Governor Roy Cooper recently announced an investment to help tackle North Carolina’s school bus driver shortage crisis by allocating $1 million in federal funding to the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) to enhance school bus driver training capacity.
The shortage of school bus drivers is a serious concern for school districts, causes problems for families, and impacts student well-being and learning. Governor Cooper made the announcement at a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ bus lot, where he toured the facility, spoke with bus drivers and education leaders and called on the legislature to pass a budget that invests in public schools.
One of the primary challenges identified by both school districts and the North Carolina DMV is the extended time it takes to train newly hired bus drivers due to trainer staffing shortages and an increased number of trainees. In response, Governor Cooper has taken decisive actions to address this issue and bolster the state’s school bus driver workforce.
The plan includes hiring up to seven temporary trainers, one for each NCDOT region, to accelerate the training process. This investment will be utilized to employ former school bus driver trainers who have expressed interest in helping expedite training of new bus drivers.
This investment will also provide retention bonuses of up to $3,000 to current school bus driver training employees. This incentive seeks to recognize their dedication and support in staying with the state, ultimately enhancing the training capacity.
In addition to hiring trainers and providing retention bonuses, funds will be used to purchase two dedicated training buses. This will enable DMV to conduct training sessions more efficiently and without constraints on borrowing buses from school districts, which are sometimes unavailable, thus improving the overall training process.
Funding for this initiative is from federal Emergency Assistance for Non-Public Schools (EANS) funds that have reverted to the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) fund.
Read Governor Cooper’s budget proposal here.
Contributed.
