Privatization is always a scam. The result is ALWAYS taxpayers paying more so some dipshit can make more.

That’s the problem with these contractors, shitty pay and likely no benefits.

I’m surprised they didn’t do remote school.  Aren’t a lot of school districts doing that instead of snow days now?

Shortage of workforce in a shitty job that pays less than other equally shitty jobs that are available and hiring color me absolutely shocked. 

You forgot home schoolers and faith-based schools.

Privatizing a school’s bus fleet is a scam. A basket of empty promises and greed. We start drivers at $15.08 (I think) an hour. 180 days on duty with split shifts and less than 40 hours a week guaranteed hurts though. They can get overtime many of the weeks plus there is summer school and intersession work. Still a…

I’m all for making these kids walk twelve miles to school in a blizzard uphill both ways. Builds character, if you ask me. 

We could still absolutely have built or rebuild our cities so kids could safely walk to school. I grew up in Manchester, NH, and almost all of New England that is newer than about 1920 is absolutely hostile to pedestrians.

America keeps running into these issues caused by how awful it is to not own a car here--many…

First, Massachusetts and Maine do not even share a border. Second, “rural” doesn’t really count in a tiny state like that in the same way it does somewhere like Iowa. Driving from Boston to Albany, NY can take barely over an hour. Third, that county isn’t exactly rural. It is home to one of the larger cities in the…

Don’t lay the blame directly on the school districts. The problem is the greedy jerks that own all these subcontracting companies. In my area, the districts that own their own bus fleets haven’t suffered any significant problems. The subcontractors have been having a hell of a time with hiring drivers and mechanics.…

It would be nice if schools had this magic supply of funds to just magically pay drivers more.  It is a crummy job, like everyone in education thier responsibilities increases during the pandemic, and a lot of the retired or semi retired drivers quit because who can blame them for not wanting to deal with everything…

Plus you need a 7D license in Massachusetts which you have to pay for yourself, and it needs to be done again every other year. This is on top off the CDL with a P and S endorsement needed for a bus. Which you have to pay for yourself as well. In many cases, if you move to another state, you have to start all over…

It’s what Principal Skinner would do.

“We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas”

COTD right there. Fuck all academic “administrators”.

Maybe the district level admin folks can finally do something useful and drive the bus. 

This isn’t just bus drivers. It’s all the lower paid school jobs like paraprofessionals, food services, and clerical staff. Who wants to make $13.20 to $15 an hour when the local fast food places are paying $18-23. And forget about renegotiating the contract. District residents would go ape over a rise in taxes to…

You want to part to a job that’s as lose-lose as possible, that one has to be school bus driver. Crap wages while you’re skilled at piloting a huge bus—no small accomplishment—literally and figuratively, responsible for a lot of brat lives, and meanwhile the brats are unruly brats while you get them home. Who would…

I’m a teacher, and the excessive workload and being expected to meet the mental health and behavioral needs of students returning from 2 years of unstable schooling as a classroom teacher have me wanting to leave the job after a decade. I wouldn’t want to be a bus driver with my current salary, let alone what the…

Bus drivers near me are paid near minimum wage, have a split shift and aren’t paid for the time they drive the bus empty- and for some reason we have a shortage of them