“We’ve been overlooked for a long time”: What NC’s bus driver shortage is really about

School bus driver is one of the jobs that makes you wonder about what we value. The hours are tough, the responsibility is great and the pay is poor.

Now this essential job is among the many that are hard to fill during the pandemic. A lack of school bus drivers is a problem across North Carolina and the nation.

Last week, the North Carolina Association of Educators held a news conference with Wake County school bus drivers. The NCAE wants the legislature to increase pay for bus drivers. The state pays the drivers $12.75 an hour. Larger school districts supplement the wage, but many districts still pay less than $15 an hour.

This week I followed up with two of the drivers who appeared at the news conference. I asked about their work and why they do it.

Juneakcia Green of Clayton has been driving a school bus in Wake County for 20 years. Her seniority has won her better pay – Wake County’s pay ranges from $15 to $23.37 per hour– but the job’s burden is expanding, too. The county needs 720 drivers. It has 610.

Green and her co-workers make up the difference by taking on more routes, almost all of them running late. And there’s a new element – fear of getting COVID driving a bus full of unvaccinated children. Even the county’s offer of a $1,200 signing bonus for new drivers isn’t prompting enough people to apply.

Green thinks the answer is better pay for all drivers, especially during the pandemic.

“I really feel like they’re going to have to offer more money,” she said. “A lot of these drivers are scared. We’re nervous because you don’t know who has it and who doesn’t. We tell them to wear their masks, but when I look in the mirror, they have their masks down.”

Some dismiss the shortage as part of a wider pandemic problem that led to a shortage of cooks, truck drivers, supermarket workers, kitchen staff and other workers.

But Green said the pandemic has made an already unfair situation worse.

“We’ve been overlooked for a long time. This didn’t just come about because of the pandemic and everything,” she said.

Even with her long service, Green notes that her niece, who works for a cell phone company, has already passed her in earnings. “I’ve been at this for 20 years and she brings more home. I’m transporting children and she’s selling cell phones. Her check is more than mine and I think that’s ridiculous,” she said.

It is ridiculous. So why does she keep coming back, checking in before dawn and finishing her afternoon shift after 5 p.m.?

“I can see I make a difference in these kids’ lives,” she said. “It feels good when you tell kids some good advice and they follow that advice.” She added, “To have these little babies in your hands, it’s a lot. It’s a big deal.”

But she said the job is impossible to do with one income. “If I was single and not married, I would have to find another job,” she said. And many of her colleagues are ready to do just that. “A lot of them are throwing up their hands and saying, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ “ she said.

Zac Campbell of Harnett County is one of them. He plans to finish the school year and then move to the West Coast in June. “If I had to stay here, I would leave (bus driving),” he said.

A former chef, he started driving for Wake County in 2019. The shortage of drivers has made him triple his former route. “I’m late for every school after the first one,” he said. “The kids suffer from that.”

Campbell said many bus drivers are just hanging on to collect a one-time bonus – $500 per semester if they miss no more than two days.

Leaders in the Republican-controlled legislature blame the shortage of workers on overly generous pandemic relief measures.

Campbell disagrees. “There are people everywhere who want to work. That’s part of human nature,” he said. “They just don’t want to spend eight hours and still not have enough to get by.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2021 at 4:30 AM with the headline "“We’ve been overlooked for a long time”: What NC’s bus driver shortage is really about."