Marion City staff, parents, and even students are getting sick of all the recent delays and early releases. Parents on Facebook are angry, saying, “This shouldn’t be an issue for [parents who drop their kids off],” (Evan Welch) and “It’s just getting frustrating!!!” (Bridget Marie). The cause of these shortened school days is the lack of bus drivers. Jennifer Fosnaugh, MCS transportation supervisor, tells us that during the 2020-21 school year, there were 25 drivers available, but the number has only decreased since then, down to the 18 drivers we have now, with two of them out "indefinitely" due to medical reasons. But why are bus drivers suddenly disappearing, and what is being done to solve this problem?
One big reason is that bus drivers work just under 30 hours a week, making them ineligible for medical employment benefits. They currently get paid from $18.56 to $22.06 per hour, which is “competitive” with nearby schools according to Fosnaugh, but with other districts and workplaces, such as factories, offering benefits as well as better pay rates, drivers from MCS go where the pay is better.
There is a solution that would allow drivers to receive benefits from MCS. Since bus drivers only work in the mornings and afternoons, it leaves a lot of daytime open to other activities. A driver could get another part-time job within MCS, add up the hours worked, and then be able to receive benefits.
This solution has been used in the past, several years ago. A bus driver from MCS picked up extra hours as a groundskeeper, and was able to receive benefits, as well as more pay. “...It was working really well; we were able to make it work,” says Fosnaugh. Unfortunately, this solution is currently unable to be used.
A contract between the union of classified workers and the MCS Board of Education prevents classified employees from working in more than one jurisdiction. This June, the contract is up for renegotiation, and with it comes the hope that bus drivers will be more willing to work for Marion City Schools.
Something that has already been done to help as a short-term solution is the condensing of transportation routes. Last year, there were 23 running routes between buses and vans in the school district, but this has been condensed to 21 in preparation for this year. “We knew, starting this school year, we were short [in drivers],” Fosnaugh explains. Administration has also increased the distance from school buildings that bus stops are located, staying within the boundaries of Ohio law. Both of these factors mean more kids are at bus stops, making routes shorter and buses fuller.
Over the previous summer, there were two trainee drivers who were expected to come and work with MCS, but two weeks into the school year, they both ended up leaving. “Neither of them… [had] ties to Marion,” Fosnaugh says. When one of them ran into overwhelming “behavior issues” with students on her bus, she decided to leave, as she had no family or other reason to stay in Marion. The other driver already lived a couple counties away, and dealt with similar issues. She was able to find a job closer to home that had better pay, and left MCS.
With all the shortened school days, people are starting to worry about hours being taken away from the total amount of time students are supposed to be in school every year. According to Ohio state law, students in grades 7-12 are required to be provided with a minimum of 1,001 hours of open instruction opportunities each year. MCS already operates with more than the required amount planned into the calendar, which allows for flexibility with snow days and, say, the bus driver shortage. But these Plan A and Plan B days were not expected to be used so often when they were created, and now the lost hours are stacking up, threatening to dip below the required amount.
Marion City Schools is not the only school district with a bus driver shortage. Nearby, Westerville City Schools frequently compete with delays, early releases, and bus route cancellations, but they are certainly not the only ones. Schools all across the US have similar problems, and people have widely considered the “national bus driver shortage” a crisis.
Read more next month as we dig deeper!