“If you want to drive two days a week, only in the mornings, we will work to find somebody who will work those two afternoons a week,” said Kevin Christian, director of public relations for Marion County Public Schools. They have also added the option for flexibility in drivers’ schedules. The district has raised the starting wage to $15.65 an hour. The district noted that routes with absent drivers were covered by other transportation employees, but due to that as well as how some routes were combined or otherwise altered, delays were still to be expected.Ī spokesperson for Marion County Public Schools says they need to hire 19 full-time bus drivers. In Orange County, a spokesperson said the district experienced a 16% absentee rate for bus drivers Friday morning, up from an average of about 10% on any given day. Learn more about the event at the district’s website.Ī spokesperson for Seminole County Public Schools told News 6 that their district did not experience any issues related to bus driver shortages Friday morning. April 19 at the Simpson Road compound in Osceola County. The district’s transportation services department will hold a bus driver job fair from 8 a.m. “There still will be some delays, but it’s looking as though this is going to be a typical day.” “We were anticipating a higher-than-normal number of bus drivers that were going to be out today,” Wheeler said. Randy Wheeler, assistant director of the district’s transportation department, said the 24% figure had eventually fallen to 21% of Osceola routes without drivers later in the morning, which he called “much more manageable.” Additionally, any Osceola student who arrives to school late due to the driver shortage will be excused, the district said. The district also said it notified substitute drivers and has asked trainers to pick up routes to avoid delays.įriday, though the district reported that nearly a quarter of its bus routes were without drivers, Downes said Osceola was not in “dire straits” either. Osceola had already reported a shortage of 40 drivers earlier this week as a spike in sick calls among them put three bus routes at risk, prompting district transportation officials to warn parents. “That doesn’t mean people are going to show up but, hey, you know, we’re gonna work with what we got, we’re going to do the best we can.” “We’ve been reminding them, like, ‘You need to be here on Friday, you have to be here on Friday,’” Downes said. Meantime, families of students in Orange County schools were warned to expect delays in the morning and afternoon “due to a high number of absences.” Osceola School District Transportation Services spokesperson Zach Downes said 24% of bus routes did not have a driver Friday morning. – Officials with multiple public school districts throughout Central Florida are asking parents for patience on Friday due to bus driver callouts ahead of the Easter weekend. On days when Osceola is facing a shortage, Brown gets back behind the wheel to make sure every route is covered.OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. Orange currently needs about 100 drivers, and Seminole County School District needs more than 80. It’s an issue other counties like Orange and Seminole face as well. We also need to account for absenteeism, when people get sick, or they have life-altering situations, so we still need to hire subs,” Downes said. This past year 61 permanent bus drivers were hired and 42 either resigned or were terminated. “And on top of that, we have a new school opening next year which will obviously that will require more routes.” So, there’s a lot of factors that go into this shortage,” Downes said. “There’s multiple housing developments going up down into Narcoossee Road area and then the Celebration area. It’s a number expected to increase due to the growing population in the county. The Osceola School District currently has 227 routes across the county. However, getting them to go through the process, it’s lengthy and then by the time they could complete the process they may have found another job where they don’t have to jump through all these hoops,” Downes said. “We get about 35, I would say an average 35 people every job fair.
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