FLORENCE, Ky. — When David Smith submitted his application to be a school bus driver, he didn't think he'd get in a test drive and a sit-down interview. But he did. And now he's on the fast track to helping fill a lingering gap.
A lifelong Boone County resident, Smith recently retired from a decades-long career. Still, he said he felt he had time and energy to give.
When his wife handed him a flier for Tuesday's Boone County Schools transportation job fair at Ockerman Elementary School, Smith said he figured he'd show up and see if driving a school bus would be a good fit.
"I never thought I'd drive a bus," he said. "It's scary at first, but it's fine. Once you get used to it — you know the size of it was what I was going to worry about coming into traffic and stuff, but I think it'll be OK."
Smith will undergo weeks of free CDL training, provided by Boone County Schools, to get him certified for the upcoming school year. But with his application in process, there are still at least nine positions that the district is hoping to fill.
Those hopeful hires would help to relieve some of the current strain, but not fully heal it. At full staff, the transportation department would have roughly 230 drivers. Currently, it's 48 short. The district is also down 15 bus aides.
"We're probably about 20 vacant routes a day," said District 1 router Angela Vickers. "We're constantly doubling and running people from here and here an it's a challenge."
Vickers said the district has been able to manage thus far by stretching personnel and resources. The drivers they do have are working double routes while teachers, school administrators and even she and her fellow office staff leave their desks to get behind the wheel.
"Sometimes it's a struggle to get our own jobs done because we're trying to help our fellow coworkers because we don't want them to struggle," Vickers said. "I go out on a daily basis. We go out on the bus in the morning. We'll get those few hours in between to try and get our jobs done and then we're right back on the roads with them."
The district did recently add six new buses to its fleet, the largest in Northern Kentucky and one of the largest in the state. Two are designed for special needs while the other four are traditional. All of them are equipped with AC, which is uncommon in school buses.
Still, those additions did not ease the driver shortage.
"The thing is, when we're short of staff, we're doing an injustice to the children, to the school system," Helen Cottongim said. "It just has a rippling effect because all of our staff — office staff — have to drive, so that takes them away from their work."
Like AC, Cottongim is a rarity in a school bus. At 78 years old, she's been driving Boone County students to and from school for 52 years.
Now the district's safety training supervisor, she's currently the longest-serving driver in the county.
"I wasn't sure what to do with the children when I first started driving because it was absolutely no training. It was just if you could drive, you could drive," she said.
Cottongim said she knows longevity is hard to come by with bus drivers nowadays, but she wants prospective hires to understand why she still drives to this day.
"I really like what I do," she said. "There's so many people out there that don't know that they can be a bus driver and would really like to be a bus driver. You know if you went up to somebody and say, 'Hey, would you like to be a school bus driver?' and 'Oh no! No, no!' But if we can get them in the bus, if we can get them to test drive the bus, they can see that, hey this is alright."
The district has five more transportation job fairs planned throughout June. The next is scheduled for Wednesday at Erpenbeck Elementary from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The remaining dates all run the same time at:
- Camp Ernst Middle School, June 6
- North Pointe Elementary School, June 11
- Shirley Mann Elementary School, June 12
- Stephens Elementary School, June 13
