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Dr. Maria Vazquez: Hello. I know our families have so many questions around transportation. Given the impact we're having due to the national bus driver shortage coming up, how the district is working to address some of the issues, we have some good news to share.
Announcer: Welcome to Mondays with Maria, presented by ADDITION Financial Credit Union. Here's OCPS Superintendent, Dr. Maria Vazquez.
Dr. Maria Vazquez: Hi everyone. Bri MacNaught is here with me today and we are talking about transportation. So getting our students to and from school safely is vital. Right. And at the start of the school year, it doesn't always go as smoothly as we would like it to.
Bri MacNaught: No, not at all. But I do want to, before we get into that, talk about the fact that I have been doing stories with our OCPS bus drivers for about two years now, and they are some of my favorite people to work with. They have such joy about them, and they truly take so much pride in being that first face that our students see and, and setting that positive tone for the day and telling them at the end of the day, have a nice day. So that joy they have is just so contagious. So I know people can get mad, but we have to realize they're humans. Right?
Dr. Maria Vazquez: Yeah. Well, and driving a bus full of children is no easy task. But you're right. It's wonderful to see how much they love their job, how invested they are in our children. They know about their families. They know if they're working on a project, if they're struggling in school. The families themselves have such a positive connection with our drivers, and then of course, at the school as well. So we are so thankful that when our children step on the bus, they have a smiling face, greeting them, excited, this is going to be a great day. And then at the, at the end of the day, they've got somebody that says, we'll see you tomorrow, or, have a good afternoon. Yeah, it's, it's wonderful to be able to start and end your school day on a positive note.
Bri MacNaught: So no matter what, with a district our size and with this nationwide bus driver shortage, they're going to come some challenges. What are those challenges that you've been seeing? From families?
Dr. Maria Vazquez: So when you don't have enough drivers for all of your routes, you have to get creative. And so one of the things that we've instituted over the last two years are double backs. And that simply means that a bus driver is going to make two trips to a school as opposed to one. This helps our families and our students have a better idea of when they're going to be picked up or dropped off instead of waiting because the bus is running late. Additionally, we also instituted this summer an opportunity for our parents to sign up for transportation. That enabled us to have a better idea of who was going to be riding our buses and made our routes a little bit more efficient. During the next week or so, we will probably finalize those routes, because by then parents are feeling comfortable about the start of the school year, and most of the children are riding their buses.
Dr. Maria Vazquez: Additionally, our students have IDs and they can swipe on and swipe off. Parents will then be able to know as well as school personnel and transportation if a child is still riding the bus or if they have arrived at their destination. You know, sometimes, especially at the end of the day they want to go over to their friend's house, they don't tell their parents, and now mom or dad or grandpa is waiting, where is my child? With these IDs, we'll be able to let parents know, yes, your child got off the bus, and so they're probably at a friend's house.
Bri MacNaught: So we can do all of these things, but point blank there is a national shortage on bus drivers. So what is the district doing to try to get more bus driver applicants?
Dr. Maria Vazquez: Well, I am so excited to share that we were able to reach an agreement with our OESPA organization that allowed for an additional $16,000 in additional incentives. So just to give you an idea how big that is, last year we held many job fairs and we were lucky to maybe get five to ten applicants per job fair. Monday's job fair had over 120 applicants. And so we are so excited that not only the new incentive, but we provide free training so they can get their CDL license. We offer insurance packages. We have opportunities for them to earn incentives if they have perfect attendance. Additionally, they're not working nights and weekends. They are able to drive really newer buses. Some of them are electric buses, which are amazing. And so we think that with this additional incentive, we are going to be able to bridge the gap that we have with the shortage of bus drivers. And we have I believe, nine additional job fairs that are coming coming up. But if there's anyone out there listening, watching that says, you know what? I think I may want to drive a bus. You can go to our website, ocps.net application information is there. You don't have to wait for the job fair.
Bri MacNaught: So going back to the families and the challenges, if they are having some type of issue, customer service, how can they reach customer service in transportation?
Dr. Maria Vazquez: Yes. When you're, you don't know where your child is, the bus is late or hasn't arrived, parents get anxious and they want to be able to get answers to their questions. So there's two ways. They can call transportation or they can reach out via email and ask their ask their question. We are actually hiring additional personnel so that our response time is quicker than what it is right now. And we are hopeful that that's going to provide parents better customer service experience with the hiring of new bus drivers. They'll have fewer concerns because we'll have more children riding buses with more bus drivers.
Bri MacNaught: And finally, of course, the eligibility for transportation. All of our students are eligible for transportation if they're outside of that two-mile zone radius. And of course, with the exception of our magnet school students as well.
Dr. Maria Vazquez: Correct. And even some students that have disabilities may be eligible for transportation. That's a little tricky because parents will hear, oh, two miles and a term is used as the crow flies. And so the two miles is from one designated point to another designated point at the school. Not necessarily if you're driving. That's where parents have frustrations and go, well, I drove it and it's, it's two miles or it's 2.1 miles, but as the crow flies when they measure it, it might be 1.9 miles. So that is frustrating for our parents. But we are, we do have transportation for anyone that lives beyond that two-mile radius.
Bri MacNaught: And to wrap it all up, I just want to reiterate that all of the stories that we have done with our transportation folks are our most liked and viewed stories on all of our platforms, so they are very much loved and appreciated. There is no doubt about that.
Dr. Maria Vazquez: That's so great to hear because they truly are the people that see our children first thing in the morning and we're so happy. They're part of the OCPS family. Thank you all for watching. Be sure to like and follow us on social media and hit subscribe on YouTube to get notified when a new episode is posted. We'll see you next week on Mondays with Maria.
Announcer: Mondays with Maria is presented by ADDITION Financial Credit Union. Count us in for every step of your financial journey. Learn more at additionfi.com. For more OCPS news and information, visit
[email protected]. I'm your announcer. Kaleb Priester, a senior at Jones High School. Thanks for watching and have a great week.