Moore County Schools has struggled to run reliable bus routes for years, even before the COVID-19 pandemic upended nearly everything about how public schools operated.
For the 80 or so people who currently drive buses for the district, nothing has gotten easier over the last two years. The situation — unpredictable routes, relatively low pay, disciplinary problems among students — compelled five members of the schools’ transportation staff to speak out recently to the Moore County Board of Education.
“Do you think that UPS or Amazon have to make sure that your packages aren’t fighting, are sitting in the seat safely? That it’s not yelling and screaming? Not eating or throwing things at you? Not standing up and moving seats or trying to hang out the windows, vaping, or bullying one another?” Jessica Andrews, Moore County Schools’ transportation specialist, said in prepared remarks delivered during the public comment period of last week’s school board meeting.
“Please explain to our drivers why they are not respected more and paid more, but are required to do more when they have the same qualifications as any other CDL driver. Do you realize that we are transporting irreplaceable cargo?”
Andrews’ remarks, echoed in similar fashion by several other drivers recently, signal a growing frustration among drivers and other workers, not just in Moore County but around North Carolina. Wake County had trouble getting thousands of children to school when scores of drivers didn’t show up for work for three days earlier this month. That hasn’t happened here, but some have taken to social media to air concerns and grievances.
“It’s time to pay us what we are worth. Our responsibilities have changed, however our pay remains the same,” said Samuel Kearns, adding that drivers arrive at work in the morning not knowing how many routes they’ll drive that day. “Bus drivers in Moore County Schools are mentally and physically exhausted. We are near our breaking point.”
The district’s bus driver shortages stretch back at least five years, an effect of state funding cuts and reimbursement formulas that favor districts packing buses to make routes as “efficient” as possible.
Historically, the schools have filled bus driver jobs internally, with people who work as custodians, teacher assistants and in other supporting roles during the school day. Bus drivers work unorthodox hours — a few early in the morning and a few more midafternoon — so state cuts to teacher assistants effectively winnowed down the pool of employees willing to drive as longtime employees retired.
Back in 2018, Moore County Schools attempted to increase the job’s appeal with a new pay scale for bus drivers that added 20 cents to the hourly pay rate for each year of experience. But that hasn’t gone as far toward recruiting new drivers as officials hoped — especially during the pandemic.
“We instituted the pay increase in hopes that it would attract more drivers, but we struggled,” said John Birath, Moore County Schools’ director for operations. “Prior to that, every driver got paid a flat rate no matter how many years they drove. At the time, we didn’t change it for any other position. It was just for bus drivers: not for kitchen staff, maintenance technicians, technology. We still struggled trying to get enough drivers.”
In 2019, the schools enacted a policy requiring support staff hired from that point forward to qualify and be available to drive a bus. That tactic was minimally effective, and Birath said in some cases it actually turned off prospective custodians and cafeteria workers. The policy was rescinded this past summer.
The onset of the pandemic shrunk Moore County Schools’ roster of drivers by nearly half, from 109 in early 2020 to 57 during the 2020-2021 school year. For much of that year, buses operated at limited capacity based on public health guidelines and students only attended school two days per week.
The pandemic also upended the overall job market, which over the years has been the most telling predictor of whether or not the schools will be able to find bus drivers. In a strong economy, employees have an easier time finding full-time, year-round work.
This year the district is once again transporting about 6,600 students to and from school each day, similar to its pre-pandemic workload. But its transportation workforce only rebounded partly, leaving the district with 25 fewer drivers than it had two years ago.
The new pay scale is part of the district’s rationale for omitting bus drivers from more recent measures to increase pay for supporting staff. About a year ago the school board approved the use of CARES Act funding to provide a one-time bonus to support staff.
That didn’t apply to bus drivers, because an annual raise was built into their pay. Neither did the district’s long-awaited salary scale for other classified staff, which went into effect for the current school year. Combined with the added difficulty of their jobs, from enforcing mask use to picking up routes at the last minute due to understaffing, drivers say that’s added insult to injury.
“These issues and a lack of management, as well as government interaction to address these issues, have been going on for quite some time,” said Ken Fara.
“The blue-collar worker in America has been wrongfully treated for decades, and we think it’s time for a more balanced and better treatment of employees, financially as well as respectfully.”
Among school systems in adjacent counties, Moore County Schools offers the highest hourly pay rate for veteran bus drivers. For drivers with eight years of experience or less, it’s second to Harnett County.
The complete shift to virtual learning at the outset of the pandemic effectively canceled bus drivers’ usual function as students remained at home for half a semester. Some continued to drive buses, delivering bagged lunches to distribution sites around the county. The schools found on-campus jobs for others in an attempt to maintain their hours.
“We did offer all bus drivers the opportunity to perform other work,” said Birath. ”Maybe it was maintaining laws at schools, helping to disinfect schools, or other opportunities and we would pay them the same amount as if they were driving a bus, and for the same hours.”
Carolyn Penland said that there’s little incentive for anyone to become a bus driver, or for retirees to continue working. Penland herself is a reemployed retiree with more than 50 years behind the wheel. She took a $1-per-hour pay cut this year to avoid exceeding the state’s income cap to maintain her pension.
“We can only put in 29 hours a week without it messing with our retirement,” she said. “Why can’t there be a waiver put in place where we can help the other drivers and not interfere without retirement? I feel that we have really, as retirees, been mistreated.”
Andrews, who acts in a supervisory role over drivers, pointed out that qualified drivers have other options, as other jobs requiring a commercial driver’s license pay two to three times as much as driving a school bus.
“It is breaking my heart that I’m losing drivers and I cannot retain them. It’s breaking my heart that they're having to deal with discipline and I can’t help them. Something’s got to be done,” she said.
“It’s not about me … it’s about those kids who don’t have any other way to get to school, and that’s the only safe place they have.”
The district’s transportation department has been under increased scrutiny in the last few weeks, spurred by a video circulating on social media of a recent physical altercation on a Southern Middle School bus, in which a single student appeared to be attacked by a group. District officials are prohibited by federal law from disclosing details of that incident or the outcome of any discipline.
“We need help with our kids on the bus. They are loud, they are unruly, they are disrespectful,” said longtime driver Carolyn Penland.
“We go to the administrators. We get little or no help. We need some help in this area. If we take our eyes off that road for one second to correct the child, a serious accident could happen.”
Moore County Schools’ yellow buses are equipped with cameras, so administrators can review such incidents. Birath said that schools typically assign an assistant principal or other staff member to ride along on buses that experience repeated behavior issues.
Birath said that Moore County Schools has reached out to the drivers who spoke last week and offered to discuss their grievances personally.
“I’m glad they came and spoke,” he said. “I look at it as a positive that they came and shared what was on their minds.”
"bus" - Google News
November 17, 2021 at 03:06AM
https://ift.tt/3kLm2GS
'Near Our Breaking Point': Moore County Bus Drivers Make Plea for Support - Southern Pines Pilot
"bus" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2rp2JL3
https://ift.tt/3aT1Mvb
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "'Near Our Breaking Point': Moore County Bus Drivers Make Plea for Support - Southern Pines Pilot"
Post a Comment