pfizer vaccine,” Casalotti said.

Some local vaccine providers may not have enough Pfizer doses on hand to meet demand at a given time, or enough workers to immunize people, Casalotti said. “And at this point, many, many, many people are beyond that six-month window” of when they received their second dose, she added.

That hasn’t stopped some governors from pushing boosters to broad swaths of their residents. “For the most part, if you want a booster shot and you’re 18 and older — in any situation, just about, that you feel compromised — you can now get your booster shot,” Justice said Friday.

But Scott Harris, Alabama’s health officer, said his state isn’t “automatically asking” every adult resident to get a booster. “This is a very confusing situation,” he said Friday.

Molly Howell, the immunization program manager for the North Dakota Department of Health, echoed his concerns. She said the biggest booster-related stumbling block so far has been effectively communicating who needs a third shot.

“I think the public may be a bit confused,” she said. “It may prevent them from coming in for boosters.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said people 65 and older, as well as individuals 50 to 64 with underlying health conditions, should get a booster, while younger adults with qualifying illnesses or jobs may opt for one. There are still many questions about which underlying health conditions and which jobs qualify people for the additional shot, she added.

People who are unsure whether they need a Pfizer-BioNTech booster should talk to their health care provider about their underlying conditions and their potential Covid-19 exposures, Howell said.

“If you’re a healthy 30-year-old who works from home, and you’re fully vaccinated, right now you’re likely not going to be hospitalized and die due to Covid. You may still get a breakthrough infection, but it’ll still be fairly mild,” she said. “But if you’re an elementary school teacher, and every day you’re going into a situation where you’re probably exposed [to Covid] … then you may say, ‘I don’t want to risk it.’”

Part of the confusion surrounding booster eligibility stems from the Biden administration’s announcement last month that it hoped to roll out the shots for most adults beginning in late September.

That plan morphed amid objections from health experts in the government and outside, who argued that the administration did not have sufficient safety and efficacy data to justify a widespread booster launch. The Food and Drug Administration and CDC ultimately approved narrower eligibility criteria on the advice of their staff and their independent vaccine advisory committees. The federal government has estimated that 20 million people now qualify for the Pfizer-BioNTech booster and a total of 60 million will qualify in the coming months.

The “back-and-forth” between Biden administration officials and federal health agencies created “some amount of confusion,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said on Monday during his regular press briefing in Trenton. While the state health department has been “crystal clear” in specifying what groups are eligible, the Garden State won’t aggressively enforce the criteria at points of access.

“We never asked you to prove that you have X or worked in Y, or give us your driver’s license, or any of that,” Murphy said. “Our view was, the more shots in arms — assuming you’re eligible and doing the right thing — the faster we get that done, the better and safer we’ll be. That’s our same mindset for the boosters.”

The federal government has urged states and vaccine providers to remove as many barriers as possible to additional Covid vaccine doses, beginning in August when health agencies endorsed third Pfizer or Moderna doses for people with severely weakened immune systems.

But with 2.78 million people having received a third vaccine dose as of Monday — 410,000 more than had by Friday — it’s an open question how many were among those the FDA and CDC intended to reach.

“Basically, they’re opening the floodgates completely now, and they’re dancing around it with some gobbledygook language,” Justice said Friday.

Sam Sutton contributed to this report.

Larry Hogan is going national, using his cred as a popular blue-state Republican to help other GOP candidates ahead of a potential 2024 presidential bid.

The Maryland governor, an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump, is lending his help to Republicans in states filled with suburban voters who bolted the party during the Trump era. Over the past few weeks, Hogan has campaigned for Virginia gubernatorial hopeful Glenn Youngkin and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. This weekend, he was the keynote speaker at an Amelia Island, Fla., conference hosted by the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership.

And next May, Hogan is set to speak at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum’s “Time for Choosing” series focused on the future of the Republican Party. The forum in Simi Valley, Calif., has drawn an array of would-be presidential candidates, including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

During Hogan’s travels, he has also set aside time to meet with donors, a ritual for those looking to build a national political apparatus.

Hogan told POLITICO he was currently focused on the 2022 midterms rather than the 2024 race. But, in an indication of his interest, Hogan said he saw an opening in the forthcoming primary for a Trump critic, and he added that he would not be dissuaded from running for president in the event Trump waged a comeback, a position some other prospective Republican candidates have been reluctant to take.

“If I decide that I want to run for president, it certainly wouldn’t stop me that he’s in the race, that’s for sure,” Hogan said.

Within much of the Trump-dominated party, however, there is skepticism that Hogan would be a serious contender, despite his sterling electoral record in Maryland. While polling indicates a portion of Republican voters would like to see an alternative to Trump emerge, there is consensus that the nomination would be his for the taking should he run. A POLITICO/Morning Consult survey conducted Sept. 18-20 showed Trump with an 86 percent approval rating among registered Republicans.

But Hogan — who flirted with a long-shot primary challenge against Trump in 2020 and called on Trump to resign following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — argued that the former president’s influence was diminishing. And while other potential candidates jockey to win over Trump’s supporters, Hogan said there was an opening in the 2024 GOP primary for someone unaligned with the former president.

“I believe that there’s 10 or 12 or 15 people all fishing in the same pond,” Hogan said. “They want to be the next Donald Trump, and … there’s some 30 percent of the Republican base that wants to go in a different direction.”

Other Trump critics, including Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, have been mentioned as possible candidates, though they have so far been less aggressive in positioning themselves for a national run.

Would-be Republican 2024 hopefuls are already crisscrossing the country to campaign for congressional candidates, make trips to early primary states and set up vehicles to raise money and increase their national profiles. Hogan supporters have launched An America United, a nonprofit group that’s been churning out slickly produced web videos promoting the governor as a bipartisan problem-solver.

As he travels the country, Hogan is assiduously casting himself as someone who can cure his party’s ills. Hogan offered what may be a preview of his national message during his speech at the Republican Main Street Partnership over the weekend, declaring that “successful politics is about addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division,” and that “frankly we have been doing a lot of subtracting and dividing.”

The two-term governor has defied the political odds in deep-blue Maryland, a state Republicans haven’t won at the presidential level since 1988. While Republicans suffered a national bludgeoning in 2018, Hogan won reelection by more than 10 percentage points, making him only the second Maryland Republican governor in history to win a second term. He has remained popular since: A February poll conducted by Goucher College showed Hogan with a 65 percent approval rating.

Hogan’s team says it expects the governor to remain active in the run-up to the 2022 election, particularly in areas the party has recently lost ground in. Campaigning for Youngkin and Kemp were natural choices for Hogan, they say. Youngkin’s prospects partly depend on his ability to make inroads in the Democratic-heavy Washington, D.C., suburbs — where Democrats are trying to tie the Republican to Trump, who has also endorsed him. Kemp, who Trump has attacked repeatedly for not subverting Georgia’s 2020 vote count, needs to stanch his party’s bleeding in the fast-growing Atlanta suburbs.

The governor is also looking to bolster swing-district House Republicans, including members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, who he has supported through his co-chairmanship of the centrist No Labels organization.

With his home-state approval ratings sky-high, there have been discussions within Republican circles that Hogan might be better off waging a 2022 challenge to Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen rather than prepping a presidential bid. But Hogan flatly rejected that idea.

“I really don’t have any desire to run for Senate in 2022,” he said. “Being one of 100 people and arguing all day and getting nothing done just doesn’t have a big appeal for me.”

Donald Trump’s letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott demanding he pursue an “audit” of the 2020 election set off a “mad dash” in the governor’s office as aides sought to figure out just how serious the former president was, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

In the letter, Trump called on Abbott to hold a “Forensic Audit of the 2020 Election” and pass HB 16, a bill recently filed in the Third Special Session of the Texas legislature, which would allow for an Arizona-style “audit” of the presidential election.

“Despite my big win in Texas, I hear Texans want an election audit!” Trump wrote in a public letter addressed to Abbott on Thursday. “Texas needs you to act now. Your Third Special Session is the perfect, and maybe last, opportunity to pass this audit bill. Time is running out.”

Just hours after Trump released the letter, a statement was put out by Sam Taylor, assistant secretary of state for communications, who said the office had “already begun the process” of reviewing 2020 votes in the state’s two largest Democrat and two largest Republican counties: Dallas, Harris, Tarrant and Collin. Trump only won Collin County, and Biden won Dallas, Harris and Tarrant counties in 2020.

During an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Abbott said that the audits “began months ago”— a statement that echoed the claim made by the office of the secretary of state.

“State audits conducted by the Texas Secretary of State’s office have already been underway for months,” Renae Eze, press secretary for the governor, said in a statement. “Under federal law, county election officials only have to keep these materials for 22 months, and it is imperative that all aspects of elections conducted in 2020 are examined before the counties clear out these materials in September 2022.”

But in reports from both the Texas Tribune and CNN, local officials in counties targeted by the “audit” said they had not learned of the review until Thursday’s statement from the secretary of state’s office.

And behind the scenes, the Texas governor’s office was caught off guard by Trump, whose letter made no mention of “audits” already underway. There had not been contact between Trump and Abbott ahead of the release, and Abbott’s office was uncertain if they could meet Trump’s demands to pass HB16 without complicating the legislative agenda. One Texas political aide familiar with how the process played out said, “The secretary of state‘s decision to call for audits in the four largest counties in Texas was predicated on Trump’s statement mentioning Gov. Abbott.”

“There was a mad dash to determine if Trump was actually being serious with his statement and it was decided this was the best route to take without blowing up the special session,” the aide said.

The scramble among Abbott’s team to placate the president illustrated the degree to which Trump and his election conspiracies continue to set the rules of engagement for virtually all other GOP elected officials.

Trump won Texas by 6 percentage points — over 600,000 votes — in the 2020 election, which raises questions as to why he would want the result audited. Indeed, the decision by the secretary of state’s office (a position that has been vacant for months) prompted criticism about eroding public trust in elections and the use of taxpayer dollars.

Ruth Ruggero Hughs stepped down as Texas secretary of state in May 2021 after the Texas Senate refused to confirm her position. Now, the governor is poised to pick the state’s next top elections officer, who will have new powers via the new Republican elections bill.

Earlier this year, a deputy to Hughs told lawmakers that “Texas had an election that was smooth and secure.”

In a statement, Taylor said he expected the state legislature to provide funds for the audit. In his Fox News interview, meanwhile, the governor defended the audits.

“Why do we audit everything in this world, but people raised their hands in concern when we audit elections, which is fundamental to our democracy?” Abbott said on Fox News Sunday. “We have a responsibility to ensure the integrity and confidence in the elections in the state of Texas.”

Trump’s push for Texas to hold an audit came one day before a Republican-commissioned report was released in the state of Arizona concerning a so-called “audit” there. The effort was criticized extensively for being the purview of conspiracy theorists intent on finding a way to flip the state to Trump. But the final report reaffirmed President Joe Biden’s victory and did not find evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Democrats say they fear that the audits and voting restriction bills making their way through GOP statehouses are pretenses for Republicans — led by Trump — to challenge the election in 2024 should the party again lose the presidency.

Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.

A strict new abortion law kicked off a huge national backlash. Thousands of Haitian migrants seeking asylum prompted mass deportations and scrutiny on Border Patrol policy. State officials announced four new reviews of the 2020 vote.

And that was just in September — and just in Texas.

The massive, Republican-controlled state has dominated the national political spotlight this year, driving increasingly conservative policies into the heart of big debates over everything from voting to public health initiatives, critical race theory and more. These legislative moves have positioned Texas as a counterweight to Democratic-dominated Washington — and a leader charting the potential course of the Republican Party nationally.

This year, the state was one of the first to reverse mask mandates and block local Covid-19 vaccine requirements. In the summer, Democratic state lawmakers fled Texas for a month to delay GOP voting legislation, which passed shortly after they returned. Laws that allowed carrying a gun without a permit, penalized reducing police budgets in large cities and limited discussion of systemic racism in classrooms went into effect on Sept. 1.

And other times, big events in Texas took center stage: A massive winter storm exposed the state’s weak energy infrastructure in February, and Texas’ southern border has been at the front of this month’s national news.

Even for a big state, Texas has seen an outsized amount of political attention as conservatives try to break new ground, expanding on decades of GOP control and a national political environment that tilts toward Republicans. Two more key trends are also behind the attention-grabbing policy drive: The Republican governor is preparing to face primary challengers in his 2022 reelection race and potential presidential run, while conflicts are mushrooming between diverse, liberal cities and the Republican-dominated state government — mirroring the same tensions animating national politics.

“You put all those things together, and I think there’s been basically no lane markers for Republicans in this session,” said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project, which conducts public opinion polling in the state. “They’re very confident about the 2022 election given recent precedents and… a Democrat in the White House, so there have been no natural checks.”

Former President Donald Trump’s influence still looms large in the state’s politics — as seen in his open letter to GOP Gov. Greg Abbott last week. Trump demanded the state legislature pass House Bill 16, which would allow state officials to request an electoral audit for future elections as well as for 2020.

Despite Trump’s nearly 6-point win over Biden in Texas last year, the secretary of State’s office soon announced a “full and comprehensive forensic audit” of Collin, Dallas and Tarrant counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as well as Houston’s Harris County. The release did not provide any details but said the agency expects the state legislature to fund the effort.

Former Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs, who previously called the 2020 election “smooth and secure,” resigned in May when the state Senate did not take up her nomination. The Texas secretary of State’s office is currently helmed by a former Abbott staffer on an interim basis.

In a Fox News Sunday interview, Abbott said election audits by the Texas secretary of State’s office already began “months ago.”

“There are audits of every aspect of government,” Abbott said when asked about the potential waste of taxpayer money. “Why do we audit everything in this world, but people raise their hands in concern when we audit elections, which is fundamental to our democracy?”

But the top executives in three of the four counties have called the move unnecessary: “It’s time to move on,” Republican Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley told the Texas Tribune.

After thousands of Haitian migrants fled to Del Rio this month, Abbott directed hundreds of state troopers and Texas National Guard members to create a “steel wall” with patrol vehicles to prevent more people from entering the country. The state has budgeted more than $3 billion over the next two years on border security, adding nearly $2 billion of that funding earlier this month.

“Because the Biden administration is refusing to do its duty to enforce the laws of the United States, they have left Texas in no position other than for us to step up and do what we have to do,” Abbott said of his decision to forcibly stop and imprison migrants this month.

“As much as these issues are in the national news, they’re very, very local,” said GOP state Rep. James White. The national attention after the recent border struggles, for example, could “move the discussion where we need it. … Maybe it moves [Biden] to really pick up his game.”

The past few months have also stirred up new engagement among Democrats, said Democratic state Rep. Ron Reynolds, one of the more than 50 lawmakers who walked out of the first special session in July to meet with federal lawmakers in Washington.

“All of these things play out, people really understand like, ‘Oh, this isn’t normal? You mean other states aren’t doing this?’” Reynolds said. “It helps lay people understand that this isn’t just politics, this isn’t normal.”

The scale of conservative policies has been a “game changer” for Democratic state Rep. Erin Zwiener’s constituents, she said. Legislation like Senate Bill 8, which allows virtually anyone to sue someone who had assisted with an abortion after six weeks, didn’t get as much fanfare during the regular legislative session this year because of the baseline confidence in Roe v. Wade.

Her district’s mix of suburban and rural constituents didn’t think they needed to vote on issues like those, Zwiener added. The onslaught of agenda items about gun control, voter rights and other Abbott priorities didn’t help, she said.

“It’s hard for anybody to decide what to pay attention to when there’s a new crisis every day,” the state representative said. “People just had a hard time keeping up with which thing they should be angry about that day.”

As for the governor’s seat, many in the state are still skeptical of the possibility of ousting Abbott, especially since assumed candidate Beto O’Rourke hasn’t even made an announcement yet. Reynolds said if O’Rourke maintains a centrist message, he could be in a good position to win over vulnerable moderates and independents that are increasingly disappointed in Abbott’s performance.

While some Democrats in the state are cautiously hopeful about a changing tide, Zwiener said it will take a much more concerted effort to prove Texas is more of a swing state than others assume.

“Democrats have been out-organized by Republicans, and we’re not going to start to win and win sustainably until we match them for that organizing and think beyond the next election,” Zwiener said.

Suzanne Tuttle was about to call the police. Her 4-year old son, Max, should have been home from his first day of prekindergarten at J. Harvey Rodgers School in Glassboro four hours earlier, but his bus still had not arrived.

Tuttle had received a robocall from the school earlier in the day telling her to expect delays because of a shortage of bus drivers, but after waiting for two hours at the stop in 90-degree heat, Max was still missing. Tuttle, her husband and mother desperately called and texted the school and even got a passing bus driver to radio other buses. No one knew where Max’s bus was.

“I want to believe my son is safe, but nobody is at school and nobody is answering calls or the radio — and at this point it’s 5:30 and I put that little boy on a bus at 7:45 in the morning,” Tuttle said in an interview. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Finally, at about 6 p.m., a minibus carrying Max and other children arrived and dropped him off. Tuttle said Max was hungry but otherwise calm. Other kids on the bus were crying.

Amid a nationwide bus driver shortage, many New Jersey families say they‘ve been worn down by endless lengthy delays, no-show drivers and poor communication from districts. Three weeks into the school year, parents and school leaders say the shortage is becoming a crisis and they’re demanding the state take action.

It’s unclear how widespread the driver shortage is in New Jersey. The state Department of Education did not respond to multiple requests for comment or to answer questions about how many districts they’ve heard from with busing issues.

But a review of local news stories, district websites and parent Facebook groups reveals kids in Glassboro, Camden, Paterson, Deptford, Jersey City, Wayne, Toms River and dozens of other districts have been left waiting for hours or were never picked up at all.

The shortage of drivers is just one more obstacle schools and parents have faced this school year in addition to mask mandates, structural building issues and learning loss brought about by the pandemic, as well as flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ida.

To be sure, bus driver shortages are nothing new. Even before the pandemic, many districts struggled to contract with companies as drivers with Commercial Drivers Licenses were being lured away to jobs with higher pay, better benefits and more regular hours.

Now, with the Delta variant raging across the country, drivers are even more reluctant to board an enclosed vehicle with 50 potentially-unvaccinated kids who may or may not abide by mask mandates. Some drivers quit when mask and vaccine mandates were issued by state and federal leaders.

Across the country, states and school districts are frantically trying to find solutions to the shortage — Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker activated the National Guard, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is targeting the onerous licensing process, the School District of Philadelphia is paying parents to drive their kids and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan created a “Bus Drivers’ Day at the MVA” to streamline appointment scheduling for bus driver trainees.

New Jersey has not yet presented a statewide plan, though individual districts are patching together fixes where they can, including offering parents cash to transport their kids and launching social media campaigns to recruit community members to apply for CDLs.

In Camden — a district under state control — Serita Young said she was told just before classes started that a bus would not be available to take her son to the new Camden High School, but that he could get tickets to use NJ Transit to get himself to school.

Young said she tried calling school officials to explain her son tore ligaments in his ankle over the summer and needs crutches and a medical boot, and that mass transit is not an option for him.

She said she was told essentially, “there’s nothing we can do.” Her son is one of around 500 students in Camden who still don’t have secured transportation from the district.

Now, Young said, she’s paying $140 a week, out of pocket, for an Uber or Lyft to transport her son to school.

“I’m frustrated, I’m aggravated. It’s not a guarantee that I can keep up with the money,” Young said. “These kids are being forced either to walk or catch NJ Transit when a bus should be provided … where are the buses we were promised?”

Parents POLITICO spoke to said that at the beginning of the school year, they understood the driver shortage was not unique to their town or even their state and were willing to be flexible wherever they could.

Now, they say they‘re furious and exhausted and fed up with the lack of answers from their districts. School leaders told POLITICO the issue is too big to tackle on a local level — the preferred problem-solving method of Gov. Phil Murphy’s Department of Education.

“We need help, we’re failing our kids,” Paterson Public Schools Superintendent Eileen Shafer said in an interview. “It’s discriminatory. Those kids who need transportation, many of them are special needs and we’re discriminating against them.”

Shafer said that just before the first day of school earlier this month, she had several bus companies quit, saying they didn’t have enough drivers, leaving some 700 students without busing.

Despite Murphy’s insistence that all students attend class in-person, full-time this year, some schools in Paterson and Camden have resorted to online learning — not because of Covid outbreaks but because there was no way to get kids to class.

Shafer said she’s reached out to the state Department of Education to request help and offer solutions, such as paying parents to drive their kids to school, enlisting the help of local police and firefighters, even calling in the National Guard as Massachusetts has done.

She said she’s still waiting for a response.

“As adults, we failed,” Shafer said. “We need some answers and we need them quick. We’re already into the third week of September.”

Responding to reporters’ questions about the shortage during his regular briefing on Wednesday, Murphy said, “I think all options are on the table, including anything we could do with the [Motor Vehicle Commission].“ But, he said, “I don’t think we, at this moment, feel like we need to do what Massachusetts did with the National Guard, but that’s an option that we certainly could look at.”

Acting Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan, who was at the briefing, did not weigh in.

Camden City Schools Superintendent Katrina McCombs said in an interview she had begun thinking of creative solutions to the potential dearth of drivers back in June, including staggering school start times to allow drivers to cover more routes. Still, she said, vendors were calling her on the first day of classes saying drivers were quitting.

“I don’t think any of us realized how dire the bus driver shortage was and how dire it would be,” McCombs said.

This week, the district announced it will offer parents $1,000 to drive their children to and from school every day.

McCombs said the group typically hired as drivers — retirees and older individuals— were hit especially hard by Covid and it’s been a challenge to diversify the driver applicant pool.

In New Jersey, those who want to pursue the job amid the shortage face steep barriers. School administrators have said state motor vehicle agencies have been offering limited operations because of the pandemic and there have been significant delays in background checks for drivers.

Chloe Williams, president of the New Jersey School Bus Contractors Association, said in an interview the CDL process is “a chore” and designed for long-haul truckers rather than school bus drivers. She said it can normally take 10 to 12 weeks for drivers to get their license, but with the pandemic “the backlog at motor vehicles has been horrendous.”

Williams said though she sees “a light at the end of the tunnel,” with driver applications coming in, “it may be next school year that we really see a huge improvement.”

One Glassboro school board member told parents at a special meeting Tuesday that the state Department of Transportation does not have any appointments available to accommodate out-of-state drivers with a CDL who may want to drive buses in New Jersey.

The school transportation crisis has been well-documented in nearly every state. But parents POLITICO spoke to said they’re watching as governors and school leaders in Ohio, New York, Massachusetts and Maryland take action or at the very least, acknowledge the problem.

It’s been crickets in New Jersey, parents said.

In Glassboro, Tuttle and dozens of other upset parents blasted Superintendent Mark Silverstein during this week’s special board meeting.

“The district has known that there have been problems in transportation for a very long time but they’re not solving the problem,” parent Natalie Kautz said. “They’re hoping beyond hope that some bus drivers will come out of the woodwork and will come sign up to work at Glassboro schools but they haven’t come.”

While administrators and elected officials ponder policy solutions, parents like South Camden’s Maria Montero say they can’t wait any longer.

“I can’t afford for someone to make a mistake,” Montero said. “My biggest fear is once we leave them at a stop, if the bus doesn’t come, these kids are going to end up getting hit by a car. They could step on a needle … It’s so sad, these kids were so ready to go back after being home for so long. But these buildings are not ready, these buses are not ready, the systems are not ready.”