Avoyelles School District facing bus driver shortage

School bus driver is one of those jobs that nobody notices -- until the driver isn’t there. Since the 2015-16 school year, the Avoyelles School Board has had a shortage of substitute bus drivers to fill in for absent bus drivers. The same is holding true this school year.

Transportation Supervisor Brent Whiddon told the APSB Bus Committee on Aug. 28 there are 71 bus routes in the parish but only 62 bus drivers. There are five vacant routes and four drivers are on sick leave. All nine routes need substitute drivers.

With these nine vacant routes, other regular drivers “buddy” these routes to make sure students are picked up in the mornings and dropped off in the afternoons.

‘GETTING CHEWED OUT’

“We are getting chewed out by some parents for picking up their children too early and dropping them off too late because we are using the buddy system,” Whiddon told board members. “We don’t have enough substitute bus drivers. Our only option is the buddy system.”

The parish has 53 regular routes, five special education routes, four “Minority-to-Majority” (M-to-M) routes, one special ed M-to-M route and one special ed LaSAS route.

In addition, there are five shuttle buses going to the Avoyelles Public Charter School in the mornings and seven in the afternoons.

There are also two shuttles from Lafargue Elementary to Marksville High, four from Riverside Elementary to Avoyelles High and three from Cottonport Elementary to Bunkie High. These are elementary and high school students riding their route buses to and from one school then “shuttling” to and from the other schools.

There are shuttles going from the high schools to LaSAS, including four from Marksville High, two each from Avoyelles High and Bunkie High and one from Cottonport Elementary.

There is one magnet school shuttle from LaSAS to Bunkie High.

Plans call for six shuttles from Avoyelles Virtual Alternative Program (AVAP) in Hessmer, the parish’s school for suspended and expelled students, but not all have started.

“We have drivers from Lafargue, Hessmer, Simmesport, Bordelonville, Bunkie and Cottonport that have been shuttling students,” Whiddon said. “Bus drivers, admirably, do what they can to pick up the extra routes to get the children to and from school.

“Our school administrators have done an excellent job in developing contingency plans for buddying routes when drivers are out and no subs are available,” Whiddon continued. “In addition, our administrators make every effort to notify parents concerning adjusted pickup and drop off times when routes need to be buddied.”

INTERNAL RECRUITING

Board member Mike Lacombe told the Bus Committee that something has to be done to correct the situation concerning substitute drivers. Lacombe recommended the school district conduct an internal recruitment effort to encourage current employees to become substitute drivers.

In the past, board members had recommended providing an incentive, such as $200 and the board paying all costs to obtain a commercial driver’s license. In exchange for that incentive, the substitute driver would have to sign a contract agreeing to be a substitute for a certain period of time or be required to repay the incentive payment and licensing costs.

Substitutes are paid $48 a day to run the morning and afternoon routes, Whiddon said. That is approximately half the pay of a regular bus driver.

The problem in attracting substitute drivers is not the pay -- which is more than $10 an hour -- but the fact that substitute bus drivers must have a CDL before they can get behind the steering wheel of a bus and transport children.

“We don’t require a substitute teacher to have a teaching certificate,” Superintendent Blaine Dauzat said, “but a substitute bus driver has to have a CDL, just like the regular bus driver.”

The Bus Committee instructed Dauzat, Whiddon and Finance Director Mary Bonnette to review the issue and develop a plan to address the substitute bus driver shortage. The committee asked that the plan be submitted to the committee for review and then be presented to the full board for action.