It’s not as hard as it looks

WILLIAMSBURG — “We are always looking for bus drivers,” Williamsburg Community School District Superintendent Chad Garber said while standing in the high school parking lot April 6.

Amid a national shortage of bus drivers, Williamsburg offered to let residents drive a bus around the school parking lot to see if they might like the job.

The District got approval for the test drives from its insurance company and from Chief of Police Justin Parsons before letting anyone behind the wheel.

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“It’s been great,” Garber said after the first 30 minutes of the two-hour event. About eight people had driven within the first half-hour, and that number nearly doubled by the one-hour mark.

“My goal was 10-15,” Garber said.

Adam Berte, a high school math teacher and softball coach, test drove a bus. He doesn’t want a route, but if his team needs to travel to an event and no drivers are available, Berte could get behind the wheel.

Berte has driven a tractor and likes big machinery, but driving a bus is “not something I’m dead set I want to do,” he said. “I know a lot of times they’re looking for bus drivers. Maybe I could help out”

“We have lots of interest,” John Schnebbe, transportation director, said during the event.

“It’s a big vehicle,” said Schnebbe, but not hard to drive. Manual transmissions are a thing of the past. The buses are all automatic now.

About 70% of Williamsburg’s fleet is propane.

The turning radius is better than it used to be. A bus could turn around on a gravel road using both shoulders, said Schnebbe, though it will probably never need to.

The buses are equipped with backup cameras and warning alarms. They even have heated seats.

The district doesn’t have major behavioral problems with children on buses, Schnebbe said, but when they do, cameras capture the incidents so school principals can review the video and take appropriate action.

In Williamsburg, it’s mostly minor stuff. “Just rough housing,” said Schnebbe.

The District tries not to make the routes too long for the kids. With planning and scheduling, routes are 30 minutes to an hour driving time. That doesn’t include loading and unloading.

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Right now the transportation department is fully staffed, said Schnebbe. That may change when the school year ends. Some of the drivers are getting old. Schnebbe’s father drives, and he’s 80. Another driver is 79.

The more drivers the District can train now, the more drivers it will have in its pool when a need arises.

Residents could drive both large and small buses during the test-drive event. The smaller bus doesn’t require a Class D CDL, said Schnebbe. A school bus endorsement is all that’s needed to drive it.

Jeff Willie, a bus driver in his 14th year with Williamsburg, and substitute driver Dan Becker familiarized residents with the buses and rode with them as they drove.

“If I can drive one, anybody can,” Willie said. And the pay is better now than it used to be.

Eric Johnson showed up to test drive. He used to drive a bus in Wisconsin, he said. “I said I would never drive a school bus,” he said. It’s too stressful.

Now that he’s getting bored sitting in front of the television, he might give it a try.

Jessica Von Ahsen, assistant principal at Mary Welsh Elementary, drove “just to support our bus drivers.” She won’t make a career of it.

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“It was great,” Von Ahsen said. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.” Driving a school bus is similar to driving any vehicle except for the tail swing, she said.

“We really appreciate our bus drivers,” said Von Ahsen. “They are essential to our school district.”