With fall classes starting in about one month, Perry Community School District Transportation Director Troy Griffith brought the district’s bus driver shortage to the attention of the school board last week.
“We are four drivers less today, starting the school year, than we were in 2017,” Griffith said. “I’ve been telling Clark for how many years, we’re tight on bus drivers. Now we take four drivers away, that’s including the sub drivers and everything else.”
Griffith said he has “called every transportation director in probably the state of Iowa” in an effort to find effective ways to attract and retain drivers. He offered the school board a number of suggestions.
“Raise the pay,” Griffith said, adding, “I don’t know if that will really work. It would have to be a really major raise.” He said the board could also consider:
- offering health insurance to drivers working at least 20 hours each week
- offering a sign-on retention bonus
- offering split jobs that would combine bus driving with work in the food service or custodial departments
- paying coaches more to drive
Griffith said the district could experiment with tiered busing, “which that means routing is on a different schedule than everything else. It’s something we kind of did last year with the early dismissal every day, but I don’t see that being feasible to make that work district wide. We’d have to really sit down and think about it.”
Superintendent Clark Wicks said that if a sufficient number of drivers cannot be hired, then the district would have to consider reducing the number of bus stops or combining routes or even eliminating in-town busing,
“Don’t want to get to that point,” Wicks said.
“We don’t even want to talk about that,” Griffith said.
“But that has to be out there in everyone’s mind,” said School Board Vice President Linda Andorf. “This is what happens.”
“Definitely, it’s a situation. Let’s just say that. Big challenge for us,” Wicks said.
Applicants for bus driving positions do not need a commercial driver’s license (CDL) or Iowa Department of Education training before applying because training will be provided by the district.
The hours are 6:30-8:30 a.m. and 2:30-4:30 p.m., and the hourly wage is $20.37. Activity routes are also available after 3 p.m. at $14.21 per hour.
As part of the employment process, the Perry Community School District conducts:
- A criminal background check
- Adult and child abuse background checks
- Drug and alcohol testing, pre-employment and random
- Iowa DOT physical exam
For more information or to apply, call Transportation Director Troy Griffith at 515-465-5513.
