Unit Five is meeting with the State School Superintendent Thursday about the lack of bus drivers and hopes to meet with the Governor soon.
The district has been plagued by late buses since school began.
Superintendent Mark Daniel says during a conversation he had with State Representative Dan Brady, they brainstormed about creating a temporary workforce...
"If we had officers or firemen or even National Guard folks, even if they were interested they'd still have to go through a four to five week training. So, during our discussion we decided we really needed to seek executive action," said Daniel.
Daniel said he hopes to convice the Governor to issue an executive order allowing national guard members to step in as school bus drivers in a short term pinch.
Daniel said as he has called around trying to scrounge extra drivers he's been finding out bus driver shortages are a problem in many parts of the state and around the nation. He came up empty in canvassing other vendors than First Student, which contracts to Unit Five.
On the shorter term effort to solve the problem, Daniel says there has been some progress.
"We do have some good news. We had 44 applicants for bus drivers over the weekend. And we now have potentially ten drivers for training," said Daniel.
Daniel also said he has had a few nibbles of interest from Firefighters and Connect Transit drivers as well. All those candidates, though, would need behind the wheel certification for school buses.
For now, Daniel says drivers for First Student are using loop back techniques on their routes, which still gets some students to school late.
