PENDER COUNTY — Pender County Schools is still struggling with staffing its buses, despite the implementation of a new bell schedule this school year and increasing pay for the drivers. Now, the district is implementing additional incentives and planning a work session with contractors to try to fill its driver vacancies.
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The Pender County Board of Education voted unanimously to approve several bus-driver incentives at their committee meeting on Tuesday, representing a budget implication of $600,000 this year to be funded with county dollars.
“Typically, we do not have action items here in the committee of the whole, but today we’ve decided to add item number eight, driver incentive proposals, because we realize that with bus drivers getting sick, and we have a significant need, especially over on the east side, for more bus drivers,” board chair Beth Burns said.
The district will add $5 more for every extra run bus drivers complete each morning and afternoon. Thus, a driver who has a double route in both before and after school would earn $10 per day on top of their rate of $17.75 per hour.
The board also voted to increase pay for certified instructional staff and instructional assistants who volunteer to drive buses. Both groups would see a pay raise of $5 per hour, the hourly rate now $27.80.
Many of Pender County’s instructional assistants are required to drive buses when needed; because of this, the district has been unable to fill its 16 instructional assistant vacancies, according to Superintendent Brad Breedlove.
As for total bus driver vacancies, the district currently has 68 on a daily basis, Director of Transportation Britton Overton said Tuesday.
“They call out sick, some have some medical issues, people resign,” Overton said Tuesday. “Being a bus driver is a challenging job, so we are short.”
Besides pay, board member Don Hall said another factor determining if someone picks up a bus shift is whether they’ll be punished for potentially being late to their other job due to a late bus in the district — such as an instructional assistant, cafeteria worker or janitor, for example.
Hall said he was specifically referring to district contractors Aramark, which oversees the cafeteria, and HES, which offers custodial services.
“The way I see it, and I’ll say it to both of them, if we’ve got a contractor like that that’s not willing to help us over just a few minutes, they can probably prepare to have their contract ended,” he said.
Breedlove already began discussions with the contractors and reported they are supportive of finding a way for their employees to also help out as needed. This could look like prioritizing bus drivers for open positions at Aramark and vice versa, giving bus drivers an opportunity to work more hours between driving shifts and making them eligible for full-time benefits.
Hall pushed for representatives of the two contractors to come before the board at their next meeting.
“Aramark and HES, you should both hear this: We pretty much just directed you to work with us,” he said. “If you don’t, we will end your contract.”
Ultimately, the board agreed to hold a work session with the contractors to discuss ways to strengthen their partnership of sharing workers.
District staff also indicated they are using funds from vacancies to hire additional instructional assistants to take over in classrooms where the original assistant has to step out for bus duty.
The incentive program follows the implementation of a three-tiered bell schedule to alleviate double and triple routes on the district’s east side — Surf City and Topsail area schools. At the beginning of the school year, Pender County Schools implemented three different start times for elementary, middle and high schools.
With the implementation, the district has decreased the eastern side’s double routes from 38 last year to 20 this year. Still, parents, most of whom were against the new schedule from the beginning, have reported unreliable pick-up and drop-off times that are sometimes more than an hour off the mark.
The district has attributed late buses to traffic, mainly along the U.S. Highway 17 route, and an expected adjustment period; parents attributed the issue to the lack of dedicated bus drivers.
The district also increased driver pay this year from $16.26 to $17.75, increasing competitiveness between PCS and surrounding districts.
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