It’s been a rough school year for bus riders. It seems as though the transportation problems around Osceola County have increased, and the district has yet to successfully manage the transportation issues parents and students have been dealing with since the beginning of the school year.

The district has indicated one major issue is a severe shortage of bus drivers. Over the past few months, the district has tried to solve this issue by organizing several job fairs to hire more bus drivers needed to the fill the open positions. In the past, the job fairs have not been as successfully as the district hoped. However, the job fair they held in mid January was the most successful one they’ve had this school year. Randy Wheeler, assistant director of transportation, says, “our first hour here, we had 13 applicants walk through the door and that is more than the last four monthly job fairs combined.”

With the rise of applicants, the district will start hiring new bus drivers as quickly as possible, to fill the current number of bus routes with no assigned bus driver. As of now, in addition to the daily absences among bus drivers, last week being around 22 drivers, there are 36 openings to needed to complete the 241 daily routes around Osceola County.

The problem of not having bus drivers’ available leads to each individual bus driver taking several routes at once, making it harder to get kids to school and home on time. With more bus drivers, the more efficient transportation will be for every student who takes the bus.

For those who are interested in applying, there are several links on the district’s website where you can find more information about how and where to apply.