The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) district is experiencing a bus driver shortage that was apparent before the pandemic but has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 outbreak.
To aid in recruitment efforts, district superintendent Nyah Hamlett proposed an incentives package for drivers that was unanimously approved by the board last month.
At an estimated cost of $525,000, Hamlett’s proposal includes a $4,000 signing bonus, a perfect-attendance bonus of $1,000 per semester, $16.50 hourly pay, paid training for applicants in need of a commercial driver’s license and guaranteed full-time employment for drivers.
District transportation director Bradley Johnson said that the proposal is “the most aggressive recruitment strategy to make bus driving a more livable profession the district has seen.”
While the incentives package may be the boldest the district has seen, some locals believe it does not support the cost of living in the area.
Eugene Farrar, a retired CHCCS employee and former president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, has protested in front of schools around the district to raise bus drivers’ hourly wage from $16.50 to $25 per hour.
“We need to bring attention to people doing the hard work for the school district and being disrespected. It’s time for the district to pay it forward,” Farrar said. “People want to wake up to a decent living.”
State and local governments have also responded to the shortage with financial incentives.
For example, Albemarle County in Virginia has increased bus driver signing bonus to $2,500 and is offering parents $300 a month, or $3,000 a year, to drive their kids to school, while, in Massachusetts, 250 members of the National Guard were recently called by governor Charlie Baker to make up for shortages within the state.
The district gives transportation to around 5,300 students during the school year but is around 50 drivers short from ideal operational efficiency, Johnson said.
Johnson said that the mass shortage of drivers is due to multiple factors, one being that most current drivers are nearing retirement age. Furthermore, as people opted to quarantine in their homes, companies like Amazon and Uber Eats saw a boom in demand for contactless delivery services, as fewer people visited stores.
“Drivers gravitated toward jobs with Amazon because of higher salary and hours,” Johnson explained.
First-period teachers are witnessing firsthand the effects of the driver shortage as multiple students show up late to class every week.
Reading specialist Erica Kinney reported that four to five students who ride the bus are late to her class on any given morning.
Kinney believes that there is a correlation between student productivity and their timely arrival at school.
“I have heard colleges say that some students could easily improve a letter grade if they were on time,” Kinney said. “When they miss the work at the beginning, for whatever reason, some don’t make up the work or fall behind catching up on assignments.”
Kinney believes a student bus pass would help teachers to know immediately the cause of tardiness, as opposed to receiving the notification via email.
“If they have a designated pass, that may ease some student anxiety if they are coming to class late,” Kinney said.
English teacher Ethel Eason uses the beginning of her classes to go over the day’s essential questions and homework and finds that students miss this critical information when they arrive late because of their bus.
“I am sure students in this situation feel disjointed and sometimes a little behind since they arrive after some of these class tasks have been completed,” Eason said.
Sophomore Andrew Herring rides bus 133 and shared that his bus has been late to school on numerous occasions, which has interfered with his test-taking time during the first bell.
“I have been late to school because of my bus, and because of that I have not been able to take tests or quizzes in a comfortable amount of time,” Herring said.
Senior Adalid Martinez Araiza rides bus 95 and said that her bus is late almost “every day,” which can be frustrating, particularly after a long day at school.
“I like having time in school in the morning just to hang out,” Martinez Araiza said. “In the afternoon, the few times I do ride the bus, it is frustrating because I just want to go home.”
Johnson anticipates that the transportation department will have to get creative about its transportation methods in the future.
“We may have to shift our philosophy from depending solely on the token yellow school bus,” Johnson said.
Principal Charles Blanchard shared that, despite the complications that stem from a limited number of drivers, the situation has greatly improved since the start of the school year.
“We are very appreciative of the drivers we have in our district and the great work they do to safely transport our students daily,” Blanchard said.
The district will hold a virtual recruiting event on Tuesday, October 19 from 12:00-1:00 p.m
