received services under the Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act (IDEA), special education attorney Betsey Helfrich told attendees on Friday of the Transporting Students Disabilities and Special Needs (TSD) Conference. This segment aired on September 22, 2021.FRISCO, Texas - During the 2019-2020 school year, 14 percent of all public school students in the U.S. Peter O'Dowd produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Eileen Bolinsky and Todd Mundt.
#School bus driver shortage in richland wa drivers#
He continuously reminds his employees that if the district can even hire just one driver a month, that’s nine additional drivers by the time the school year wraps up. George hopes to cut the deficit and end the school year without a massive shortage. That’s the reality of the all-hands-on-deck situation that Phoenix and many other school districts find themselves in.Īnd George isn't the only school official facing a shortage: There's not enough substitute teachers, classroom aides or crossing guards either. Sometimes he has to tap his routers and dispatchers to drive as well. “We try to identify those routes so I can get in, drive them home and be back in the office to handle the director business,” he says. Fully suited in shirt, tie and slacks, he has driven a van that seats about six to seven kids on a route that doesn’t require a large passenger bus. When the situation gets desperate, George steps in. He tries to highlight the benefits - like getting 21 holidays off from work - to get people interested in the job, he says.Īs of right now, Paradise Valley Unified School District is not offering bonuses like some other school systems across the country. In Phoenix, George slapped hiring advertisements on his fleet of buses, and his team passed out thousands of fliers around the city. Sign up at one district in Montana and receive a $4,000 bonus. New York is making it easier to get licensed. Massachusetts called in the National Guard to drive buses. Some states are getting creative to solve the significant shortage of drivers. Typically, parents are sympathetic and understand the challenges, he says. When an upset parent calls, he walks them through the process of how routes are being covered. George has heard his fair share of complaints about the current delays. Those factors are all taken into account when devising routes for safe and timely pick-ups and drop-offs. “So we have to get very creative to see who has a break, the time frame due to traffic, red lights speed limits.” “We're looking to move drivers on routes to make sure that they can hit the bell time,” he says. Getting the schedules down pat becomes analytical, George explains.
It's not easy work: Drivers are doubling and even tripling their routes, which means once a driver drops off one load of children, they’ll circle back to the school to do it again. The district pays drivers like Rodriguez up to $18 an hour.
COVID-19 protections are in place, he says, including disinfecting the buses and making sure the kids wear their masks.ĭriving school buses is typically a second job for many folks, says George, the transportation director. The pandemic, which pushed some drivers away, shouldn’t keep people from applying to be a bus driver, he says. “I mean, you have to have the love for driving the kids home.” He now doubles up on his routes in the morning. He says this year has been more hectic than usual. My daughter is one of up to 10,000 students he's in charge of bussing to school every day.Īt Sky Crossing Elementary School in North Phoenix, students funnel into a bus driven by Junior Rodriguez, who has been driving for the school district for three years. I am looking to hire 37,” says Brandon George, the director of transportation at the Paradise Valley Unified School District in Phoenix, Arizona. Turns out, she experienced something that a lot of kids around the country are going through at the start of this new school year: There was no bus driver to pick her up. It had been at least 30 minutes since she'd left the house. One morning recently, I stepped outside of my front door and found that my seventh grade daughter was still standing across the street at the bus stop. PVUSD is short nearly 40 bus drivers at the start of the school year. Facebook Email Brandon George is transportation director for the Paradise Valley Unified School District in Phoenix.
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