![]() ![]() 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. Three in 10 respondents said those constraints have been severe.Facebook Email Brandon George is transportation director for the Paradise Valley Unified School District in Phoenix. Nearly 9 in 10 HopSkipDrive survey respondents said driver shortages have constrained their school or district’s operations this year. Elsewhere, according to media reports, shortages have been responsible for students missing class or getting home from school late, athletic events getting canceled or rescheduled, and districts investing in expensive charter buses or rental vehicles to fill gaps. In Anchorage, Alaska, families get bus service for three weeks at a time, then miss out for six weeks as the routes rotate to other areas. Students in Ohio’s Reynoldsburg district have had to learn remotely one or two days a week this year because staffing shortages forced bus service cuts. “With the school bus driver shortage, if a route is not running, the students do not have a way to get to school,” the respondent said. One anonymous respondent said special education students have the lowest attendance of any population in the district. ![]()
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