Several buses are pictured last year in the Southwestern Central School District. Superintendent Maureen Donahue said a shortage of bus drivers continues to be a “problem in our district, in our county, in our state and our nation.” P-J file photo

A shortage of bus drivers both locally and across the country remains a problem, Southwestern Central School officials said.

During a recent meeting of the Southwestern Central School Board, Superintendent Maureen Donahue referenced the shortage in a transportation report.

“With COVID, what’s happened over the last couple of years is the limitation of bus drivers,” Donahue said. “The other thing that is happening is we’ve been three bus drivers short up until two weeks ago. We’re still a bus driver short, if anybody in here wants to be a bus driver, see John afterward and he’ll have you trained.”

One of the issues surrounding the bus driver shortage in the area is training, Donahue said. Previously, training programs were lacking in the area.

“The key is: How are you going to train people who have never been on a bus, who are going to transport kids, that want to be a bus driver? How are you going to attract people to this position?” Donahue asked. “It is a little intimidating — a big bus, lots of kids, transporting responsibility. In the last couple of years, John (Spacht, transportation supervisor), has done an incredible job at developing a training program. We had one person that trains all of Chautauqua County and that was not going to work for our district. We needed more than what was going on, and now we’re sharing more services with Frewsburg, and we’ve also been helping two other districts training drivers.”

John Spacht, Southwestern Central School transportation supervisor, is pictured with Donahue during a recent meeting of the school board. P-J photo by Katrina Fuller

Donahue said these additional services, as well as the issue of driver shortages across the area, created a need for a training program that is still in the works.

“Eventually, we’re going to come back and talk to you about a training program where we think we can help other districts and our own,” Donahue said. “But, we have to have a training program to train our drivers. One of the things we’ve been doing is sometimes we hire (candidates) as a monitor where we put them on a bus and get them comfortable. It used to be when I first started in this job 17 years ago that you could hire a driver off the street who had bus driver experience, has been on a bus, and is comfortable on a bus. That does not happen anymore.”

Donahue said the transportation staff has been instrumental in strengthening the program at Southwestern, so much so that other districts have called and asked if staff members are available to mentor transportation staff members from other districts.

“We’re not sure what that would look like, but we’re starting to have that conversation,” she said. “Transportation is going to continue to be a problem in our district, in our county, in our state and our nation.”

Donahue said the problems stem not only from a bus driver shortage but also part shortages for fixing buses. She said Spacht is following the issues closely and has advocated on the state level for issues that have been experienced in Chautauqua County.