Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

When three half-full school busses pick up kids in a single neighborhood to deliver them to three different high schools, it’s not really a surprise that you need a bunch of busses as well as people to drive them.

When students lack any respect for the very people aiming to help them, and even go so far as to assault the folks giving them a ride to school, it’s no surprise school bus drivers don’t want to stay on the job too long.

So the results from a report last month from the Council of the Great City Schools are not surprising.  The Council says Hillsborough County should recruit 150 additional drivers in time to ensure that are on the job by August.

Schools will open Aug. 3 with a shortage estimated at 130 bus drivers and 17 mechanics across a fleet of buses that numbers 1,100. Half of the anticipated 196,000 students, up about 5,000 from last year, will ride buses to school.

The report found that 20 percent of Hillsborough County’s school buses were late on any given day, but Karen Strickland, the district’s general director of transportation, said she has no idea how they got that number.  “We don’t have the staff” to track the late buses, breakdowns and driver turnover rate.  The district has not compiled records for years.

Drivers in Hillsborough even have to wash and wax the busses.

Drivers often bolt when they learn the pay never increases much for a job with many demands, including washing and waxing their own buses or paying someone to do it.

I know - you are wondering what else these drivers have to do.  The answers can be found on the district’s (pdf) 104 page School Bus Driver Manual of Policies and Procedures.

So what does the job pay?  In Hillsborough, you would get $9.85 an hour to start.  An eleven year veteran is making $11.10/hour.  That doesn’t sound like much to me, either.  How does it compare to other districts?

Boston’s public school bus drivers are private employees of a management company and will start at $20.36 an hour in September.

But before Hillsborough County Schools can hire you, you should know there are a few out-of-pocket costs, too such as:

• Finger printing fee $61.00 ($70.00 on the installment plan)
• Finger print monitoring fee $24.00
• Physical Examination $35.00
• CDL License $30.00 

After hearing all of that, I’m sure you are ready to jump into the job.  The HCSD Transportation Department has a lot more information on how you can become a bus driver for the country’s 10th biggest school district.

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