SPECIAL REPORT
we made changes and we would solicit a pretty signif- icant amount of feedback,” Fulk said. Meanwhile, the district’s
communication department created a system including a call center, to receive par- ents’ feedback and quickly inform them of transpor- tation changes. A crucial change was to address the need to increase driver ranks, which numbered roughly 1,100 a decade ago but ended last year at around 550. “One of the huge issues
The best advice I have to offer is to learn how to manage the stress of the job. There are always problems that are going to come up [at school start], but how do you deal with them?
Jim Hessell, School District of Cameron in Wisconsin
we had last year was we were running in excess of 70 routes that were uncovered every day because of lack of drivers, which creates an extremely inefficient system,” Fulk said. “We had drivers putting in 10 hours, 11 hours a day, which is nice for a paycheck in terms of overtime, but when that’s what you do on the regular, that really burns them out. And at the time, I would say that our bus driver pay was not really competitive with some of the other industries in the city that require a CDL.” Today, the district pays drivers a starting wage of $29 an hour, with extra pay on some routes such as an early childhood run. “We also pay them all at eight hours now and we don’t do the traditional [payment] model that a lot of districts do. If you come to us with no CDL, we train you on the CDL, and we train you on the S [en- dorsement]. And if you come to us with one or both of those, we’ll give you a bonus after you’ve worked with us for a certain amount of time.” He praised the district’s human resources staff for holding targeted driver-hiring fairs that were “one-stop shops where you could get your physical done, get your dock card and go through all the steps so that it was less likely that we lost the applicant from application to their first certification class,” he said.
Navigating School Start Up Back in North Carolina, Johnson said the role of atten-
dants or monitors on special education vehicles cannot be underestimated in the smooth delivery of transporta- tion services. “We talk a lot about school bus drivers, but I definite-
ly want to put out there that attendants are definitely required and part of the team, and we sometimes forget
24 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2024
about them,” he said. “But for transportation directors that have lots of SPED routes, you find out that not having that attendant sometimes means that bus can’t roll. Some people think that because they don’t have a CDL, they’re easier to get, but an attendant is not just someone you put on the bus. They need to be trained as much as your driver in order to support students and that’s not a fit for everybody. So, sometimes there’s a shortage of attendants, too.” Jim Hessel, transportation
director of the School District of Cameron in Wisconsin, said new transportation directors
(and experienced ones, for that matter) should remem- ber to take care of themselves, know when enough is enough and look for help when considering how to get the academic year off to a smooth start and keeping it on that path.
“The best advice I have to offer is to learn how to manage the stress of the job,” he said. “There are always problems that are going to come up, but how do you deal with them? The first step is to determine if there is even anything you can do about the problem. There are situations that are just out of our control and are not worth wasting time worrying about. You also need to re- sist the pressure to work on something constantly until you solve it. He noted that sometimes the focus remains on old
solutions, despite those already being ruled out. He advised taking a break or working on another project to clear one’s mind. This can be when a solution, that should have been obvious from the start, presents itself. “Remember that you are surrounded by oth- er school districts with personnel that are going through most of the same things you are going through. Get to know at least one or two of them and share your ideas and your problems,” Hessel advised. “Finally, I would suggest that you don’t let your job become your whole life. No matter if you are a school district’s transportation director, a bus driver, or the owner of a bus contracting company, you need to have time for yourself that has nothing to do with school buses. The same would apply to anyone in any career. You’ll be more energized and focused when you get back to work after allowing some of the clutter in your brain to escape.” ●
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