‘People are hurting’: Jasper Co. parents air frustration over ongoing bus driver shortage
A church full of Jasper County parents and members of the community met to air their grievances against the school district with some even suggesting that the superintendent resign from her position.
One of their top gripes — the ongoing school bus driver shortage.
One parent accused the School Board of being “comfortable with parents being unpaid drivers for the district.”
“We’re being advocates for our children and we still have to be advocates for our children,” the speaker said. “She (Superintendent Rechel Anderson) has to go.”
The meeting, which took place Tuesday at the Euhaw Baptist Church, was held to discuss the ongoing bus shortage, year-round schooling and teacher shortages within the district.
At the same time, the school district held its own meeting to discuss the same issues and “dispel falsehoods,” according to a poster advertising the event on the district’s Facebook page.
According to Frontline, a recruitment and applicant-tracking software used by the district, there are at least 19 elementary school teacher openings, 10 high school teacher job openings and 10 middle school teacher openings. There also are three transportation openings.
Angry Jasper County parents want answers after a school year rife with bus and teacher shortages, lack of communication and tension, they say.
Randi Woodruff, a mother to four students in Jasper County schools, discussed an incident in which a bus was so overcrowded with students that her daughter was placed in another child’s lap instead of a seat. The district told her that because of safety and liability reasons “that would never happen,” and that they “disagreed” with what her daughter was telling her.
“I moved across the country to this county because I grew up here and every day since I have been ashamed,” Woodruff said.
Jasper County’s bus driver shortage has been going on since at least the beginning of the school year, and some parents have lost jobs because of the inconsistency, according to previous reporting by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette. The transportation issues mean some students are arriving at school late, missing coursework, and teachers are having to help them catch up, all while parents take off work to take their kids to school and pick them up.
Currently, the district has 10 drivers, a pool that’s being supplemented by teachers and administrators in some cases.
Last year, the district operated 14 of its 39 buses. By February, that number had dwindled to seven, including one special education bus, Anderson previously told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
“People are hurting, they’re frustrated,” another speaker said at the meeting. “Morale in Jasper County is low.”
‘It’s home’
For Myra Ulmer who drove buses for the Jasper County school district for over three decades, the problems began after drivers asked for a raise. In response, she said, the district distributed a letter on June 4, 2021, telling them that “bus driving positions will be eliminated” and “replaced with bus driver paraprofessional” jobs effective at the end of that month. In another letter from the district, officials said that “the best way to accomplish this increase would be to modify duties.”
According to Ulmer, drivers were told that they would have to reapply for their positions and become paraprofessionals, a class of specially trained people who work in classrooms to support students under the supervision of a teacher.
“You can’t demand someone be a para pro and drive school buses,” Ulmer said. “That letter destroyed everything.”
In the second letter, the school district said drivers were not receptive to the added duties in the classroom and so the “administration reevaluated the situation and provided” other options in addition to the paraprofessional work. These options included continuing to drive with the same pay or driving and taking on additional work at the schools, such as a custodian or cafeteria worker. The drivers would be paid the same hourly rate for each position.
Drivers currently are paid anywhere from $11.89 to $18 an hour, depending on their level of service.
In the end, Ulmer left the Jasper County School District and now drives for the Beaufort County School District because “that letter says it all.” Despite this, she said she was at the meeting Tuesday because Jasper County is still her “community” and “it’s home.”
“I will stick my neck out to get the kids to and from school, that’s really just me,” Ulmer said. “It (leaving) was hard, but as I continued to pray about it, it became where I was more comfortable.”
While the shortage of teachers and drivers is not limited to Jasper County, parents expressed their frustrations with the solutions offered up by the district, including having staff take on the responsibility. In February, an assistant principal at Ridgeland Elementary school, a clerical worker and several paraprofessionals within the district were either completing certification to become drivers or had already done so, Anderson said at a meeting for the community that month to discuss the shortage. Hardeeville Elementary School’s principal and Stefan Bauroth, the school’s assistant principal, have been driving since at least February to make up for the lack of drivers.
Anderson could not be reached for comment, and Bauroth did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Travis Washington, a spokesperson for the district, declined a request for comment on this and other subjects brought up at Tuesday’s parent meeting.
“We can’t take this stuff personal, we have to work together in this thing,” Ulmer said. “Fix it for the children. It’s all about the kids.”
The next school district informational meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. April 25 in the auditorium at the Hardeeville-Ridgeland Middle School campus.
The next parent meeting is scheduled for the next day, 6:30 p.m. April 26 at the Euhaw Baptist Church on Bees Creek Road.
This story was originally published April 15, 2022 at 11:00 AM.
