HORRY COUNTY, SC (WBTW) – The Horry County School District currently has 24 vacant bus driver positions, and will look to hire 20 more drivers for the upcoming school year, when it plans to open five new schools in the county.
“I mean we’re adding three new schools, even if one of them doesn’t open till a little bit afterwards. And three more schools means more buses and more bus drivers,” says school board chairman Joe DeFeo. Horry County Schools Transportation Director Jim Wright says with ten new school buses, and new bus routes that his department has already mapped out, students won’t have a longer wait at the bus stop or a longer ride to school. “What we had to do in the Socastee/St. James area is totally reroute the whole thing. All of our routes are either elementary and middle and high school afterwards or vocational. No school has just their buses, all the buses are tied and linked to other schools to make it work.”
Wright is confident the district will fill the driver vacancies in time, however DeFeo says the school district needs to create more incentives to attract more applicants. “I recommended the possibility that we will train new bus drivers and if they stay a certain amount of time, they will not have to pay us back for the CDL license.” He’s also wants to increase work hours for school bus drivers. “I really believe if we just start putting everybody at a 37-40 hour shift, bus drivers will start working for us again. They don’t get paid that much to begin with when you consider what they do, so I think bringing it back up to 37-40 hours a week will make a difference.”
Wright says until it fills the open positions, the school district has about 20 relief drivers who fill in as needed. He’s also reassuring parents that the transportation changes planned for the new school year won’t disadvantage their kids. “We have a good plan. We’re ready to roll. We’re just waiting for them to tell us the day they open up the school.”
If you are interested in applying for a school bus driver position, you can head to http://www.horrycountyschools.net/pages/Horry_County_Schools/Employment.
