Orange County, Fla. – With the school year about to begin, some Central Florida school districts are urgently trying to fill their vacant school bus driver positions.
Orange County appears to be facing the biggest challenges.
These are the approximate number of openings in each county:
- Orange 100
- Marion 10
- Seminole 44
- Sumter 21
- Volusia 13
Bill Wen is the senior director of transportation services at Orange County Public Schools.
He told News 6 that if you don’t have experience, starting pay is $17.19 an hour with a $2,000 signing bonus. You also have to have a good driving record.
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“Driving record is critical obviously, the state has a program called the safe driver plan, we have our criteria that we would look at including the number of violations, crashes and suspensions before we make a decision to hire,” Wen said.
Wen says if they don’t fill the vacancies, they will have to split up some of their routes to add to current drivers’ schedules. But he says more importantly, although it’s critical that they fill all the vacancies, they want to make sure they are careful with their hires, because they understand that safety is a priority.
“The hardest skill to find is people who love working with children. Truck drivers drive vehicles with freight and freight does not complain, but people do so we need to find people who love working with kids,” Wen said.
Brevard and Osceola counties have managed to fill all of their positions.
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