Jefferson City School District has had ‘smooth’ transition to new bus vendor ahead of school year

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

With the first day of school coming up on Aug. 19, the transportation director for the Jefferson City School District said things have been smooth as the district transitions to its new bus vendor.

The board approved a contract in December between the district and Student Transportation of America. The contract went into effect on July 1, according to previous reporting, and will end in 2027.

Transportation Director Frank Underwood said lots of information has been transferred over to STA and there has been lots of good communication between the two entities.

"I think overall, the transitions went good," Underwood said. "It's been smooth and a lot of communication between the two of us, but I think everything's going to be okay."

He said STA is responsible for hiring bus drivers and providing training, as well as new buses and maintenance. After the district was reported having more than half of its buses listed as "defective" or "out of service" in 2023, Underwood said that shouldn't be an issue this year.

"They're all brand new buses," Underwood said. "They're all 2024 International Buses, so we should not have any problems with inspection problems or safety problems."

However, he said the district can always use more bus drivers.

This comes as many schools continue to deal with a bus driver shortage after the COVID-19 pandemic. A report from the National Education Association said there were around 192,400 bus drivers in K-12 schools nationwide in September 2023. That number is down 15.1% from 2019.

Underwood said Jefferson City noticed the shortage after the pandemic and saw stopped receiving applications for bus drivers in the last couple years. However, he said things have been looking up with more applications in the past year.

This year, he said the district will have enough drivers to fill its routes, but would like more drivers to allow for additional routes.

"What we'd like to do is grow that route number so that we can separate our middle schools and high schools," Underwood said. "Right now they ride on the same buses. If we have more drivers, we'd add more busses and be able to drive our middle schools independently and then our high schools independently."

He said the district is also looking for more charter-only drivers, which would drive buses for activities or athletic events.

"We've got 8-11 buses that have to go out and take these kiddos to these activity trips, and when you do that on a short staff, you're pulling drivers from routes, then you're pulling them off of routes," Underwood said. "So, it's always good to have a bountiful amount of bus drivers to do those types of things."

Underwood said routes and bus driver numbers will be finalized next week. ABC 17 News reached out to STA to find out about the status of bus drivers for the district, but did not hear back.

Underwood is hoping the new partnership with STA helps better the district's on-time performance.

"Having additional drivers or more drivers being able to fill the routes should allow us to have a better on-time performance," Underwood said. "On-time performance is getting the kids to school on time, getting them home at the time that we say we're going to, and that's what I'm hoping for this year."

To apply to be a bus driver, Underwood said drivers need a Commercial Drivers License permit, bus drivers permit, passenger permit and three-to-five weeks of provided training.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for Fulton Public Schools said while their district has its routes covered, there are still driver positions available.

Amanda Miles, with FPS, said in an email the district has open positions for aides, sub-drivers and trip driver positions. She did not share the number of positions still available.

She said if the district doesn't have enough drivers to cover all of its routes and trips, FPS might have to postpone trips until after routes are completed or combine routes.

A Columbia Public Schools spokesperson did not immediately reply to a request for comment.