By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Wanted: Adults with good driving records willing to work split shifts and cart around 60 kids at a time. Applicants with nerves of steel and eyes in the back of their heads would be preferred.
Bowling Green City School District is again having trouble filling the drivers’ seats on buses.
“This is a broken record for the six years that I’ve been here,” Superintendent Francis Scruci said during a board meeting Tuesday evening.
“You can’t get kids to school if you don’t have anyone behind the wheel,” Scruci said.
The district is short about five and a half drivers – with a lot of experienced drivers retiring, according to Scruci.
Oftentimes, Transportation Director Toby Snow and the district’s two bus mechanics have to drive shifts. That leaves no one at the transportation garage to answer phone calls from parents.
So the school board on Tuesday voted to hire a secretary for the operations center. The new person would help with routing buses, and assist the buildings and grounds department when needed.
But that still leaves the district with some empty drivers’ seats.
Ohio law requires public schools to transport students in grades K-8 who reside more than two miles from school. Bowling Green’s buses travel more than 450,000 miles a year.
People should not be intimidated by the size of the buses, according to Snow.
“If you can drive a full-size pickup truck, you can drive a bus,” Snow said a few years ago. “It’s not as complicated as it looks.”
The bus drivers are more than just chauffeurs for students. They are the first people in the morning that students see and the last school officials to return them home at the end of the day.
The job does have some downsides. Drivers work split shifts, transporting students a couple hours in the morning and a couple hours in the afternoon. And the passengers aren’t always the best behaved.
In 2016, the shortage of bus drivers led to delayed drop off times for some students. Any time a driver can’t be found for one route, it affects other routes that have to compensate for the missing driver. That means some students getting to school and returning home late.
Applicants should, among other requirements:
- Hold Class B CDL with P and S endorsements.
- Have an acceptable driving history with no more than 2 points.
- Pass a physical examination.
- Pass a BCII, FBI and local criminal background checks.
