Starting today, some schools within the Syracuse City School District will have their start and dismissal times altered for busing purposes.

Changes are being made for students in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade at numerous schools. The change will help ensure drivers can better transport students to and from school due to a driver shortage.

The Syracuse district uses First Student for its bus transportation, and officials said since the beginning of the school year, the company just hasn't had enough drivers to actively service every bus route.

Superintendent Jaime Alicea told Spectrum News 1 this has led to several pickup delays before and after school.

First Student has been using an aggressive recruiting campaign, but that just hasn't led to the drivers needed yet. Therefore, start and dismissal times are being changed in some cases by just a few minutes, depending on the school.

The district continues to work with the bus company in the effort to recruit more drivers.

"I know that this is going to create an inconvenience for some of our families that they already made arrangements for child care, but we hope this is going to be something that is temporary. We hope we are going to be able to find the drivers and get back to our regular schedule," Alicea said.

Alicea said the district has received a list of possible driver candidates from the governor's office. The district has sent that list to First Student, and about 60 candidates are in the process of being contacted and screened.

Start times for 14 schools from Pre-K through eighth grade will either be at 7:45 a.m., 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. The dismissal times will now be at either 2 p.m. or 3 p.m.

Alicea said the district has been seeing about 500 kids arriving late for the start of class every day due to buses.

If parents have any questions, they can check the Syracuse City School District website for more information.