Bus Driver Shortage Could Alter Toms River Schools' Start Times

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A severe shortage of school bus drivers may lead to a change in start times in September for the Toms River Regional District, if the district is not able to fill the positions in time, officials said Wednesday night.

The district needs more than 25 drivers to be able to fill the routes on its four-tier busing system that transports the majority of its 15,000 students daily to the district's 18 schools, business administrator William Doering told the Board of Education during Wednesday's school board committee meetings.

"We are doing everything in our power, including offering a retention incentive, to get drivers aboard," Doering said.

That bonus is $3,000, Doering said. The starting salary for a driver who works 40 hours a week is $30,743, and drivers who work 32.5 hours a week earn $25,000, he said.

The district will pay for drivers to be trained and receive the commercial driver's license endorsements to drive a school buses, and the job also comes with health benefits and participation in the state's pension system.

"It may force us to reduce the number of routes," Doering said, adding that changes in start times and tiers for the schools is a worst-case scenario.

"We know we need to make these decisions as soon as possible, because parents have child care and work," interim Superintendent Thomas Gialanella said. "We're talking about a significant need of bus drivers and if we don't have that (the job filled), doing some things that perhaps we would not like to do but we would have to do."

Courtesy busing makes up a relatively small portion of the students who are bused, and while that may not be eliminated, Doering said the district is looking at all of its options.

"The motherload of our transportation is under hazardous busing," Doering said, which is transportation for students who, while they live within 2 miles of school, live along routes where walking to school would be dangerous.

"You can't denote certain routes as hazardous ... and then take them off the list without having certain factors in place," he said, such as sidewalks. Any such change would have to be done in consultation with the town or towns.

"Everything is being looked at because at this moment we are at that level of desperation," Doering said. "We're still working hard to resolve it."

Doering said the geography of the district and the bus routes will dictate changes because of the timing between the tiers. It could result in earlier start times for some schools and later starts for others. Right now, the district's three high schools and Intermediate North begin the school day at 7:15 a.m., and while the fourth tier of schools, all elementary schools, begins at 9:20 a.m.

"This is a very very complicated diagram in getting buses to and from schools," he said.

Doering also noted that the starting salaries may change as the district is negotiating a new contract with its transportation workers union.

If you are interested in applying to become a school bus driver in Toms River, information and a link to apply are on the Toms River Schools website.

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