Out of the nearly 700 students participating in Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District’s fall intersession, about 400 needed access to the school bus in order to make it, Assistant Superintendent Anna Gunthrap told the board of trustees during its November meeting.
The district had 16 drivers covering routes that week, averaging about 25 students each. But even then, drivers had to cover more area to pick up students living further apart.
As intersession enrollment increases, Gunthrap said, more bus drivers will be needed for students taking advantage of the extra time for enrichment or catching up on their learning.
“If there’s a struggle, this to me is our biggest struggle – getting students where they need to go,” she told the board.
The bus driver shortage isn’t an issue central to intersessions or to SOCSD. School districts across the country have struggled to bring bus driver employment back to prepandemic levels. The number of drivers employed across the country in 2023 was down 15.1% from 2019, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
SOCSD Communication Director Hayley Montgomery said the district operates 52 routes each day that span more than 450 miles. With 52 drivers employed, there’s enough to cover each route, but if one driver calls out, there aren’t any backup options, she said.
Out of roughly 5,000 students, about 30% of the district’s students take the bus to and from school. With multiple bus systems in Starkville in need of drivers, Montgomery said it’s hard to stay on top of the competition.
“The challenge we have here is that we are competing with other entities such as Mississippi State, the SMART (Starkville-MSU Area Rapid Transit) bus system, ICS Head Start and the skating facility,” Montgomery said.
In Lowndes County, Superintendent Sam Allison said a little more than 75% of the district’s students take the bus to school. The district employs 73 drivers who cover 74 routes each day, but there are still several positions open.
“Ideally, we aim to maintain a staff of 84 drivers, which includes 10 full-time substitute drivers who are either driving or riding each day,” Allison said.
Montgomery and Allison both said the hours drivers have to maintain isn’t the greatest selling point when it comes to recruiting. Drivers split their hours between morning and afternoon shifts with several dead hours between.
“Because of the hours a bus driver keeps, the job is often the main source of income for candidates,” Montgomery said.
At Columbus Municipal School District, where roughly half of students take the bus, 26 full-time drivers cover 65 routes each day, with several taking on multiple routes. There are six substitute drivers to fill in the gaps when necessary, but the district is looking to hire more substitutes to ease the strain, Superintendent Stanley Ellis said.
“Having additional drivers would significantly reduce the burden on current drivers who manage multiple routes and improve our ability to efficiently handle student transportation,” he wrote in an email to The Dispatch.
The required training and licensing drivers have to complete can be a barrier to recruitment and it doesn’t help that it’s a demanding job, Ellis said.
“This widespread issue reflects the demanding nature of managing and driving a bus with 30 to 40 pupils at a time,” he said. “… It is understandable that drivers may pursue employment opportunities that better support them and their families.”
Orlando Trainer, District 2 supervisor for Oktibbeha County, has driven a school bus off and on for SOCSD since the 1990s. It can be difficult for districts to keep drivers, he said, because the job requires a lot of responsibility, including dealing with disciplinary issues in transit when they arise.
It just takes a special kind of person, Trainer said.
“Even though the pay is higher than it has ever been, the responsibility has not changed as it relates to precious cargo,” Trainer told The Dispatch. “… I think some probably would be a little more encouraged if the atmosphere with the children was much better and if they had support from the parents and the school district when they get ready to deal with an issue.”
Solutions and incentives
Drivers are required to have a commercial driver’s license to operate a bus in Mississippi. More stringent licensing requirements, like needing additional experience or taking extra tests, are a primary obstacle when it comes to recruiting drivers, Allison said.
As a solution, LCSD offers new drivers a $400 stipend when they complete their pre-licensing requirements through the district’s Transportation Department.
Speeding up the certification process and making it more accessible has also had a positive impact at SOCSD, Montgomery said.
“We have hired an outside party to conduct a certification course for us, and that has helped,” she said.
Allison said increasing the salary and benefits has had a positive impact at LCSD, where drivers earn between $17.06 and $20.20 per hour depending on their experience.
“We also have an attendance and safety incentive program,” he said. “Drivers can earn up to $750 on their final paycheck by achieving perfect attendance and avoiding at-fault accidents throughout the year.”
In 2021, CMSD increased its starting pay for bus drivers from $12 to $15. Now drivers are paid between $18 and $22 per hour based on years of experience. The district’s focus is on getting the word out that there are openings for drivers, Ellis said.
“We are doing our best to address the bus driver shortage by actively advertising job openings through various channels to attract more candidates,” he said. “… While we have not yet found a solution to fully address the problem, we remain committed to working diligently to fill the vacancies.”
SOCSD did not provide a pay range for its bus drivers to The Dispatch by press time.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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