I'm a JCPS teacher. Deleting magnet schools bus routes is not the answer to driver shortage.
As a Jefferson County Public School teacher of 10 years, I can say without a doubt that the current transportation issues are affecting everyone. Students are coming in late to school every single day. They are getting behind on lessons. They are stressed because they might have to transfer schools just to get a reliable bus route. None of this is conducive to learning.
No, JCPS drivers are not the same as UPS drivers
When I saw the slideshow that JCPS shared regarding the transportation plans suggested for next year, I balked. Comparing JCPS bus drivers to UPS drivers is not even close to the same thing. JCPS bus drivers are transporting children—not Stanley tumblers and dog food. Havertys Furniture Company is also shown as a comparable hourly wage, but we are not transporting tables and chairs. We are transporting children. Furniture doesn’t have feelings and trauma and difficult behaviors. These drivers should be paid commensurate with the job situation to which they are subjected. Bus drivers are transporting our most precious cargo under duress, and they should be paid like it.
Students are missing valuable instruction when they are not in the building on time. Public school students have a right to reliable and consistent transportation to and from school. This should not be a daily issue. Our students deal with enough issues outside of school; they should not have to worry about if their bus is going to show up to take them to school. They should not have to sit and wait around after school for three hours for a bus to show up to take them home.
I'm a JCPS bus driver: We should bus all kids, but drivers need help with unruly students.
Make driving a school bus a safer job
If paying bus drivers more is not an option, then at the very least, we need to put systems in place to make their jobs easier and safer to help with driver retention. Bus monitors need to be placed on every bus. Buses need support staff to manage behavior. If you want to pay our drivers for the job of driving only, then you have to take the job of behavior management off their plate. That is an entirely separate task.
JCPS had many 41 bus driver resignations and 24 job transfers since August because very few people want to do this job in the current environment JCPS has created. We cannot expect to keep paying our bus drivers the same as a delivery driver. The two jobs aren’t even in the same realm, and honestly it’s an offensive comparison. They aren’t delivering pizzas. They are managing more than 60 children who are sitting three-to-a-seat and have behavioral issues stemming from the cycle of poverty and general societal problems. And they are doing this while operating a bus. There is too much at stake. You cannot expect bus drivers to keep doing two jobs and only being paid for one.
Priorities out of whack: We can build new gambling facilities but we can't pay JCPS bus drivers to get our kids to school?
The solution to the driver shortage is not deleting routes and taking away transportation for students to magnet programs. Magnet schools are still public schools, and students should be afforded the same opportunity for transportation as any other public school. As a current teacher at a magnet school, we are already seeing the grave effects of this problem. Kids should not be forced to transfer from a school that they love because they can’t get reliable transportation. It is heartbreaking for them and their teachers, and it has the power to change the course of their lives. Taking away transportation to magnet schools effectively implodes the magnet schools that have become havens for some of our most talented students.
JCPS needs to accept that every viable option is going to cost more money. Pay drivers more, hire bus monitors, create a better working environment, and watch the driver shortage dissipate.
Allison Mucci is an ESL teacher at Central Magnet High School in JCPS.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: JCPS bus crisis hurts students. We must fund school transportation.
