A tough seat to fill

Those who have worked at school bus operations for many years have likely seen periods of acute driver shortage. For many school districts, now is not one of those times.

As we report in our annual School District Survey in our November issue, 42 percent of respondents said that they have no driver shortage. The same proportion said that they have only a mild shortage.

With the waves of layoffs that have pounded the nation this year, it’s no surprise that there have apparently been more jobseekers responding to open school bus driver positions.

But the bus driver’s seat is not an easy one to fill. Just ask Mary Lin Truelove.

This summer, Chapel Hill-Carrboro (N.C.) City Schools, where Truelove is director of transportation, issued a press release revealing that it had a shortage of drivers and calling for candidates.

Having been surprised to hear that, I decided to check in with Truelove after the school year began to see whether they had been able to meet their need.

“No, we’re not full,” Truelove said in late September.

Her department has been hit by what could be described as a perfect storm. “We’ve had another resignation, we’ve had a driver lose his license for a ticket, we have six people on extended medical leave,” Truelove said.

Furthermore, a driver who had been hired that week and was in training had a serious illness in her family, and Truelove wasn’t sure whether she’d be coming back.

Beyond those unusual circumstances, Truelove said that attracting qualified school bus driver candidates is a constant challenge. She cited a number of reasons for the difficulty.

One is that not all of the district’s driver positions are full time, which is a deal breaker for many jobseekers.

The criteria of having a clean driving record, being drug and alcohol free, passing a background check and having earned at least a high school diploma or GED are disqualifications for others.

Then there’s the necessity of being able to work well with children and, yes, deal with some aggravating behavior.

“We have a very high level of expectation in our district, and the drivers that we do have are exceptionally good employees,” Truelove said. “So all those things, plus the standards we have, probably contribute to some of our difficulty.”

The unemployment rate in Orange County, N.C., where the district is located, was low compared to the state average: As of July, the county was at 7.1 percent unemployment, while the state was at 11.1 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (TheU.S.rate was 9.6 percent as of July.)

But just over a year ago, the Orange County rate was down at about 3 percent. So there has been a spate of job losses and, presumably, more people on the job hunt.

“I will say that we’ve gotten more applications to look at,” Truelove said, “but they haven’t panned out for the reasons I just gave you — not enough to get us fully staffed.”

So how does her department keep all 60 buses rolling when, as on one recent day, they have several driver seats to fill?

Though they have plenty of other duties to take care of, Truelove explained, “I drive, my assistant drives, my secretary drives, my assistant foreman drives and I have a few permanent substitutes.”

Not the ideal way to operate, but they’re dedicated to getting the job done.       

— Thomas McMahon, Executive Editor