John Coakley stood beside the driver’s seat of a bright-yellow school bus, pointing at the various knobs and buttons on the dashboard.
“It’s not that different than your car,” he said with a smile.
Coakley likely felt more at home in the bus cockpit then most people would.
He has spent many many hours piloting a similar 40-foot-long vehicle with 70 or so noisy kids behind him, and today he serves as the assistant program administrator of transportation at the Berks County Intermediate Unit.
But he insists the idea of toting kids to and from school in a 15-ton bus is more intimidating than doing it actually is. Sure, it can be a tough job, he said, but with proper training and the right frame of mind it can be an enjoyable and rewarding gig.
And he hopes that others are interesting in experiencing it.
An enormous need
The BCIU, like school bus service providers across the nation, is currently facing a significant shortage of bus drivers. The problem has gotten so bad that some states have resorted to deploying the National Guard to help transport students.
In Pennsylvania, the Department of Education has made the issue crystal clear with a banner headline on its website calling for bus drivers. The site links to a “school bus driver interest form” that potential candidates can fill out and have their information shipped off to local school districts across the state.
And the state late last month announced it was reaching out directly to the estimated 375,000 commercial drivers license holders in the state to ask if they had any interest in driving a school bus. State officials said last week they have had 1,300 show interest.
At least two local school districts, Reading and Boyertown, have had to make changes to their transportation plans because of the lack of bus drivers.
According to officials from the BCIU — which provides busing for four local school districts, as well as for field trips, private schools and special needs students — the driver shortage is not a problem that popped up overnight.
“It’s been going on for years, quite honestly,” said Dennis Ryan, BCIU’s program administrator for transportation.
The drop in drivers
Coakley said that the issue began brewing about five or six years ago, when the federal government changed the requirements for getting licensed to drive school buses. Instead of being able to acquire a commercial driver’s license specifically for a school bus, as had previously been the case, a general commercial driver’s license is now required.
“It’s the same license you need to drive a tractor-trailer,” Coakley said. “The problem is school bus drivers don’t need all of that information.”
Coakley said learning things like how to repair an engine doesn’t make sense for a school bus driver, who isn’t going to be making cross-country trips where they’d have to deal with roadside breakdowns on their own.
“If a school bus breaks down we’re sending someone out to fix it,” Ryan said.
Ryan said the additional requirements have made the job of bus driver less attractive to some of the typical candidates who have traditionally filled the role, like retirees or stay-at-home parents.
While the tough licensure procedure may have helped light the fire for the current bus driver shortage, COVID fanned the flames.
Ryan said that the pandemic has blown up the job market, leaving all sorts of businesses desperately searching for new hires. That is certainly the case for school bus drivers.
“When COVID hit, it broke the back of the bus industry, honestly,” he said.
Part of it is competition for workers, Ryan said, and part of it is a fear of COVID.
For some, the idea of spending a few hours a day inside a metal tube with dozens of other people while a deadly pandemic rages is more than they’re willing to do for a paycheck.
But with schools across Berks County and the state reopening for full in-person learning this school year, someone needs to get kids to their classrooms. That has led providers like the BCIU to look for ways to draw more interest.
Incentives and options
The starting salary for a new bus driver has been upped by $4 per hour to $21.55. Experienced drivers can earn up to $26.75 per hour.
And BCIU drivers can now also enroll in the state retirement plan for teachers and other school employees.
The BCIU is also looking for people to drive school vans, a job bus drivers in training typically start out with while preparing to get their commercial driving license and moving on to a bus.
There are also job opening for bus assistants, who ride busses and help the driver manage students.
For each position, there is plenty of opportunity, Ryan said. When asked how many new employees he’d like to hire in a perfect world, he said at least 60.
But for school bus service providers, unlike many other businesses, recruiting new employees isn’t as straightforward as just raising pay or increasing benefits. They’re dealing with school districts that have their own tight budgets, Ryan said.
“It’s not all about dollars and cents and profit margins,” he said. “We have to work with school districts that have limited funds.”
Learning the ropes
For those interested, the BCIU offers a paid training program where drivers can prepare for their commercial driver’s license exams and learn what it takes to take on school bus routes.
“Everybody knows how to drive, but not how to drive a bus,” Rhonda Bernard, BCIU training and safety specialist, said.
Bernard said that driver candidates start out with lessons on on safety and typically get trained on driving school vans, which doesn’t require a commercial drivers license.
They then have four days of training for their commercial drivers license.
To obtain their license a driver must pass four tests: general knowledge, basic skills, air brakes and pre-trip inspection.
Driver candidates then receive about 14 hours of in-class training as well as six hours of on-the-road training. They learn things like how to park, how to back up, what all of the knobs and buttons do and what to do in an emergency.
Trainees also learn about the nondriving aspects of being a school bus driver.
“It’s harder than people think,” Ryan said. “It’s not like Uber. You’re basically a classroom on wheels.”
Ryan said that managing students is a big part of the job. And that takes patience.
Worth the effort
When Ryan, Coakley and Bernard speak about driving a school bus they each do so with experienced perspectives.
All three got their start in the school transportation industry behind the wheel, and with recent shortages have found themselves in driver’s seats once again.
Each spoke about the job with fondness, saying the experience has had a profound impact on them.
“If you would have told me when I was growing up that I’d be a school bus driver I would have said ‘What?’ ” Bernard said.
But as a stay-at-home mom, she was looking for a job with flexibility. School bus drivers typically work four to six hours a day, which fit her schedule perfectly.
And once she started to get to know the kids she toted around each day, she fell in love.
Coakley said the experience was much the same for him.
“It’s relationships. You connect with the kids,” he said.
Ryan said that he has had children who he drove as elementary students that he’s run into as teenager or adults and despite all the years that have passed they remember him and are excited to see him.
“Bus drivers really leave an impression,” he said. “They’re an under-appreciated aspect of education. They’re the first person students see each day and the last person they see at the end of the school day.”
Ryan said being a bus driver has challenges, but that it’s a very rewarding career.
“It truly takes a special type of person,” he said. “It can be very frustrating — the kids aren’t always perfect — but it can also be very rewarding.”
The newbie
That’s exactly what Joseph Heywood is hoping for.
He started with the BCIU in August, the day before the new school year started. So far he has been driving a van while he prepares to take his commercial driver’s license tests.
“Just give me a few months,” he said with a smile.
Heywood said he lost one of his tow jobs due to the COVID pandemic. He was searching for a replacement when he came across an online add from the BCIU looking for bus drivers.
Working mostly in warehouses since he was 18, he saw it a promising opportunity.
“I figured there’s probably better things in life than being in a factory every day,” he said.
Heywood said he likes the flexibility of being a bus driver, saying the limited hours gives him time to pursue other opportunities. He also likes the idea of being out on the road and being able to help out kids who need to get to school.
He said he’s enjoyed driving a van, but is anxious to get behind the wheel of a bus.
“I’m a big guy,” he said. “I like to have room and to be up high where I can see everything.”
Heywood said the process of becoming a bus driver has been a challenge, but one he’s enjoyed.
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What to know about the school-bus driver shortage - Reading Eagle
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