![]() ![]() ![]() Some of them have decided that with the risk factors like being around kids in an enclosed area, they just don’t feel comfortable continuing driving or becoming a bus driver in the first place. “We have a lot of drivers who are semi-retired,” Koppenhaver said. “The pandemic has affected the employee pool, particularly because many former/current/potential drivers fall in a higher risk category due to their age,” the DOE’s May wrote. But many of those people are older, which means there’s. Working only part time can be a draw for retirees or others looking for some extra income, of course. Koppenhaver said contractors even lose drivers to school districts that hire their own drivers and can offer them benefits and extra work during the day, say, in the cafeteria. School bus drivers work part time hours, so even if their hourly wage were higher they could get more money elsewhere. Here are some of the issues that have been stacking up. “Some of these jobs require fewer skills, less stress and offer more flexible hours than driving a school bus.” ![]() “Employers in many sectors are competing for a limited workforce,” Alison May, a spokesperson for the Delaware Department of Education, said in an email. Multiple people we spoke to for this article, from bus contractors to state employees, mentioned the heavy responsibilities bus drivers face, the steep requirements for qualifying as a driver, and the fact that they can get better pay in similar jobs elsewhere - all that, in addition to the fact that employers in general are now struggling to find workers and many bus drivers are older people who are concerned about the risks from COVID. Teachers were surely thrilled to finally find something to do with their time. In 2019, an Indiana school district even offered teachers $18,000 to take on bus driving as a second job, the Indianapolis Star reported, saying the district had struggled for years to find drivers. In a 2018 article addressing the issue, School Transportation News fretted, “All indications are that the situation has worsened.” Those who have been following such things since before they became national news agree that the bus driver shortage predates the pandemic. Support our local news coverage: Subscribe to the Delaware Independent School buses at Woodbridge Early Childhood Education Center in Greenwood. She finds that alarming, given the need for social distancing and the way small children don’t keep their masks up. “My oldest son’s school even emailed us and told us they are running full buses and that even some children will probably have to sit 3 to a seat.”Ī local bus driver backed that up, saying her contractor lost several drivers right before school started, and they are indeed having to put three children to a seat. “As a parent of 3 children who ride buses, I’ve noticed they are taking longer to come home,” one parent wrote in a local Facebook group for western Sussex County. “We’ve been able to absorb it so far,” he said, but eventually “it could become a very stressful situation as far as the crowding of buses.” Dustin Weller, transportation supervisor there, said last week the district has 51 buses under contract, and they are down six drivers. Lake Forest is among the many Delaware districts being affected by the shortage. “That’s a bigger issue, especially when retail service jobs are now offering what we’re being given to give the drivers, per hour,” he said. Once he’s taken out other costs, what’s left for driver pay is just under $16 an hour, Koppenhaver said. The state has a complex formula for paying bus contractors that’s been around since the 70s, and considers fuel costs, mileage, maintenance and driver pay, among other factors. The hourly rate for bus drivers hasn’t changed much in years, said Bob Koppenhaver of RJK Transportation, a bus contractor serving the Milford School District who has been in the business almost 40 years. One local bus contractor thinks he has a pretty good idea where to start, though: More money for drivers. It’s a problem years in the making and a lot of issues converged to make it the huge headache it is now, industry insiders say. The kids are back in school - but getting them to and from the building has been a headache, just as the prophecies this summer foretold. ![]()
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