School district facing bus driver shortage

In the state of Iowa, school districts can share superintendents, but apparently not bus drivers.

That’s just one of the many regulatory issues facing school districts all over the state as they face a growing lack of bus drivers, according to Glenwood Community School District Superintendent Devin Embray.

School bus drivers in Iowa are required to obtain a commercial drivers license (CDL) with a school bus endorsement to transport students. Drivers must also be at least 18 years old, have a clean driving history and pass a background check. The Iowa Department of Education also stipulates drivers must submit to yearly physicals from a state certified physician.

“It’s much harder to become a bus driver now,” Embray said. “It’s gotten harder over the years. A little bit (of regulation) is added here, a little bit added there and its become what it is now: extremely difficult to find people willing and able to drive a school bus.”

Embray said what he called an “overabundance” of testing and certification requirements to be a bus driver have grown so much in recent years, it’s shrunk the bus driver labor pool.

“There’s not a lot of people who want to go through all that to become a bus driver,” Embray said. “It’s way more than just getting your CDL. There’s a lot more testing and on the physical health side. I’m all for safety and all for people being safe driving buses, but the requirements and having to get a physical where you can only go see a certain doctor certified to work with potential bus drivers, is  a lot to ask.”

The regulatory side of becoming a certified bus driver, however, is just part of the equation. Districts are just not seeing the number of bus drivers applicants they did in the past.

“The type of person that has the availability to work bus route hours is dwindling,” Embray said. “Those folks are no longer in the job market. I think that’s the biggest issue. It’s hard to find people willing to take two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon to drive a bus route and possibly be gone a couple different nights a week to drive for activities. The overall number of people willing and able to do that is fewer and fewer each year.”

Glenwood’s trans-portation department currently has 23 bus drivers and four substitute drivers. But just four of those drivers currently handle driving for extracurricular activities. Embray said he’d like to have a dozen drivers rotate through activities.

Glenwood’s bus driver pay is “in line” with other districts, according to Embray. GCSD route bus drivers (before and after school) earn $34.62 for a two hour minimum with most routes taking less than two hours. Activity drivers earn $44.53 for a minimum four hour trip. Each hour over that initial block pays $11.13 an hour and can include a meal per diem.

“I really don’t think this is a money issue,” Embray said.

As a result of the changing regulations covering bus drivers, Glenwood has updated its policy in recent years and now pays the endorsement fees and for the initial physical for bus driver hires.

Embray estimated that can cost up to $300 per driver. Drivers also receive a stipend from the district to off-set costs for on-going physicals in subsequent years.

“We didn’t use to cover that and now we do because it’s just so much more intense,” Embray said. “It’s a lot to ask and a lot of paperwork to go through to drive a couple hours a day.”

If drivers are “red flagged” for any health condition in the physical, they are directed to a specialist, which increases costs. As part- time employees, bus drivers are not eligible for health benefits.

Bus drivers may not be full time staff but, as district classified staff, they work under a union contract; meaning they cannot drive for any other district than the one they are contracted. As a result of that, neighboring districts cannot share drivers. Union rules also prohibit several of the district’s teacher-coaches who are certified drivers from driving buses.

To help alleviate stress on its driving force in recent years, the district switched its route driving to a transfer point system. The new system has drivers bringing bus loads of students from their schools to the middle school where the students then transfer to their bus route home.

But on nights with multiple activities requiring out of town travel, the driving staff is spread so thin some creative transportation management has been required. Dave Greenwood, the district’s director of transportation and one of the district’s bus mechanics has had to step in to drive buses in a pinch, Embray said.

“We want healthy, safe and competent drivers but it just seems like by adding on more and more (regulation), it might be making people not want to be bus drivers because they’re afraid of the liability,” he said.

There has been movement in recent years on the behalf of schools to the Department of Education to allow bus drivers to be employees of multiple districts, Embray said.

“We’re short a driver and we could call Lewis Central or East Mills and see if they have an extra driver and get them down here,” Embray said. “We could have cooperation back and forth. I know the issue is that everybody pays a different rate within a certain tolerance. It would almost be we’d form an agreement on sharing drivers and there’d be a set rate.”

To make that change, however, would require a bill in the Iowa legislature.

Short of changing the law and concessions from the union, Embray said improving bus driver recruiting is the district’s only option.

“In my eight years as Glenwood’s superintendent, the district has never stopped advertising for bus drivers,” Embray said.