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No shortage of bus drivers in Fairfax
This time last year, Fairfax County Public Schools was still about 50 or so drivers short of the number needed to drive its school buses for the upcoming year.
Now, as another new school year is about to begin, the ranks are full, thanks in part to the struggling economy, recruiting and retention efforts, and a raise in hourly pay rates.
"I think we might be one driver shy," Linda Fabry, transportation director for Fairfax schools, said last week. "But we are essentially there. Right now, I am feeling really good about it."
Fairfax County Public Schools, the nation's 13th largest school district, has one of the two largest publicly owned school bus fleets in the country, with about 1,600 buses servicing 187 schools.
The other school system, Florida's Miami-Dade County, has more than twice as many enrolled students – 360,000 compared to FCPS's 168,000. It is the fourth largest district in the country.
Fairfax County, in an effort to recruit and retain its drivers, recently increased hourly pay rates, which now range from $16.91 to $22 per hour.
"We increase the hourly rate based on seniority," Fabry said. "We also hired a recruiter who actively seeks out the military, retirees and interacts with people who have a lot of immigrants coming to them for positions."
According to Fabry, the school system trains many of the immigrants who successfully pass English as a Second Language classes, as commercial drivers.
"We help them get their commercial driver's licenses," she said. "We have a multi-pronged approach to trying to increase our driver populations."
All drivers are guaranteed at least 35 hours per week with paid training, full benefits and six paid non-work days a year. "The same benefits that our teachers get," Fabry said.
Drivers can also bring preschool children and grandchildren on the buses as they work, are eligible for step and cost-of-living increases, and get summers off.
"I love it," says driver Mars Bonafe, 55, who came to the United States from the Philippines two years ago and became a FCPS bus driver last September.
"I was looking for something with little pressure," he said. "I was well-trained by the school and I find it really exciting and enjoyable."
Bonafe says he works about 40 hours per week and has taken advantage of being allowed to bring his 20-month-old baby to work with him.
"I just strap his car seat in and away we go," he said.
Bonafe drives a regular route between Stone Middle School in Centreville and Poplar Tree Elementary School on Stringfellow Road in Fairfax.
"I am having fun and I am able to schedule a lot of appointments and take care of personal business during lunch breaks and that is really great," he said.
Fabry said driver recruitment and retention are going so well, in fact, that an additional $1.5 million was requested in the fiscal 2009 school budget for driver pay.
"That was not approved," she noted. "So we'll start with what we need and hopefully reduce some of the drivers once we get the runs settled down, and then we're just going to have to ask for it again next year."
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