SPECIAL REPORT Follow the ‘GOLDEN’ Brick Road
Transportation directors weigh in on perks that have kept them at their current school district or have driven them elsewhere Written by Taylor Ekbatani |
taylor@stnonline.com
H
istorically, School Transportation News has looked at school bus driver pay and bene- fits as it relates to staffing. But developing a standout department starts at the very
top, as proven by the Top Transportation Teams awards sponsored by Transfinder and presented at STN EXPO West (learn more about the 2025 winners on page 28). What factors encourage transportation directors to stay at their current district versus jumping the bus to anoth- er? No surprise: The overwhelming answer is support from administration and department culture. For Colby Stevens, spending his career at Teton Coun- ty School District in Wyoming makes sense. A 2023 STN Rising Superstar, Stevens started driving a school bus for the district in 2011. Over time, he took on more respon- sibilities, eventually becoming a secretary and now the director of transportation, a position he’s held since 2018, when he was 29 years old. “Though it wasn’t something that I had dreamed of,
it provided an opportunity to get full-time, year-round work, which was appealing,” he said of first moving into the secretary role. Stevens became the assistant director in 2016 and
served for two years. He credited becoming director to his relationships in the department and his experience working up through the ranks. He noted that he has a very positive relationship with the district administra- tion, which encourages him to stay at Teton Conty. “I feel like I have the trust of the district, and they have
mine,” he said. “That’s a huge reason why I’m not really interested in going elsewhere. I feel like I have support if I need it, but I also feel like I’m not micro-managed. I’m given a long leash to do my job, and so that gives me the weighty responsibility of doing what’s supposed to be done. But at the same time, I don’t feel like I’m on my own. And I think that balance, from what I have found, is rare, but it’s super important. I can imagine that would be one reason why there is burnout and turnover with directors.” He shared that his college degree is in an unrelated
field and it’s the on-the-job training that has attributed to his success. “Interacting in every sphere really pre- pared me for the job as well as just learning early on and [receiving] a lot of informal training from our former director,” he explained. “Learning the power and the importance of relationships, the importance of treating people with integrity and treating people with respect.” He noted another key piece has been his involvement
20 School Transportation News • OCTOBER 2025
in the Wyoming Pupil Transportation Association, for which he is a director-at-large. Amy Scopac and her on-the-job training has proven
advantageous to her nearly 20-year career at Temple Independent School District in Texas. She explained that when her children became school age, she wanted to rejoin the workforce yet be on their same schedule. She started looking for opportunities available within the school system. “In that pursuit, I was led to transportation at Temple ISD,
where I began my 19th year in June [this year],” she said. Scopac started in the department as secretary in 2007,
shortly thereafter becoming the safety and training supervisor. She became operations supervisor and then assistant director of transportation from 2012 through 2020. She has served as director since January 2021. Certifications have been instrumental in her career
development, especially as she said she sees the industry steering away from requiring traditional degrees. She currently holds the certifications of Director of Pupil Transportation (CDPT) and Supervisor of Pupil Trans- portation (CSPT) from the National Association for Pupil Transportation, and a Texas Pupil Transportation Official (CTPTO) from the Texas Association for Pupil Transpor- tation. She also holds driver trainer and special needs supervisor certificates from TAPT and a School Bus Driver Trainer certificate from the Texas Engineering Extension Service. Scopac is also a certified Texas Department of Public
Safety CDL third-party examiner. She served as TAPT pres- ident from 2018 to 2019 and has served as president of her local TAPT chapter twice (2011 and 2021). She is also a certi- fied professional development instructor through TAPT. She noted that the requirement for a degree is gradually
disappearing from job descriptions, as in the example of a recent director job posting at nearby Hutto ISD, which states, “Qualifications include a bachelor’s degree or com- parable knowledge gained through work experience.” “This shift signifies a changing trend in the industry,
where the significance of a degree is diminishing,” she said. “The knowledge and skills necessary to excel as a director in this industry are not solely acquired in a col- lege classroom. On-the-job training plays a critical role in developing these essential skills.” She noted that a successful transportation director is a leader with strong operational and management skills. “They are required to have in-depth expertise in
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