Lincoln Public School’s students may have extra time to study on the morning bus ride to school this upcoming school year.
LPS is currently facing a bus-driver shortage that’s expected to impact operations as school begins in a few weeks, and LPS Director of Transportation Phil Skorupa told KLIN News, “We have to consolidate routes. Number one, we’re not able to serve quite as many students as we might like. And number two, sometimes that means making bus rides longer.” Even with this consolidated route schedule, they’re still about 15 drivers short. But Skorupa said they could easily staff 30 additional drivers if they apply.
This driver shortage is not completely unique to LPS or schools for that matter, but many jobs that require a Commercial Drivers License (CDL) are sitting vacant and waiting for someone to take the wheel.
“We’ve been able to fortunately raise the pay level pretty substantially for school bus drivers,” said Skorupa. Drivers for the 2023 fall semester will start out at $23.86 an hour and—once they become a regular route driver—a host of benefits, Skorupa added, “They qualify for health insurance, vision, dental, disability, life insurance, and they are invested in a state teacher retirement plan.”
Given that drivers generally only work when school is in session, Skorupa pointed out that a driver job is very conducive to family life. “It’s Monday through Friday in general, no weekends, no evenings. It’s split up throughout the day. There’s a period in the morning where you work to get kids to school, then there’s typically a bit of a break in the day, then the last phase of the day is taking the same kids home.”
“People often find that its far more rewarding than they maybe imagine it would be, because of the opportunity to have an impact on students lives,” Skorupa said, “Set the tone for the day. They’re the first to see them in the morning, and the last to see them off. The opportunity to have a rewarding impact on students is very high with the position.”
If you or someone you know is interested, you can apply thrpugh the LPS website: lps.org