The familiar yellow vinyl sign that hangs on the side of the fence at Iroquois Central Schools’s bus garage in Elma , is practically identical to so many others around Western New York. Large red letters scream out “School Bus Drivers Needed” and a red shape in the corner of the sign declares “Training Available.”
“I really think it's a real difficult task for any department right now to acquire drivers. I think with the split shift, it could be beneficial or a negative aspect. But I mean, all in all, I think within the last two years we've had we've really struggled to see new drivers come to our doors and asking for jobs," said Eric Nagle, Iroquois' Transportation supervisor.
“Our district on a yearly basis, we might get a half a dozen drivers coming in,” Nagel said. ”And then of course, you get some that retire or move up move along into their careers. But within the last two years, I have seen maybe one a year, two a year. So I would say a probably a two-thirds decrease in the amount of applicants that I've seen this year, it's picked up a little bit, but that's because of some things we've tried out in hopes to acquire new drivers and attendants."
While most every district in New York State has faced a school bus driver shortage, the crisis can be greater in the rural areas, where a smaller pool to draw from has made for some innovative recruitment, scheduling and hiring practices just to keep things rolling.
And while more urban and even some rural districts lean on public transit or even consider incentives to have parents drive more students, the rural districts can’t deploy such options, when in an 82-square-mile school district like Iroquois, parents would be on the roads for close to an hour, officials say.
“This has been a problem that's persisted for many years, certainly worse since COVID. Back in 2018, just prior to COVID, we did a survey, and about 80% of our members said that that was the most pressing issue they were dealing with,” said David Christopher, Executive Director of the New York State Pupil Transportation Association in Albany.
“It used to be a good part time job for second income earners, farmers used to drive school buses, a lot, because in wintertime, they could, have some money coming in and some benefits, for instance. ... And as the economy tightened, some places discontinued the liberal benefits. You know, salaries don't didn't keep up those kinds of things."
“So, and, of course, federal regulation came into being, in the 90s, which made it more difficult to get a CDL license. And, you know, I think all those things together, helped to create this this problem,” he says.
Christopher points to an odd dichotomy: most current drivers say the job is the best one they have had, while new comers eyeing the field look only at the split-shift, the challenges of dealing with kids, and the hurdles of getting a commercial drivers’ license. Districts need to show potential drivers that the good outweighs the bad.
For Nagel, and other districts, that means aggressive recruitment.
“We did an open house, which allowed us to have several of our drivers, our administrative staffs out there, meeting and greeting and letting them take a little test drive around the parking lot," Nagel said. "If they felt comfortable behind the wheel, we'd show them how things worked in the bus, you know, basically getting behind the wheel… I think it really helped them out to realize that and we’ve acquired drivers because of that open house. And then since then through word of mouth.”
Several districts have emphasized workplace conditions, camaraderie and pay as part of their pitch.
“If you want to drive, you can work for Amazon or FedEx or deliver food or those kinds of things and make money doing that. So you have greater competition. So you have to have to have a competitive wage, good benefits, run a good operation, good management, take care of your people have good equipment. You know, do all the things that good companies do to keep and retain people. And I think that, you know, a lot of operations are trying to do that,” Christopher said.
Both Iroquois and Salamanca train their own drivers and that has helped, they say. But Salamanca Schools Superintendent Mark Beehler said he’s grateful for a school board that has addressed pay as a key factor in getting drivers.
"Salamanca has put a couple of different programs in place that has supported the drivers that we do have, as well as assisted with recruiting. And we've experienced drivers coming to us, both from other school districts where our environment might be a little bit more friendly and supportive. And we've also had drivers that have come back to us from other industries such as over the road driving,” Beehler said.
The district also has hired drivers for other positions, in order to give them full-time work and benefits.
"Realistically, driving is four to five hours a day, if you're simply running a morning run and an afternoon run, we guarantee four hours plus benefits. So many individuals are looking for full time employment. So we will employ them not only as a bus driver, but also as a food service worker, as a manager in the school as a security guard. And that allows them to reach full time status,” Beehler said.
But that doesn’t mean they too couldn’t use more drivers.
Salamanca Central School has a far smaller footprint than Iroquois — only 16 square miles — but the district is growing. And the transportation department took on extra duties, delivering assignments, setting up Wi-Fi hotspots on buses, and delivering meals during COVID.
“Last year, we set a record miles of being the size school and district we are we did 309,000 miles on our buses, “ said Head Driver Bob Finch. “… I actually have more drivers this year, than we have in the past, but our school is growing at an amazing rate,”
Some districts have also adjusted their schedules, adding more runs, carving the student population into smaller groups that can be handled by the exiting number of drivers. And while Iroquois hasn’t done that, they have adjusted their athletic schedules, making students wait longer before drivers are pulled away from primary runs, to service games.
They can’t however lean on parents to take up the slack.
“That would be very difficult for us because our buses are mainly 66 Passenger buses. And so in order for a bus to be taken off the route, there have to be about 33 parents that have to take their children off the bus and they'd have to happen to two buses. So we could combine two buses into one run. And that's an awful lot to ask parents,” said Iroquois Superintendent Douglas Scofield. “And parents are paying taxes in order to have the advantage of being transported. “
And having someone to do that is part of the pitch — especially in a district where the student on your bus might be a friend or neighbors’ kid, and possibly a relative.
“There certainly are advantages to driving in a rural area, right?” Christopher said. “I mean, the traffic's not as bad, everybody knows everybody. So it's a little different environment.
“We encourage people, both in the cities and the rural areas, but this I think resonates more with the rural areas is (when you can say) you're providing a community service for your town and your village by stepping up and driving a school bus and helping get kids to and from school,” Christopher said.
