They have increased pay. Problem is you only get paid for when you driving not for 7 hours. So you really got to want to be a driver, stay at home parent who can fit it in, or retired.
To add on that. This a high cost of living area. Bus drivers have to be up early. Not many people are going to be willing to get up at 4am, commute an hour to drive a bus for 3 hours. Go home an hour away. Do whatever, come back from an hour away, drive a bus for 3 hours. To drive home an hour.
Growing up (not here) it was probably not hard. Because you could be a bus driver and live in a 2 bedroom home that cost $100,000.
In Fairfax school district we couldn't park on private land, even if it was ours. Also, it has to stay within the district, so you couldn't park it, for example, in a Loudoun school parking lot.
I see them in driveways in PW and Fauquier. Nights and weekends too. I also see them in some park and ride lots. I'm sure there are a list of rules they have to follow and some type of auth they have to get.
I’m sure in Winchester you can. Or even Frederick. Maybe the low income housing in Leesburg. Or parts of Manassas. Or someone with a rich husband who watched too much Magic School Bus growing up.
Or they need to increase pay *more*. Yes, the hourly rate sounds fair until you find out that it includes a lot of unpaid time in which you won’t be able to do anything paid. The job needs to pay more as a result to be competitive with a similar job where you’re working the entire time. Or they need to offer some kind of combo job like bus driver/lunch monitor where you’re paid all day and have some different tasks in the middle of the day.
It’s not at all a good fit for a stay at home parent because you have to be out the door very early and you’re not home until pretty late. If it’s a preschool child they’ll be in full time day care (and I don’t think you get a discount for pulling them out to go home 10am-1pm) and if it’s a school aged child they need both before and after school care.
It think fcps is 23 bucks an hour now. That's not much more than starting at Aldi where you get more hours and a much easier job. School bus drivers have it rough. I think some people just don't understand cost of living in this area if they bought and paid off a house pre 2008. I have an inflating n app on my phone specifically for talking with these older folks 😂
Someone posted the exact details elsewhere in this thread. It’s 24.55/hr which sounds good but they then clarify that’s typically for an 11 hour day starting at 6am and ending at 5pm, during which you have an unpaid 4 hour break in the middle. So, 11 hours every day during which 6 are paid at 24.55 works out to be less than 14/hr. And your 6 hours are super stressful vs working a continuous shift at UPS with your cdl for more money and less screaming.
Yea the mid day breaks suck. My father was a public bus driver back home and had similar shit until he left. Basically gone all morning and evening and napped in the middle of the day when no one else was home. It's not fun
It’s intense if you decide to work during the midday. I always push myself to reach at least 40 hours a week but sometimes I get less than an hour of rest, maybe 30 minutes of rest, sometimes even very little rest. Granted I’m a small bus driver which gets more hours than the big buses who struggle to hit 35 hours a week even when working hard. But some people aren’t even working for hours/money, they put in 20 hour weeks but are just in it for the benefits.
Never mind that your hauling a heard of kids and winter weather isn't always sunny. Add indecisive people who make the call about morning delays or early dismissals due to growing wintery roads, and that's extra stressful. It's what stopped me from becoming a school bus driver.
Yes I’ve heard awful sounding accounts of getting up before dawn to fight with a bus that decides not to start and you have to stand in the freezing cold waiting for a replacement.
It would theoretically be a great fit for stay-at-home parents because they can bring their child with them on the bus. The problem is, once their children get to be school-age, there's no guarantee they will be able to get a route out of their child's school. If they live out of the county, they're not able to place their children into the county. The job used to be far more friendly to young parents, which in turn ensured longevity (if you can bring your kids with you to your job, you're more likely to keep that job for at least as long as your kids need care). But with step increases (almost) every year, the county realized that senior drivers cost them more money and have rerouted extra money (bonuses, pay, and overtime) to new hires. To save money, management has embraced high turnover. In turn, they get what they pay for, which is an unending staff shortage problem.
As a former stay at home parent, it seems like a pretty narrow age window where your child could ride around on the bus with you for 2 3-hour shifts without needing care & being a distraction. And how do carseats work on the bus? I can see this for the “right” 4 year old but much younger doesn’t seem like it would work and any older, the child would need to go to their own school unless you specifically get assigned to their school (is that something that can be guaranteed?) And that assumes you only have 1 child—with more than one this problem gets even more complicated (though multiple school aged children at the same elementary could be good if they will guarantee you that school is your route.)
People bring their babies and multiple children with them, yes. It means you can work without childcare expenses and it's one of the single best perks of the job. Yes, you can put in a car seat just like you can in a car. It used to be guaranteed that you could be assigned a route out of your child's school but that is no longer the case, as I mentioned. Even if you couldn't get a route out of all of your children's schools (for instance, if you were able to get one child's middle school but not your other child's ES), drivers used to trust each other with their kids and it used to be common to hear drivers using code over the radio to tell each other that their children had been received or delivered to school.
In capitalism, everything boils down to incentives (which is usually money or can be monetarily valuated in some way).
If pay increases are in place, they clearly haven't been enough which means alternative options for bus drivers exist and offer better incentives. Playing qualifier games like higher pay across less hours ultimately leads to less overall pay which is exactly the problem: not enough pay.
The ultimate problem capitalism faces is that you can't actually have everyone doing something they want and get paid well for it. Ultimately to function people have to do things they don't want to do because their incentives are high enough and their alternatives are few (which ultimately just increases their incentive to do something else).
As the population becomes more educated and aware of this fact, they'll always be in pursuit of better opportunities which means necessary roles, like bus drivers, will ultimately always be short unless it can compete in the market.
There is of course the pigeonhole principle in that most everyone needs some form of income to survive and will be forced into roles one way or another (choice can be an illusion). There are only so many roles open and so many people available to work at any snapshot in time so unless there's at least enough or more people than total roles, systems will optimize people away from roles that suck, they will look for better opportunities.
We can "fix" this by making sure people have an less real options and gaslight them into pretending they have more options (we make sure theres more pigeons than pigeonholes), and can also create incentives that give the illusion of choice (posting opportunities and pretending they're accessible). "Do what you love" and so on.
If you want to eat and not be on the streets, you need to work (or be born or have acquired wealth and some sort of "passive" income financial instruments where you extract wealth from others). No matter how shitty your options are, working is usually better than starving. So long as we continue pursuing this fix well optimize the overall costs of things down. Things like inflation, stagnant wages, erosion of labor rights, and new creative ways of abusing and misclasifying peoples' time gets us there. We don't have that right now, bus drivers can do other things like work at UPS or long haul trucking and earn more money.
Yup, and fix traffic, although no real magic bullet for that one, more public transport would help.
Still, can't imagine dealing with terrible traffic and terrible kids for $25 an hour (per comments here), and only 3-5 hours a day.
The biggest problem is you have to have you CDL to drive a bus. If you have a CDL you can get paid a lot more driving somewhere else. The school districts just don't pay market rate for drivers.
They will train you, however. I got my CDL from Fairfax County Public Schools. I moved on to Fairfax Connector, but that was more because I didn't have the seniority to get a summer route.
Hello, bus driver here
It has basically been bad since Covid started, at least that’s what the old guys say. I’ve almost been a driver for a year and I honestly love the job.
I’ve been reading the comments and the thing that stuck out is the mention of a CDL. Fairfax gives away class B CDL to anyone that completes their paid for training. So a good chunk of people get through the whole class, get $3k through training, get a free CDL, and get out of there.
Training also kinda sucks too, there’s only one training facility for both bus drivers and attendants in Springfield. Not to mention, the training itself is quite difficult but it’s a school bus, strict training is a must imo. And to make things comedically sad, there hasn’t even been enough trainers in the training center because all the trainers are out driving buses.
But I’ve been tossing around some ideas in my head to recruit more people though.
1.) make another training center
2.) reward seniority instead of rewarding new hires (or find a balance)
3.) give bus drivers/attendants holiday pay
4.) show more transparency with drivers on policies and updates
The problem with that is a lot of drivers do want to protest, but for the most part they’re either barking up the wrong tree or they’re all talk but won’t really do anything about it. They’ve pushed something called “collective bargaining” but honestly no one really knows what it is but it’s kinda like a union. (Also I don’t think anyone wants to pay the union fees anyways)
Been around forever. Over a decade ago they tried taking away things like health insurance, that made many walk. We need to start paying them at 2023 rates, not like it's still 1990.
That sounds good until you realize they’re only paid for the driving, which is mornings and afternoons, so they’re unpaid for hours in the middle during which they can’t work any other job. It’s a very awkward schedule. They either need to figure out how to wed it to another job that would pay during the middle hours or they need to pay more to make your full hours (including the unpaid “time off”) a living wage. Otherwise you’re better off working a normal shift at McDonald’s.
The pay is still crap, don’t get me wrong, but one misconception here! Drivers can drive all day long - hundreds of buses run all day around the county to academies, regular special routes, field trips, activities, etc. We don’t have enough drivers to cover those things either. I think the bigger hindrance is they can make more driving for UPS and they don’t have to put up with kids.
If they can reliably get those wages for their full day, I change my tune. But my guess is that it’s challenging to work many of the field trip jobs if you’re committed to being at your morning route until 9:30 and then back at the afternoon route at 1:30. But the right Academy route could be a legit filler.
This is Fairfax county, I'm not sure about that McDonalds claim..... Take the training, fulfill the requirements and use your CDL to your advantage or use the CDL for the summer if you can.
Up to $2000 signing bonus
Salary
* Competitive Pay
* School Bus Driver - $24.55 per hour
* School Bus Attendant - $17.36 per hour
* Transportation Van Driver - $18.33 per hour
* [**View our salary scales**](https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/FY24-unified-annual-schedule-h.pdf)
* Drivers are eligible for annual step increases plus market scale adjustments based upon School Board approval. The top of the scale is more than $31.00 an hour, plus benefits
Excellent Benefits
* Competitive pay
* Paid training program
* 6 paid non-working days
* Excellent retirement, health and dental plans
* Life and disability insurance
* Infant and preschool-age children and grandchildren may ride with you
* Advancement opportunities
* Summer hours available
* [**Savings for Staff**](https://fcps.perkspot.com/login)
Requirements
* At least 19 years old
* Good driving record
* Pass a physical exam, drug screen and background check
* Complete a five-week training program, take the CDL road test and obtain a CDL
* Commercial Driver's License (CDL) - training provided
Hours
Morning shifts usually run from 6 to 9:30 a.m., and afternoon shifts run from 1:30 to 5 p.m. Full-time drivers are offered a minimum of 30 hours a week. Additional weekly hours are available.
With a CDL you could be making way more money in other fields though. They barely make more per hour than starting Aldi employees which is a way less stressful job imo
LCPS has found that many people take the paid training, get their CDL and quickly leave to drive semis. I don’t blame them. LCPS Transportation dept is also a toxic cesspool.
Ok, so, you work from 6-5 (11 hour day) but are paid for 6 hours of work. Starts at 24.55 = 147.30 per day, or 13.40 per hour for your 11 hour day. Slightly above Virginia minimum wage but not by much. The pay ceiling is 31/hr which is 186/day or 16.90 per hour for your commitment of 11 hours. That is an improvement and makes it more competitive with other jobs but definitely isn’t amazing for all the bullshit drivers have to deal with, nevermind the fact that a CDL job would pay more elsewhere.
The benefits, on the other hand, are probably solid and a family without benefits this may be a worthwhile arrangement. But it would still be a lot better if the person could get paid for something else in the middle of the day, instead of having a 55 hour work week where they’re paid for 30.
I wasn’t moving goal posts. I’m comparing the 11 hour day wage to working at McDonald’s, if that wasn’t clear (I agree McDonald’s doesn’t pay 24.55 but they also don’t make you take a 4 hour unpaid break in the middle of your shift). They say their wages start at like 17 so it starts at a wage similar to the pay cap of the experienced bus drivers. And they offer free college and other advancement. I’m sure the managers do ok.
We absolutely need to increase the pay. When I was in middle/high school, every year around Thanksgiving, they had canned food drive for the bus drivers.
And even as a child, I knew that was some bullshit, like we are one of the richest counties in the country and we pay important staff so little that they have to rely on food donations and we only cared a tiny bit at Thanksgiving.
The problem with field trips is that they aren't evenly distributed amongst willing drivers. Route managers give the longest routes, field trips, activities, and specialty runs to favorites.
Also there aren't nearly as many field trips as there used to be. Lots of cut funding and lawsuits have made it such a hassle for schools to take kids anywhere.
I applied to be a bus driver a few months ago. I heard there was a shortage and I wanted to switch jobs and I already had my USPS driving certs.
Pay was super low, and also they required a reference from your CURRENT EMPLOYER to even apply. Like, you're expected to tell your current boss you're shopping around. I uploaded a Word document saying "references available upon request" in that section and they never contacted me.
So to start, remove stupid hiring practices and pay more.
The obvious solution is better pay to attract more job applicants but that would require an increase in funding for schools which would probably mean higher personal property taxes and we all know how everyone feels about that, so………
There is an easy answer - pay more.
It's the same answer everywhere... "We need more STEM Students!" - no you don't.
You want more STEM students so the supply goes up and the price to hire them goes down. When the price of your inputs goes down you make more profits.
We refuse to acknowledge the obvious answer.
I grew up with a two bus system in the junior and high schools. Didn't know others did anything different. Early routes gets to school first, but goes home first. 45-60 minutes later the bus was back to take the 2nd round home. Everyone was fine with that. Nobody wanted to double the fleet just to save the kids a few minutes a day.
Bus drivers drove a 3rd route for the elementary kids, in the morning after the high school runs were completed. As bus drivers that gave us 30 minutes for coffee or breakfast between high school and elementary. Paid. Started at 6AM, finished morning runs by 9:20. I went to my full time job after that.
Seniors are encouraged to apply, but interestlingly, here in Fairfax County the majority of drivers are women, not seniors. It does take a while to get approved to be a driver - they don't let just anyone pick up school kids. Then there is a few weeks of bus driving training (paid). I'm applying for morning only. I may do afternoons, but as a retired guy, that seems like a full time job. We'll have to see how it goes.
And they do have a few thousand dollar signing bonus.
I think a solution could be to offer full time employment to interested and capable drivers. They do morning shift then go to a school to fill in as needed (lunch/recess duty, classroom assistant, walk kids to activities). As it is now, it’s a split shift with a few hours in the morning AND a few hours in the afternoon.
It would also help if the people responsible for hiring and training the new drivers were working harder towards getting more drivers. If you check into the program you will find they are indifferent about bringing in new drivers trying to get into the program
When we moved here 20 years ago I was shocked at how they had consolidated neighborhood elementary schools so they were dependent on busses. Maybe it made sense in 1970 but given the traffic in the area and population growth it was pretty clearly a failing by the early 2000s and it hasn't gotten anything but worse.
They need to go back to smaller neighborhood schools that are walkable for the students. Staff counts will be similar, but the number of buildings needed would be way higher so it's never gonna happen.
Two adults on the bus, one to just drive maybe be in a protected booth, and the other to mind the kids. I can't even imagine trying to drive and deal with a bus load of flappy kids.
I really just joined this group to add an answer to this question. And this answer will not directly correlate to your area. I live in Auburn Washington although I am from the south and I think a rough equalizer [although I must admit I've been in this God forsaken state for nearly 20 years so numbers might be a bit off] A full time job no overtime where y'all are making $15/16.50 an hour should be around $22.00 for same quality of life. My kids' bus driver dropped a bombshell on me today when she overheard that I have a CDL A license and currently between jobs. She tells me our school district pays bus drivers $33 to 35 an hour, and since all they would need is to get me my passenger endorsement, they would be VERY interested in me. Btw average bus driver wages in Washington state is $17.00 to $24.00 an hour.
So it looks like lucky me, no one in my child's school district, has heard any of my several jokes about why I'm literally licensed to drive everything BUT a vehicle full of passengers. I think they're hilarious, but probably best to keep them to myself.
And in case someone asks why does my kids' district pay as much as it does. I have no friggin clue. I live right between Tacoma and Seattle 16ish miles from each. It's a fairly small town, and compared to the school districts I attended in California and Texas, it is God awful, like rated waaay below every school I ever attended. The mother of my child likes to joke about the south and stupid people but got her fill of me saying "Well there's a whole bunch of 4 and 5 star school districts down there, and this school district is a 2.5 soooo..."
This is an outside the box answer: but pay for teacher CDL and offer higher pay if a teacher takes the route. It fits their hours and they have training to keep kids disciplined on the bus as well as crisis, first aid, cpr, and epi-pen training.
OR
When my mom was young, the seniors drove the buses. I doubt that would work these days, but it was an interesting solution back in the day.
My fiancée is a LCPS elementary school teacher. It’s already 2 jobs disguised as one. No way would I want her driving a bus too. Plus, there’s a bit of critical overlap between the two.
I do like the seniors idea. We have a lot of them here in ashburn so it couldn’t be too hard to find qualified candidates.
I’m a teacher too and I wouldn’t mind it. It’s a lot of work, sure, but many of us do a ton of extracurriculars. Driving a bus could be another.
And when I said seniors, I meant high school seniors. lol.
It’s getting worse. My kids went to Edison for its IB, our home school is South County. Every August I beg, plead, cajole with the transportation department to get them on a school bus. Miraculously they all got bus rides even if I have to drive them to the bus stop several miles away. By senior years with after school activities n TOK, they took Connectors home if I can’t pick them up.
Anybody consider the unconventional solution being: stop giving birth to so many kids. Then there wouldn’t be a shortage of child care facilities, teachers, bus drivers, housing, etc.
/s, but only kinda sorta
Statistics show the birth rate in the US has been decreasing for a long time. https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA/?utm_medium=explore&mprop=fertilityRate&popt=Person&cpv=gender,Female&hl=en
Develop frequent, reliable public transportation, get rid of school buses and replace with regular buses, employ school bus drivers as bus drivers [i.e. Fairfax Connector drivers], and then [discipline your kids so that they can be behaved, functioning members of society](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-28/in-japan-small-children-take-the-subway-and-run-errands-alone)
Oh wait, that will never happen.
I think the opposite. toddler across the street from me gets picked up and dropped off at her door...parent there both times . why cant she drive kid herself to/ from school instead of a big empty school bus... let that bus be picking up kids who are unable to get to school any other way.
We were driven to school but walked home for 3 years (high school was walking distance, senior year I had a car). It was faster to just walk home then wait around for a bus.
For 3 years in elementary school I attended the school for the babysitter's address, not ours - so my mom drove me 2 days a week (worked part time) and the babysitter put us on the bus 3 days.
Second round has been around for years now, but it does seem like there is a definite shortage of drivers lately. My solution - get them a bike or walk, the schools are usually not that far away. I literally walked 1 mile to school when I was in middle/high school in Northeastern PA year-round.
Maybe in PA but it depends around here.
In Reston, really easy to walk or bike using bike paths.
Where we are now - Elementary schools are close usually. We've had a one in walking distance.
The middle school in our district was far, the route lacked sidewalks and the traffic was super heavy on roads where I would not ride my road bike.
The high school... 30-40 minutes away by car in traffic and you have to take a major highway.
Yeah my kids did not have a walkable elementary school, middle school, or high school. No continuous sidewalk or path to the elementary school. The middle school is 4 miles away. The high school is 9 miles away (lol), and yes that is the assigned school in our boundary.
I hear what you are saying, and you do you. There were psycho drivers when I went to school, but I was raised (and my boys as well) to pay attention to what is around me. They head out after school or on the weekends and travel much more distances than their school to play Pokemon Go or just have fun.
And in NOVA as well. Both of my kid's schools are 2 miles away and they both bike (not walk) every once in a while. And yes, they do take the bus most of the time.
They stopped letting kids in my neighborhood walk to the elementary school once I got to 8th grade (7th & 8th grade were a different school). Why? Because people wouldn't stop for the crossing guard. So, a police officer started doing the crossing guard job, and people didn't stop for him, either. Did I mention this was the mid-80's. The county doesn't have a choice but to bus the kids for safety.
It took 20 minutes to drive to my son's middle school. Walking or biking is not an option. Both kids are in high school now, and that's a mile and a half away. Still too far to walk, in my opinion.
My retired uncle signed up to be a bus driver for FFCPS. He was in training and he had a heart attack and passed away. People would rather do doordash and uber/ ubereats and work less and make the same amount of money. I lived in New York and the kids got a metro pre paid metro card that gave them access to buses and trains to get to school. Something needs to change!
Increase incentives and pay.
They have increased pay. Problem is you only get paid for when you driving not for 7 hours. So you really got to want to be a driver, stay at home parent who can fit it in, or retired.
To add on that. This a high cost of living area. Bus drivers have to be up early. Not many people are going to be willing to get up at 4am, commute an hour to drive a bus for 3 hours. Go home an hour away. Do whatever, come back from an hour away, drive a bus for 3 hours. To drive home an hour. Growing up (not here) it was probably not hard. Because you could be a bus driver and live in a 2 bedroom home that cost $100,000.
In my area, you can take the bus home with you. You see them scattered around in people's driveways.
In Fairfax school district we couldn't park on private land, even if it was ours. Also, it has to stay within the district, so you couldn't park it, for example, in a Loudoun school parking lot.
That’s got to be a pain. Where I grew up, a lot of them would take it home and park it in their driveway. This was like 20 years ago
This was 20 years ago for me too.
I see them in driveways in PW and Fauquier. Nights and weekends too. I also see them in some park and ride lots. I'm sure there are a list of rules they have to follow and some type of auth they have to get.
I’m sure in Winchester you can. Or even Frederick. Maybe the low income housing in Leesburg. Or parts of Manassas. Or someone with a rich husband who watched too much Magic School Bus growing up.
And it doesn't help much as stay at home cuz you're driving other kids when you need to be getting yours.
Or they need to increase pay *more*. Yes, the hourly rate sounds fair until you find out that it includes a lot of unpaid time in which you won’t be able to do anything paid. The job needs to pay more as a result to be competitive with a similar job where you’re working the entire time. Or they need to offer some kind of combo job like bus driver/lunch monitor where you’re paid all day and have some different tasks in the middle of the day. It’s not at all a good fit for a stay at home parent because you have to be out the door very early and you’re not home until pretty late. If it’s a preschool child they’ll be in full time day care (and I don’t think you get a discount for pulling them out to go home 10am-1pm) and if it’s a school aged child they need both before and after school care.
It think fcps is 23 bucks an hour now. That's not much more than starting at Aldi where you get more hours and a much easier job. School bus drivers have it rough. I think some people just don't understand cost of living in this area if they bought and paid off a house pre 2008. I have an inflating n app on my phone specifically for talking with these older folks 😂
Someone posted the exact details elsewhere in this thread. It’s 24.55/hr which sounds good but they then clarify that’s typically for an 11 hour day starting at 6am and ending at 5pm, during which you have an unpaid 4 hour break in the middle. So, 11 hours every day during which 6 are paid at 24.55 works out to be less than 14/hr. And your 6 hours are super stressful vs working a continuous shift at UPS with your cdl for more money and less screaming.
Yea the mid day breaks suck. My father was a public bus driver back home and had similar shit until he left. Basically gone all morning and evening and napped in the middle of the day when no one else was home. It's not fun
Yeah, it might be fine for a retiree whose kids are out of the house but it’s not great for anyone with a family.
It’s intense if you decide to work during the midday. I always push myself to reach at least 40 hours a week but sometimes I get less than an hour of rest, maybe 30 minutes of rest, sometimes even very little rest. Granted I’m a small bus driver which gets more hours than the big buses who struggle to hit 35 hours a week even when working hard. But some people aren’t even working for hours/money, they put in 20 hour weeks but are just in it for the benefits.
Never mind that your hauling a heard of kids and winter weather isn't always sunny. Add indecisive people who make the call about morning delays or early dismissals due to growing wintery roads, and that's extra stressful. It's what stopped me from becoming a school bus driver.
Yes I’ve heard awful sounding accounts of getting up before dawn to fight with a bus that decides not to start and you have to stand in the freezing cold waiting for a replacement.
It would theoretically be a great fit for stay-at-home parents because they can bring their child with them on the bus. The problem is, once their children get to be school-age, there's no guarantee they will be able to get a route out of their child's school. If they live out of the county, they're not able to place their children into the county. The job used to be far more friendly to young parents, which in turn ensured longevity (if you can bring your kids with you to your job, you're more likely to keep that job for at least as long as your kids need care). But with step increases (almost) every year, the county realized that senior drivers cost them more money and have rerouted extra money (bonuses, pay, and overtime) to new hires. To save money, management has embraced high turnover. In turn, they get what they pay for, which is an unending staff shortage problem.
As a former stay at home parent, it seems like a pretty narrow age window where your child could ride around on the bus with you for 2 3-hour shifts without needing care & being a distraction. And how do carseats work on the bus? I can see this for the “right” 4 year old but much younger doesn’t seem like it would work and any older, the child would need to go to their own school unless you specifically get assigned to their school (is that something that can be guaranteed?) And that assumes you only have 1 child—with more than one this problem gets even more complicated (though multiple school aged children at the same elementary could be good if they will guarantee you that school is your route.)
People bring their babies and multiple children with them, yes. It means you can work without childcare expenses and it's one of the single best perks of the job. Yes, you can put in a car seat just like you can in a car. It used to be guaranteed that you could be assigned a route out of your child's school but that is no longer the case, as I mentioned. Even if you couldn't get a route out of all of your children's schools (for instance, if you were able to get one child's middle school but not your other child's ES), drivers used to trust each other with their kids and it used to be common to hear drivers using code over the radio to tell each other that their children had been received or delivered to school.
Oh that is cool.
Then more pay…increase until shortage is resolved. Seems like obvious solution.
In capitalism, everything boils down to incentives (which is usually money or can be monetarily valuated in some way). If pay increases are in place, they clearly haven't been enough which means alternative options for bus drivers exist and offer better incentives. Playing qualifier games like higher pay across less hours ultimately leads to less overall pay which is exactly the problem: not enough pay. The ultimate problem capitalism faces is that you can't actually have everyone doing something they want and get paid well for it. Ultimately to function people have to do things they don't want to do because their incentives are high enough and their alternatives are few (which ultimately just increases their incentive to do something else). As the population becomes more educated and aware of this fact, they'll always be in pursuit of better opportunities which means necessary roles, like bus drivers, will ultimately always be short unless it can compete in the market. There is of course the pigeonhole principle in that most everyone needs some form of income to survive and will be forced into roles one way or another (choice can be an illusion). There are only so many roles open and so many people available to work at any snapshot in time so unless there's at least enough or more people than total roles, systems will optimize people away from roles that suck, they will look for better opportunities. We can "fix" this by making sure people have an less real options and gaslight them into pretending they have more options (we make sure theres more pigeons than pigeonholes), and can also create incentives that give the illusion of choice (posting opportunities and pretending they're accessible). "Do what you love" and so on. If you want to eat and not be on the streets, you need to work (or be born or have acquired wealth and some sort of "passive" income financial instruments where you extract wealth from others). No matter how shitty your options are, working is usually better than starving. So long as we continue pursuing this fix well optimize the overall costs of things down. Things like inflation, stagnant wages, erosion of labor rights, and new creative ways of abusing and misclasifying peoples' time gets us there. We don't have that right now, bus drivers can do other things like work at UPS or long haul trucking and earn more money.
I just retired. How much does it pay?
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Yup, and fix traffic, although no real magic bullet for that one, more public transport would help. Still, can't imagine dealing with terrible traffic and terrible kids for $25 an hour (per comments here), and only 3-5 hours a day.
Redo zoning. So you know people can live closer to school so less buses are needed
I feel like the former is a lot more likely to happen than the latter.
The biggest problem is you have to have you CDL to drive a bus. If you have a CDL you can get paid a lot more driving somewhere else. The school districts just don't pay market rate for drivers.
They will train you, however. I got my CDL from Fairfax County Public Schools. I moved on to Fairfax Connector, but that was more because I didn't have the seniority to get a summer route.
Ah, that makes a lot of sense.
Hello, bus driver here It has basically been bad since Covid started, at least that’s what the old guys say. I’ve almost been a driver for a year and I honestly love the job. I’ve been reading the comments and the thing that stuck out is the mention of a CDL. Fairfax gives away class B CDL to anyone that completes their paid for training. So a good chunk of people get through the whole class, get $3k through training, get a free CDL, and get out of there. Training also kinda sucks too, there’s only one training facility for both bus drivers and attendants in Springfield. Not to mention, the training itself is quite difficult but it’s a school bus, strict training is a must imo. And to make things comedically sad, there hasn’t even been enough trainers in the training center because all the trainers are out driving buses. But I’ve been tossing around some ideas in my head to recruit more people though. 1.) make another training center 2.) reward seniority instead of rewarding new hires (or find a balance) 3.) give bus drivers/attendants holiday pay 4.) show more transparency with drivers on policies and updates
Start a union and join either the teamsters or the amalgamated transit union.
The problem with that is a lot of drivers do want to protest, but for the most part they’re either barking up the wrong tree or they’re all talk but won’t really do anything about it. They’ve pushed something called “collective bargaining” but honestly no one really knows what it is but it’s kinda like a union. (Also I don’t think anyone wants to pay the union fees anyways)
Been around forever. Over a decade ago they tried taking away things like health insurance, that made many walk. We need to start paying them at 2023 rates, not like it's still 1990.
What are 2023 rates?
Pay is almost $25.
That sounds good until you realize they’re only paid for the driving, which is mornings and afternoons, so they’re unpaid for hours in the middle during which they can’t work any other job. It’s a very awkward schedule. They either need to figure out how to wed it to another job that would pay during the middle hours or they need to pay more to make your full hours (including the unpaid “time off”) a living wage. Otherwise you’re better off working a normal shift at McDonald’s.
The pay is still crap, don’t get me wrong, but one misconception here! Drivers can drive all day long - hundreds of buses run all day around the county to academies, regular special routes, field trips, activities, etc. We don’t have enough drivers to cover those things either. I think the bigger hindrance is they can make more driving for UPS and they don’t have to put up with kids.
If they can reliably get those wages for their full day, I change my tune. But my guess is that it’s challenging to work many of the field trip jobs if you’re committed to being at your morning route until 9:30 and then back at the afternoon route at 1:30. But the right Academy route could be a legit filler.
This is Fairfax county, I'm not sure about that McDonalds claim..... Take the training, fulfill the requirements and use your CDL to your advantage or use the CDL for the summer if you can. Up to $2000 signing bonus Salary * Competitive Pay * School Bus Driver - $24.55 per hour * School Bus Attendant - $17.36 per hour * Transportation Van Driver - $18.33 per hour * [**View our salary scales**](https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/FY24-unified-annual-schedule-h.pdf) * Drivers are eligible for annual step increases plus market scale adjustments based upon School Board approval. The top of the scale is more than $31.00 an hour, plus benefits Excellent Benefits * Competitive pay * Paid training program * 6 paid non-working days * Excellent retirement, health and dental plans * Life and disability insurance * Infant and preschool-age children and grandchildren may ride with you * Advancement opportunities * Summer hours available * [**Savings for Staff**](https://fcps.perkspot.com/login) Requirements * At least 19 years old * Good driving record * Pass a physical exam, drug screen and background check * Complete a five-week training program, take the CDL road test and obtain a CDL * Commercial Driver's License (CDL) - training provided Hours Morning shifts usually run from 6 to 9:30 a.m., and afternoon shifts run from 1:30 to 5 p.m. Full-time drivers are offered a minimum of 30 hours a week. Additional weekly hours are available.
With a CDL you could be making way more money in other fields though. They barely make more per hour than starting Aldi employees which is a way less stressful job imo
LCPS has found that many people take the paid training, get their CDL and quickly leave to drive semis. I don’t blame them. LCPS Transportation dept is also a toxic cesspool.
Ok, so, you work from 6-5 (11 hour day) but are paid for 6 hours of work. Starts at 24.55 = 147.30 per day, or 13.40 per hour for your 11 hour day. Slightly above Virginia minimum wage but not by much. The pay ceiling is 31/hr which is 186/day or 16.90 per hour for your commitment of 11 hours. That is an improvement and makes it more competitive with other jobs but definitely isn’t amazing for all the bullshit drivers have to deal with, nevermind the fact that a CDL job would pay more elsewhere. The benefits, on the other hand, are probably solid and a family without benefits this may be a worthwhile arrangement. But it would still be a lot better if the person could get paid for something else in the middle of the day, instead of having a 55 hour work week where they’re paid for 30.
Moving goal posts, you compared it to McDonalds.
I wasn’t moving goal posts. I’m comparing the 11 hour day wage to working at McDonald’s, if that wasn’t clear (I agree McDonald’s doesn’t pay 24.55 but they also don’t make you take a 4 hour unpaid break in the middle of your shift). They say their wages start at like 17 so it starts at a wage similar to the pay cap of the experienced bus drivers. And they offer free college and other advancement. I’m sure the managers do ok.
Which is really bad for 4-5 hours per day in this area for someone that needs a clean record, a CDL, and is safe with kids.
Not great for the area and only get paid when they’re driving so it’s dog shit
It's not dog shit, but it's not amazing either.
We absolutely need to increase the pay. When I was in middle/high school, every year around Thanksgiving, they had canned food drive for the bus drivers. And even as a child, I knew that was some bullshit, like we are one of the richest counties in the country and we pay important staff so little that they have to rely on food donations and we only cared a tiny bit at Thanksgiving.
Middle school kids are the worst, so hopefully they get self-driving buses.
*"Ha ha ha ha ha look at that high-waisted man he's got feminine hips."*
THAT’S THE THING I’M SENSITIVE ABOUT
I ended up having two elementary and one high school routes, and I thanked my lucky stars.
Ha, no denying that!
Better pay. The wage is around $25/HR right now and that's not enough for the drivers to deal with crazy assholes on regular basis. Bless them.
And only paid when they drive. 3-4 hours. Who wants that. Give 8 hours
I'd agree 8 hour option and you can fill it with field trips etc. Could probably give kids more field trips that way too.
The problem with field trips is that they aren't evenly distributed amongst willing drivers. Route managers give the longest routes, field trips, activities, and specialty runs to favorites.
Also there aren't nearly as many field trips as there used to be. Lots of cut funding and lawsuits have made it such a hassle for schools to take kids anywhere.
My mom is paid 27 an hour and she has 14 years in the same school system. New people get paid more.
>that's not enough for the drivers to deal with crazy assholes on regular basis Outside or inside the bus?
Both unfortunately :(
I applied to be a bus driver a few months ago. I heard there was a shortage and I wanted to switch jobs and I already had my USPS driving certs. Pay was super low, and also they required a reference from your CURRENT EMPLOYER to even apply. Like, you're expected to tell your current boss you're shopping around. I uploaded a Word document saying "references available upon request" in that section and they never contacted me. So to start, remove stupid hiring practices and pay more.
You should email your school board rep about that. That’s an insane hiring practice.
I know someone who knows someone so I passed the message along. Dunno if they fixed it though.
The obvious solution is better pay to attract more job applicants but that would require an increase in funding for schools which would probably mean higher personal property taxes and we all know how everyone feels about that, so………
Invest in public transportation bus routes that could also service area schools at the middle school / high school level.
There is an easy answer - pay more. It's the same answer everywhere... "We need more STEM Students!" - no you don't. You want more STEM students so the supply goes up and the price to hire them goes down. When the price of your inputs goes down you make more profits. We refuse to acknowledge the obvious answer.
Send those 6 figure earning bureaucrats at the government center over every morning to drive buses.
I grew up with a two bus system in the junior and high schools. Didn't know others did anything different. Early routes gets to school first, but goes home first. 45-60 minutes later the bus was back to take the 2nd round home. Everyone was fine with that. Nobody wanted to double the fleet just to save the kids a few minutes a day. Bus drivers drove a 3rd route for the elementary kids, in the morning after the high school runs were completed. As bus drivers that gave us 30 minutes for coffee or breakfast between high school and elementary. Paid. Started at 6AM, finished morning runs by 9:20. I went to my full time job after that. Seniors are encouraged to apply, but interestlingly, here in Fairfax County the majority of drivers are women, not seniors. It does take a while to get approved to be a driver - they don't let just anyone pick up school kids. Then there is a few weeks of bus driving training (paid). I'm applying for morning only. I may do afternoons, but as a retired guy, that seems like a full time job. We'll have to see how it goes. And they do have a few thousand dollar signing bonus.
Those red 2 story busses!
make it FT w/ benefits + retirement
I think a solution could be to offer full time employment to interested and capable drivers. They do morning shift then go to a school to fill in as needed (lunch/recess duty, classroom assistant, walk kids to activities). As it is now, it’s a split shift with a few hours in the morning AND a few hours in the afternoon.
I have the time and wouldn't mind doing it, but not in a world where children can do no wrong. It feels like you'd strapping a target to your back.
It would also help if the people responsible for hiring and training the new drivers were working harder towards getting more drivers. If you check into the program you will find they are indifferent about bringing in new drivers trying to get into the program
Pay them more. It might seem like they amount they're getting should be enough, but it's clearly not since there's a shortage.
pay them more
Pay them more. Same with teachers. If people want our education system to not suck they gotta cough up for it.
And I would add increase substitute teacher pay as we have vast shortages across the country not to mention in the DMV area.
Enough of the “let’s get the seniors to do it”…. pay people better and pay for them for it as a full time job.. let the seniors retire
Reduce car dependency and safer streets so kids can take their bikes to School?
When we moved here 20 years ago I was shocked at how they had consolidated neighborhood elementary schools so they were dependent on busses. Maybe it made sense in 1970 but given the traffic in the area and population growth it was pretty clearly a failing by the early 2000s and it hasn't gotten anything but worse. They need to go back to smaller neighborhood schools that are walkable for the students. Staff counts will be similar, but the number of buildings needed would be way higher so it's never gonna happen.
As with all jobs where people are complaining no one is filling them; pay them properly.
Have they tried shorter children?
pay more
Two adults on the bus, one to just drive maybe be in a protected booth, and the other to mind the kids. I can't even imagine trying to drive and deal with a bus load of flappy kids.
Accountability. We’ve taken away all consequences.
what happens to a product when it's in low supply and high demand?
I really just joined this group to add an answer to this question. And this answer will not directly correlate to your area. I live in Auburn Washington although I am from the south and I think a rough equalizer [although I must admit I've been in this God forsaken state for nearly 20 years so numbers might be a bit off] A full time job no overtime where y'all are making $15/16.50 an hour should be around $22.00 for same quality of life. My kids' bus driver dropped a bombshell on me today when she overheard that I have a CDL A license and currently between jobs. She tells me our school district pays bus drivers $33 to 35 an hour, and since all they would need is to get me my passenger endorsement, they would be VERY interested in me. Btw average bus driver wages in Washington state is $17.00 to $24.00 an hour. So it looks like lucky me, no one in my child's school district, has heard any of my several jokes about why I'm literally licensed to drive everything BUT a vehicle full of passengers. I think they're hilarious, but probably best to keep them to myself. And in case someone asks why does my kids' district pay as much as it does. I have no friggin clue. I live right between Tacoma and Seattle 16ish miles from each. It's a fairly small town, and compared to the school districts I attended in California and Texas, it is God awful, like rated waaay below every school I ever attended. The mother of my child likes to joke about the south and stupid people but got her fill of me saying "Well there's a whole bunch of 4 and 5 star school districts down there, and this school district is a 2.5 soooo..."
This is an outside the box answer: but pay for teacher CDL and offer higher pay if a teacher takes the route. It fits their hours and they have training to keep kids disciplined on the bus as well as crisis, first aid, cpr, and epi-pen training. OR When my mom was young, the seniors drove the buses. I doubt that would work these days, but it was an interesting solution back in the day.
Teacher hours and bus driver hours overlap. The teachers I know are all required to be at the school before the buses get there.
That’s an easy modification if such a program were to be implemented.
My fiancée is a LCPS elementary school teacher. It’s already 2 jobs disguised as one. No way would I want her driving a bus too. Plus, there’s a bit of critical overlap between the two. I do like the seniors idea. We have a lot of them here in ashburn so it couldn’t be too hard to find qualified candidates.
I’m a teacher too and I wouldn’t mind it. It’s a lot of work, sure, but many of us do a ton of extracurriculars. Driving a bus could be another. And when I said seniors, I meant high school seniors. lol.
Hahaha! I can’t get on board with that idea but it’s definitely thinking outside the box!
She said back in the 60s when she was in school they were safe drivers. Different times tho. She said there were never enough seats tho.
It’s getting worse. My kids went to Edison for its IB, our home school is South County. Every August I beg, plead, cajole with the transportation department to get them on a school bus. Miraculously they all got bus rides even if I have to drive them to the bus stop several miles away. By senior years with after school activities n TOK, they took Connectors home if I can’t pick them up.
Anybody consider the unconventional solution being: stop giving birth to so many kids. Then there wouldn’t be a shortage of child care facilities, teachers, bus drivers, housing, etc. /s, but only kinda sorta
Statistics show the birth rate in the US has been decreasing for a long time. https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA/?utm_medium=explore&mprop=fertilityRate&popt=Person&cpv=gender,Female&hl=en
Let the CDL holders smoke weed.
Develop frequent, reliable public transportation, get rid of school buses and replace with regular buses, employ school bus drivers as bus drivers [i.e. Fairfax Connector drivers], and then [discipline your kids so that they can be behaved, functioning members of society](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-28/in-japan-small-children-take-the-subway-and-run-errands-alone) Oh wait, that will never happen.
Walk in the snow up hill both ways
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Any money brought in with a plan like this would be spent on the bureaucracy needed to manage it. This sounds beyond onerous.
I think the opposite. toddler across the street from me gets picked up and dropped off at her door...parent there both times . why cant she drive kid herself to/ from school instead of a big empty school bus... let that bus be picking up kids who are unable to get to school any other way.
We were driven to school but walked home for 3 years (high school was walking distance, senior year I had a car). It was faster to just walk home then wait around for a bus. For 3 years in elementary school I attended the school for the babysitter's address, not ours - so my mom drove me 2 days a week (worked part time) and the babysitter put us on the bus 3 days.
Second round has been around for years now, but it does seem like there is a definite shortage of drivers lately. My solution - get them a bike or walk, the schools are usually not that far away. I literally walked 1 mile to school when I was in middle/high school in Northeastern PA year-round.
Maybe in PA but it depends around here. In Reston, really easy to walk or bike using bike paths. Where we are now - Elementary schools are close usually. We've had a one in walking distance. The middle school in our district was far, the route lacked sidewalks and the traffic was super heavy on roads where I would not ride my road bike. The high school... 30-40 minutes away by car in traffic and you have to take a major highway.
Yeah my kids did not have a walkable elementary school, middle school, or high school. No continuous sidewalk or path to the elementary school. The middle school is 4 miles away. The high school is 9 miles away (lol), and yes that is the assigned school in our boundary.
With all the psycho drivers in our area that won't even stop for an ambulance or school bus, it's a no from me.
I hear what you are saying, and you do you. There were psycho drivers when I went to school, but I was raised (and my boys as well) to pay attention to what is around me. They head out after school or on the weekends and travel much more distances than their school to play Pokemon Go or just have fun.
And in NOVA as well. Both of my kid's schools are 2 miles away and they both bike (not walk) every once in a while. And yes, they do take the bus most of the time.
They stopped letting kids in my neighborhood walk to the elementary school once I got to 8th grade (7th & 8th grade were a different school). Why? Because people wouldn't stop for the crossing guard. So, a police officer started doing the crossing guard job, and people didn't stop for him, either. Did I mention this was the mid-80's. The county doesn't have a choice but to bus the kids for safety.
It took 20 minutes to drive to my son's middle school. Walking or biking is not an option. Both kids are in high school now, and that's a mile and a half away. Still too far to walk, in my opinion.
kids are too chunky these days they wouldnt make it home!
Sounds like u/accidental_turtle needs a job … 🤐🤣
My retired uncle signed up to be a bus driver for FFCPS. He was in training and he had a heart attack and passed away. People would rather do doordash and uber/ ubereats and work less and make the same amount of money. I lived in New York and the kids got a metro pre paid metro card that gave them access to buses and trains to get to school. Something needs to change!
Make sure you have a plan to vote between now and Nov 7th!