Even so, the district has dozens of driver vacancies, nearly a month into the school year, said Scott Thompson, the assistant superintendent of business services for Mesa. Mesa, Ariz., schools changed school start and end times to reduce the number of drivers it needs. In school districts in Maine and Michigan, schools shut down for the day during the 2018-19 school year because they didn’t have enough substitutes to cover routes for drivers who called in sick.īut districts in warmer climates have also struggled to attract candidates. The driver shortages are most acute in the Midwest and Northeast, in part because the challenge of operating buses during snow-filled winter months deters applicants, said Martin of the National Association for Pupil Transportation. The district-which has at least four teachers driving buses this school year-offers full benefits to drivers, including dental, medical, and vision, said Kathy Snow, administrative coordinator human resources and recruitment for transportation in Prince William. The driver shortage is so severe that the district has hired a human resources employee solely to focus on bus driver recruitment. The teacher hires are also qualified to handle one of the most difficult parts of being a bus driver: managing the behavior of dozens of children while your back is turned, McMichael said.Ībout 30 miles outside of Washington, the Prince William County, Va., school system has also hired a handful of full-time teachers to drive buses. “If you need extra money, it does relieve some financial stress,” Hardwick said. Hardwick worked part-time retail and landscaping jobs early in her career and has colleagues who do similar work or wait tables at night or on weekends to earn extra cash. Nationally, nearly 1 in 5 public school teachers have second jobs during the school year, federal data show. The average annual teacher salary in Carmel Clay is about $55,000. Roger McMichael, the associate superintendent for business affairs in Carmel Clay, estimates that hundreds of teachers there already supplement their income with part-time jobs. “You really have to manage your time better,” Hardwick said. To recoup the lesson preparation time she misses out on at the beginning and end of the day, Hardwick often returns to school on the weekends or when her afternoon routes end. “It’s an extension of my classroom,” said Hardwick, an elementary school physical education teacher who drives middle and elementary school bus routes. Two weeks into the driving job, she relishes the opportunity to connect with students outside of school. When Cathy Hardwick started teaching in Carmel Clay more than three decades ago, she never envisioned driving a bus. This year, the Carmel Clay, Ind., school district began paying teachers up to $18,000 per year to drive buses, added income that could boost their pay more than 30 percent in some cases. “Anybody that you can find who is capable and qualified works, and that includes teachers.” Extending the Classroom "There's no doubt it's a national problem, similar to what we see in service industries as well," Curt Macysyn, executive director for the National School Transportation Association, which represents private school bus contractors, told ABC News.“The shortages are getting bad enough, in some cases, where it’s becoming a dramatic safety issue,” said Michael LaRocco, the president of the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services. Schools across the country - from Pennsylvania to Virginia to Missouri to Ohio to Texas - have reported similar shortages. "COVID just completely exacerbated the bus driver shortage." We have everything that we need except the critical resource - bus drivers," Abbott said. "We have the money, we have the buses, we have the parts. As a result, the district has had to prioritize routes for around 20,000 students who are returning fully in person, leaving about 5,000 kids without the option of riding a school bus. This year, he said the school district was down over 30% - more than 110 drivers - as it was gearing up for the return of students last week. Before the pandemic, Savannah-Chatham County Public School System in Georgia had been down 10% from what it needed, which is manageable, Paul Abbott, executive director for transportation for the district, told ABC News. At the start of the school year, it's not uncommon for school districts to be short bus drivers.
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