Late last year, the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda Union Free School District (often shortened to “Ken-Ton”) in Buffalo, New York, announced that it was awarded a $249,808 grant from the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL) Unemployed/Underemployed Worker Training (UWT) Program, valid for one year. At stake? The district’s school bus drivers — or lack thereof.

Forward-thinking district officials knew the best use of the funds would be to create an innovative new program to solve one of the district's biggest challenges: the driver shortage.

The Need for a New Type of Solution

Leading up to this, the school district offered signing and referral bonuses, hosted hiring events and training for candidates, modified start and end times, combined routes, had office staff and mechanics serve as drivers, hired contractors, and “aggressively advertised driver positions.” It helped a bit, but not enough.

“None of these solutions have addressed the root of the problem, which is the need to increase the number of Class B licensed bus drivers available in our workforce,” Transportation Director Graham Violino said.

Up against regular bus delays, late arrivals, and increased costs, the school’s adult and community education department stepped up to the plate to find another solution. They spearheaded a Class B CDL school bus driver training program — the first of its kind funded by the DOL specific to school buses, and free of charge to all participants.

How Does the Training Program Work?

For the district, it will host six six-week training sessions, each with a goal of 12 licensed drivers, for a total of 72 over one contract year.

For participants, it offers:

• Free CDL Class B licensing

• Preparation for a career as a bus driver

• Permit and license fees

• Fingerprinting and health screening

• Childcare stipends to attend training

• Bus passes for those without transportation to attend training

• Incentives of $1,000 in total for successful licensing and completion

The school district took a boots-on-the-ground approach to designing the program. They designated a set of 10-12 staff members to take participants through an initial two-week training, followed by bringing them to the DMV for written testing to secure each of their permits. Then, it’s back to the classroom — or rather, bus — for hands-on behind-the-wheel training. Then, finally, road testing before the participants are officially school bus drivers.

Beyond recruiting brand-new drivers, the district also tapped its own in-house up-and-comers, having some school bus attendants go through the training for career advancement opportunities. But mostly, they believe it was word of mouth that drew people to the program. Participants from the first cohort spread the word about their experience and drew many more interested individuals to the program.

Cohort 4 of the DOL Bus Driver Training Program kicked off earlier this morning!

Applications are being accepted for future cohorts of the program. Interested parties can apply here: https://t.co/6syoGXXBzapic.twitter.com/CdS0QK3yfW

— Ken-Ton UFSD (@ktufsd) September 16, 2024

Program Results (So Far)

The Ken-Ton School District has an enrollment of over 7,900 students and transports more than 6,400 annually. A year and a half ago, they estimated they were down about 20-25 drivers and were only attracting about five or six a year.

Violino said that they’ve had a remarkable success rate in the new program participants passing their road test — 88%, in fact.

As of mid-September 2024, the 34^th person is just finishing training, and they have 18 more hopeful school bus drivers in the pipeline over two more cohorts.

The district’s transportation team is now 98% staffed with 101 drivers, with the next few cohorts expected to fully staff the department while also having drivers and attendants on standby for upcoming retirements, medical leaves, sick/vacation call-ins, and the ability to comfortably transport such a high volume of students every day without critical last-minute shortages of drivers to cover runs.

The cost savings is significant, too, as they are now able to keep all runs in-house instead of contracting out. The district spent over $810,000 in the 2023-2024 school year alone on contracted runs. That annual figure is saved this year and going forward as the district does not need to contract out because of the incredible success of the training program.

Secondary Benefits

The other goal of the program was to create a hub for training the bus drivers of tomorrow in the Buffalo and surrounding areas and create a pipeline of bus drivers to serve in any nearby district in need.

“We want to look at and partner deeper with school districts and private companies in the region to make this an actual training model,” Liza Acanfora, director of adult and community education for Ken-Ton, said. “Because we're almost fully staffed, we're not contracting out anymore, we're ready to pass some of these participants on to other districts.”

Another byproduct of the program has been improved culture as the existing transportation staff has welcomed these new folks in.

“I think one of the pleasant surprises is we've had individuals that have been retirees all the way down to individuals in their early 30s, and that's where the word of mouth has come in,” Violino said. “As these individuals complete the program, they now want to give back and become part of the training staff, which gives future participants somebody to bounce things off, from someone who went through this program two months ago.”

Not only are the new drivers supported by their team, but Acanfora said the rest of the school’s administrative staff, superintendent, and even the union has been fully on board.

Interested drivers can apply online through Jan. 31, 2025.

The district’s program funding will run through January of 2025, at which time the school plans to ask for an extension or will re-apply for additional funds in the next round to continue the robust program.