SAN ANTONIO — A rash of catalytic converter thefts is plaguing one of the area’s largest school districts – already struggling to find bus drivers.
Northside ISD families had to deal with delays this morning after thieves broke into a transportation depot on W Hausman Road and stole catalytic converters from 16 school buses.
“All 16 of those vehicles are 14-passenger mini-buses, “said Northside’s Barry Perez.
He said the district was able to move resources around to keep from having to cancel any routes. But some delays were unavoidable.
“We needed to send drivers out to collect those and then get them back on track, which added additional drive time and then subsequently delays to some of those routes.”
This comes after NISD had already been dealing with transportation delays caused by staff absences. Today, for instance, over 1500 of the district’s 13,000 staff members were absent.
“We think a good number of those are illness related and potentially COVID-related, but that doesn’t mean that all of those are necessarily staff-members who are ill,” said Perez. “We know certainly there are situations where staff-members who are parents, they may be home with them.”
Catalytic converters contain precious metals that can bring a high price at resale. Replacing a stolen one can come at a heavy cost.
“We are approximating that each of those vehicles is going to be about $1,500 in terms of repair and replacement of that catalytic converter,” Perez said.
While Perez said it is difficult to predict what kind of delays parents should expect moving forward, he said their transportation department works hard on keeping their families informed.
“When we know buses will be delayed a significant amount of time, our transportation department works to reach out to those riders through school messaging, communication that goes out, usually very early in the day, to alert families and parents and let them know of those potential delays,” he said.