The last few years have seen the Ravenna School District’s Transportation Department experience staffing issues to their bus driver work force. Just this last year, Ravenna’s staff of bus drivers was significantly trimmed, losing about a third of its employees.
“We have lost several drivers and aides for various reasons,” Ravenna School District’s Director of Business Operations Stephen York told The Weekly Villager. “As a whole, it is a nationwide problem trying to find bus drivers and to get kids to and from school safely. There seems to be a lot of people that do not want to return to the workforce since COVID so we are in a pinch because we do not have many employees and we are in dire straits.”
Over the last several years, the State of Ohio has seen approximately 20,000 bus driver jobs become vacant and Ravenna is starting to experience the staffing crunch.
The Transportation Department currently employees 15 full-time drivers, two van drivers and three part-time drivers. York added that that because of the staffing shortage, he is training to also become a licensed bus driver.
“I am going to become a school bus driver so on days when we do not have enough subs, I will pinch-hit” he said. “I will not be a good pinch-hitter, but I will be trained, I will be safe, kids will be okay and I will help out.”
Due to the shortage of bus drivers, York said that he has had to add more students to existing routes and eliminate other routes, putting more strain on the drivers. Ravenna’s bus driving staff is so thin that the Department has had mechanics fill in when other drivers are out.
“My mechanics drive every day and when they are driving, they function as a substitute, so when a mechanic drives, the buses are not getting repaired,” York said. “If something is broken, my people cannot fix it because they are out on the road.”
The additional students on routes have also impacted drivers’ ability to drop them off at school or at their houses at later times.
“We have struggled with maintaining timeliness,” York acknowledged. “There have actually been times where we have not had enough drivers to cover routes, so I have had to cancel routes and then parents have to get their kids in on their own.”
In addition to keeping up with the current routes, the Department also has had to worry about transporting students who are not members of the Ravenna School District but attend private institutions such as St. Patrick School in Kent or the Bio-Med Science Academy in Rootstown.
“If you send your child to a parochial school like St. Patrick, we take a bus over and drop them off in the morning and we pick them up and bring them back,” said York. “Then we get them on our buses and as long as they live within the city bounds of Ravenna, they are our students.”
To become a fully licensed bus driver, an employee must have a commercial driver’s license, a passenger’s bus certificate and must also pass a physical, background test and a drug test.
York said the Department offers free training to all of those who are interested but studying for a commercial driver’s license is not as simple as studying for a driving exam. An individual must complete a five-day course of pre-service classes and then must learn how to operate a bus from a certified on-board instructor.
York noted that it usually takes anywhere from 20-50 hours of on-board instructor time for an individual to become licensed.
According to York, potential employees who have been interested in working as bus drivers for the school district have withdrawn their interest because of the extensive amount of studying and training required.
Additionally, another part of the problem in finding new bus drivers has been the current wages that the Department offers. York said that the Department’s wages for bus drivers is tied to a contract they negotiated several years ago and cannot be changed until the next round of negotiations.
According to York, Ravenna has enough bus drivers to maintain their current routes through the end of the school year but is unsure how many drivers will return for another year whether they choose retirement or take another job.
“I have an aging workforce,” he added. “I think pretty much most of them are loyal to Ravenna and again it is a nice place to work, and we have good people but I don’t know. I have no crystal ball.”
