BIXBY, Okla. — Bixby parents will need to find nearly a week of alternate transportation for their students due to a shortage of bus drivers.
Bixby Public Schools says they’re down five drivers making it difficult for them to complete all of their routes.
“I think we’re dealing with what many school districts around Oklahoma certainly in the Tulsa area are dealing with and it’s just a severe shortage of bus drivers,” Bixby Public Schools Superintendent Rob Miller.
Miller says unexpected retirements, resignations and illness have caused the district to be short drivers. They’ve also seen record growth with more than 1,200 new students in the last two years. The district had to add more bus routes to accommodate the growth.
“It’s a good thing,” said Miller. “We want families to want to come to Bixby and to go to our schools. At the same time, it stretches our ability to hire teachers and support staff to meet the needs of all of those kids and families as well.”
Starting Tuesday, Nov. 1, parents will be responsible for 4-5 days of alternate transportation until the end of the semester. Miller says they’re suspending service on four routes each day through Dec. 16.
“We recognized that this is a huge inconvenience for many of our families,” said Miller. If we had a solution, we would be implementing another solution, but this will give us some time hopefully to recruit and train some additional drivers so that we’re able to resume our normal services in January when we come back.”
Miller says there are a few challenges. They’re competing with area school districts for the same few qualified drivers.
“We’re all fishing the same shallow pond and there’s only so many qualified bus drivers out there,” said Miller.
The training, testing and licensing can take up to a month.
“With bus drivers it’s particularly acute just because of the licensing requirements in order to get them behind the wheel of a bus and be able to run those routes,” said Miller. “It just takes some time.”
The pool of substitute drivers isn’t reliable enough.
“We do have a pool of sub drivers, but they’re not always available,” said Miller. “It’s just difficult to plan your routes based upon someone who may or may not be available to cover that.”
Miller says they’ve hired one new driver recently and hope to have all the positions filled so the routes can run as scheduled in January.
You can apply for a job in the district here.
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