KATY, Texas – School districts around the state are facing a major shortage of bus drivers and Katy ISD is no exception.
It's hard job to find qualified people willing to accept a part-time position that involves challenging hours, dealing with traffic and handling sometimes unruly students.
"Who wants to be on a bus with 35 screaming kids?" wonders parent Nikki Williams.
For those who can deal with it, Katy ISD pays drivers $16.25 an hour, that's almost two dollars more than Houston ISD.
It's also offering incentives, like rewarding existing drivers who get their friends to work driving busses.
But once drivers go through the minimum 8 weeks of training, they can be easily lured away to full-time jobs in other industries.
"We are already facing shortage of bus drivers, it's going to become even more difficult as we keep growing," said district spokeswoman Denisse Cantu.
Katy ISD says it needs at least 30 new drivers a year to keep up with the 3,000 additional students the district gets every year because so many people are moving to the area.
Because of the driver shortage, school officials may have to make some changes.
One option would be to stagger school start times so that drivers can pick up more students and serve more schools.
Another option would be to increase the distance students must live away from a school to qualify for bus service.
For example, elementary school students must currently live at least half a mile from a school to get picked up by the bus, but that distance could be changed to two miles.
That means more students will have to walk or get a ride from a parent.
The district is surveying residents on its website, KatyISD.org, to determine what transportation options parents like best.
The district is considering four possible solutions, they include:
Option 1: Make no changes now to the current transportation model of a half-mile radius for elementary students and a one-mile radius for secondary students. Address this issue in the 2015-16 school year, for implementation in the 2016-17 school year or as needed.
Option 2: Modify the distance to a two-mile turn-by-turn model for elementary and secondary students. (This is the state level of reimbursement model used by most districts.)
Option 3: Change to a multi-bell schedule, keeping a half-mile radius for elementary students and a one-mile radiusfor secondary students.
Option 4: Change to a multi-bell schedule with a one-mile turn-by-turn for elementary students and a two-mile turn-by-turn for secondary students.
Parents and residents have until Jan. 21to complete the survey.
The Katy ISD school board will make a decision sometime in February or March.
