The Wayland Union school district is looking for a few good bus drivers. Perhaps more than a few.
Like many other school systems, Wayland has seen a decline in the number of bus drivers and Finance Director Patricia Velie Monday night told the Board of Education Monday night she is scrambling to recruit them.
“I am worried about starting the next school year without enough bus drivers,” she said during the board’s monthly work session.
She noted it’s a widespread problem to attract bus drivers because much of it is part-time work and there often are not health care benefits offered.
Board member Teresa Dobry added sometimes challenging winter driving conditions and others chimed in about odd hours and Dan Casini talked about a high rate of burnout.
But perhaps the biggest problem of all is trying to drive a bus with as many as 60 misbehaving children making a lot of distracting noises.
“The question might be how we can get our children to be better behaved on the buses,” Velie commented.
However, misbehaving children is a more widespread problem that just at Wayland.
Velie asked the board to begin discussions about the possibility of accepting drivers as young as 18, as long as they had the proper credentials.
“It is one of those spots we haven’t yet talked about,” she said.
She added that she has begun talks with neighboring Hopkins about perhaps sharing some routes to lessen the load on runs.
When asked about the pay, Velie responded, “Wayland is very competitive with other school districts, even with (private service) Dean Transportation… And right now, our drivers are almost at getting overtime every week (working for more than 40 hours).”
Velie said the problem just might get worse next fall because of the realignment of elementary students as a result of the middle school addition.
More discussion of the issue is promised for later this spring and in to the summer.
