The story is familiar for districts nationwide, especially for bus drivers. The shortage meant anyone in the transportation department with a commercial drivers license - including mechanics, office staff, and supervisors - were pulled from their offices to drive. Nine days before the start of school, every bus route in the district had a driver - a far cry from this time last year, when the district was 30 drivers short of the ideal 120 drivers. “This is the best start to the year on paper that we’ve had in a long time,” he said. This year feels “normal” to him staffing wise. The nameplate on Perry transportation director Patrick Murphy’s desk has a succinct phrase etched beneath his name: “Livin’ The Dream.” If one compares Perry’s bus driver situation this year to last fall, that phrase rings true. Some districts report better staffing outlook “I’m feeling a lot better than we were this time last year,” said Laura Hammack, superintendent of Beech Grove City Schools, which increased average teacher salaries by a little over 6% last fall.īut addressing the problem can require difficult adjustments by educators and parents like Lysell. And districts say some of those changes have worked. Indianapolis Public Schools allocated $15 million in federal emergency funding to entice teachers to stay. The Metropolitan School District of Pike Township increased salaries for bus drivers. Perry Township’s aforementioned strategy involved eliminating bus routes. School districts have implemented a variety of new strategies to keep workers. But some are still struggling to fill roles that were a perennial challenge to staff even before COVID - such as special education, science, and math teachers.
Across Marion County, several school districts report a better staffing outlook for the new school year than around this time last year, as they continue to recover from the staffing crisis exacerbated by the pandemic.
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