For most people, the yellow school bus has a straightforward
purpose: to get kids to and from school safely and in a timely manner each day.
The concept is so simple it borders on mundane, but ask any school
transportation official, bus driver, or school principal and it will be clear
that the yellow school bus is perhaps the most crucial component of the school
day for many kids.
Bus transportation has a bigger impact on education than most people would
realize. It affects student attendance, school start and end times, family
schedules, and more. It may even affect equitable access to school choice
options, such as magnet schools and early colleges.
Moving students in Wake County is an undertaking that rivals some urban transit
systems. School buses transport almost half of all WCPSS students, about 70,000
kids, twice a day. In comparison, GoRaleigh’s fleet of buses transports about
17,000 people per day on average according to that agency’s statistics.
WCPSS school buses make 18,000 stops to collect and drop off kids and travel
more than 81,000 miles every day. If all 765 WCPSS school buses were lined up
end-to-end, the line would stretch 6.5 miles.
Bus transportation requires drivers, supervisors, administrators, clerical
staff, and maintenance technicians. Like other state employees who work for
school districts across the state, transportation personnel have been left off
the list when it comes to annual raises. WCPSS leaders have been working to
correct this to ensure that raises for state employees also include all school
personnel as well.
That’s part of the reason why Wake County Public School System has a severe
shortage of bus drivers. As of last month, WCPSS only had 713 drivers for the
765 routes, and there are more than 50 substitute drivers who are being pressed
into service regularly. Comparatively, GoRaleigh has 217 drivers for 100 buses.
Salary is a key factor for qualified bus drivers in deciding where to work. In
fact, WCPSS often loses bus drivers to private transportation companies and
even to other public transit agencies.
According to the most recent salary schedule available from WCPSS, bus drivers
start at $13.11 per hour, and max out at $21.96 after 32 years of service. As
the News and Observer reported, that starting hourly wage equates to
$17,043 annually. A GoTriangle bus driver, by comparison, may have a starting
salary of $15 per hour makes $31,250 annually.
It’s worth noting that these comparisons are used merely to demonstrate the
actual figures involved, and not to imply the differences themselves are
somehow a problem. State government pays most of the school bus driver salaries
and has increased pay for hourly wage earners in public schools by just 3
percent over a 10-year period compared to GoRaleigh salaries being funded
primarily with a combination of local funds and rider fares giving that agency
more flexibility in setting its pay scale.
Ideally, school leaders would like to offer a wage that is competitive with
other local government agencies. Without any adjustments from state government,
getting there will require increase investment of local dollars. Of course,
simply raising the starting salary to $15 would compress the entire scale. On
the current scale it takes about 8 years to reach $15 per hour, so raising the
starting wage to $15 without adjusting the rest of the scale would eliminate a
quarter of the scale’s longevity. Therefore, all 32 years of the scale need to
be adjusted upward.
Raising bus driver salaries is part of a plan to lift all salaries of
non-certified staff in the school system, which includes instructional
assistants and clerical, child nutrition, maintenance, custodial, HVAC and
other employees. The overall cost is $35 million with a plan to spread that out
over five years starting with $3.8 million in the current fiscal year and
continuing with $7.8 million for each additional year until 2024.
Bus driver shortages are not limited to Wake County. It’s part of a national
trend that has been growing worse for the past few years caused in part by
low pay, odd hours, 10-month employment, and a historically low overall
unemployment. Fewer drivers means fewer routes, longer rides, and more runs for
each driver.
Becoming a school bus driver also requires a commercial driver’s license and
ability to pass a criminal background check. WCPSS will pay for the driver
training and prepare driver candidates for the license test, and the school
system holds bus driver job fairs periodically throughout the school year to
boost recruitment. However, that commercial driver’s license is a commodity
that can command higher salaries elsewhere with cargo that may not be as
precious as school children.
When the bus ride becomes a barrier to getting to and from school, it affects
parents’ decisions on where to send their kids to school especially once they
decide that driving their child to school is the only viable option. This
also puts more cars on the road at peak times, and car transportation is
statistically less safe than school buses.
With competitive salaries, WCPSS has a better chance of retaining enough
qualified and caring bus drivers to fully staff all routes. Funding this with
local dollars means Wake County voters, taxpayers, and business leaders need to
tell their elected officials that bus driver pay is a top priority. School bus
drivers are the first and last school system employee many students see each
day. It’s only fair to make sure they are paid adequately enough so that they
want to continue transporting students safely and in a timely manner.