Education Week - November 30, 2022 - 20

How My District Overcame
A Dire Bus Driver Shortage
By Mervin B. Daugherty
H
iring school bus drivers has been
tough for years, then the pandemic
made it even harder. But the
school system I lead cracked the
code and achieved 100 percent
staffing in transportation this past
spring. Now, we have begun to use
the techniques that worked in transportation to improve
hiring in other areas.
My district, the Chesterfield County public schools in
Virginia, educates more than 64,000 students and transports
at least 70 percent of them nearly 9 million miles each year.
(Chesterfield County is a suburb of Richmond with more
urbanized areas near the city and rural tracts to the south
and west.)
Like most school divisions in the United States, we
have suffered over the past several years from a lack of
bus drivers and staff to meet transportation needs. We
employ more than 500 drivers-or I should say we attempt
to employ that many drivers-to cover 1,250 routes in the
morning and again in the afternoon. This does not include
field trips, after-school events, and weekend activities.
During the summer of 2021, we experienced an extreme
shortage of bus drivers: 150 fewer than we needed. Like
most school systems, we held job fairs and advertised
throughout the region and state. We also increased
the availability of driver-training sessions, starting new
cohorts of candidates as often as every Monday. (All new
school bus drivers require some training, even if they
already possess a commercial driver's license with all
endorsements. Many candidates need a full four weeks
to earn their learner's permit and, subsequently, their
commercial driver's license.)
But when schools opened in mid-August, the district
still had a severe shortage of drivers. Our first solution was
to ask parents (via a video message) to drive their children
to and from school. Our hardworking bus drivers took on
double runs at assigned schools, bringing some students to
school early in the morning and taking them home late in
the afternoon. We opened our schools earlier each morning
to accommodate early arrivals and used county police
officers for traffic control.
This was only a temporary solution, so we met with
county government officials for help resolving this problem.
In Virginia, the county government controls local funding
for school divisions. We did not have the funding needed
to move forward with our long-term solution: increasing
driver salaries by $3 per hour to make starting pay more
than $20 per hour and offering $3,000 bonuses. Under this
proposal, the raises and bonuses would be implemented
immediately-and for all drivers and transportation
staff, current and new. The bonus would be paid in six
installments throughout the school year to encourage
drivers to stay the full period.
County officials approved the funding for immediate
implementation. This supplemental appropriation was a
big lift for the county and the school system that happened
quickly after the pain of operating with too few drivers
became apparent during the first week of school.
moved away from panel interviews and in some cases
interviewed by phone. Taking care of these hiring aspects
all at once cut down on phone tag and simplified the process
for applicants and for recruiters. We also consolidated
applicants' medical appointments into one trip for a medical
exam, drug screening, and a TB test.
As soon as applicants pass their background checks and
screenings, we now begin paying their full salary for several
weeks while they train to drive a school bus.
By the middle of the 2021-22 school year, the district was
operating transportation in the mid-90 percent staffing
range and running normal services to all schools. During
one period in the spring, the school system's transportation
department was 100 percent staffed! We announced this
good news in a video message.
While I wish I could say that 100 percent achievement
We hired 263 drivers
in the past 13 months.
By the end of August 2021, we announced the plan to our
community. We made it very clear that, while we believed
the plan would work, the driver shortage would not be
resolved immediately because finding and training drivers
takes time. To help everyone better understand the process,
we committed to ongoing transportation updates via weekly
newsletters to staff, families, and the greater community.
We expanded our job advertising. Previous advertising
was in local newspapers and on school websites. Revamped
advertising included radio and social media packages,
newspapers, digital flyers promoted to PTAs and the parent
community, enhanced use of the school district's social media
platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn, and job boards like
Indeed. We also contacted anyone who had applied for a
position in transportation over the past several years.
The process to become a school bus driver is extremely
challenging; at each step in hiring, some potential drivers are
eliminated. Applicants must complete application paperwork
and an interview, undergo background and driving-record
checks, pass medical and drug screenings, and when
classroom work is completed, pass the commercial driver's
license test and take behind-the-wheel training.
To streamline the process, we changed our recruiting
practices and procedures with job fairs, where we handled
fingerprinting, background checks, Department of Motor
Vehicles checks, applications, and interviews on site. We
20 | EDUCATION WEEK | November 30, 2022 | www.edweek.org/opinion
was permanent, it was not (even though we hired 263
drivers in the past 13 months).
But we absolutely proved that we can achieve 100 percent
staffing and we are working to climb that mountain again.
Using our formula for hiring bus drivers, we have adopted
similar procedures for hiring custodians, cafeteria workers,
and classroom assistants:
We improved pay in each of these areas and provided
bonuses throughout the year.
We created a cafeteria worker career plan in which there
is a clear progression from part-time food-service associate
to manager-in-training, assistant manager, and manager,
and we added benefits to more food-service job roles.
The improved approach is working. Our custodial vacancies,
for example, have been reduced by more than two-thirds.
One thing we learned through this experience is sameold
thinking will not do. Success comes from reshaping the
way jobs are filled and, even more important, the quality of
the jobs themselves.
VIDEO: Watch Superintendent Daugherty discuss
how he managed staffing challenges in his district.
edw.link/SchoolStaffing
DAUGHERTY is the superintendent of the Chesterfield
County public schools, the largest district in central Virginia
and among the 70 largest in the nation. Before joining
Chesterfield in 2018, he served as the superintendent of the
Red Clay Consolidated school district in Delaware.
F. Sheehan / Education Week / Getty
http://www.edweek.org/opinion
Education Week - November 30, 2022

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