JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The new superintendent of Duval County Public Schools did his best impersonation of those classic “I Want You” Uncle Sam posters on Wednesday as he called on the community to help fill bus driver vacancies.
Dr. Christopher Bernier said the district is about 60 drivers short of filling all of its current routes, and he wouldn’t mind having another 60 drivers as backup.
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For now, though, he asked the community to help him find “50 bus drivers by Labor Day.”
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Bernier made the plea at a news conference Wednesday announcing a new citywide program to address truancy among DCPS students.
He acknowledged that the bus driver shortage could be contributing to school attendance issues. A full staff of bus drivers would go a long way to getting children to school and on time, he said.
And Bernier is turning to the community to help him solve the problem.
He challenged community, civic and faith-based groups in Jacksonville to contribute one member each to drive a school bus for one year.
“If each group could pledge one person from their congregation or their organization to take on the ministry of getting children to and from school safely as a bus driver for one year, our problem would be quickly, quickly solved,” Bernier said.
A DCPS spokesperson said the bus driver positions are paid, not volunteer, and added that drivers would be paid for their training, as well. News4JAX asked what the average pay is for the drivers, but we have not heard back from the district yet.
Bernier said he’s asking the community to see driving a school bus as a way of giving back to schools and even offered to match new bus driver recruits to areas of the city where they already feel invested.
For instance, a member of an Arlington civic organization who decides to become a bus driver could be assigned to drive students at Arlington area schools.
Bernier said this is possible because there is a vacancy in nearly every area of the city.
“So if it’s nearby work or a community you want to work with, we have the opportunity for you,” Bernier said.
He also said they’re interested in bus driver recruits who might only be able to work in the mornings or only in the afternoons on a split route.
“We’ll take you,” Bernier said. “We need people to get our children to school.”
He said the district will be setting up a special hotline to collect the names of new recruits and help coordinate if they have a specific area they wish to cover.