NORTH IDAHO-- Swine flu is keeping teachers and students out of the classroom and now it is also putting a strain on the bus drivers who have to get the children to school in the first place.
It’s been most challenging for smaller, rural districts. When students call in sick, they don’t show up, and when teachers call in sick, there is a pool of substitutes, but the pool of backup bus drivers can be very limited.
Plummer-Worley School District is 50 miles long and 20 miles wide. Each bus route is more than an hour long.
Carl Richel, the transportation director, says the district only has six bus routes, but sometimes it takes seven subs to keep things going. This year, the district has depended on its substitutes more than ever.
Richel says when you have a lot of things going on at once, like ball games and field trips, a lot of those events happen before school gets out, and someone still needs to cover the routes.
It’s Richel’s job to coordinate bus services and with illness floating around, juggling drivers is a daily task. The situation is more difficult for the rural districts because of the lack of qualified drivers. Bus drivers need special certification, and in Plummer, not many people have it. Plummer-Worley has just 11 drivers, including substitutes. Richel is one of them.
Whether it is substitute teachers or drivers, paying for them can add up. The district has to pay the sick leave of the regular employee and then pay the substitute. Richel doesn’t know how much has been spent so far this year on drivers.
