Last year as we reported the Washoe County School District was witnessing a bus driver shortage, where they even had to implement blackout dates for transportation. Additionally, last year the WCSD increased wages as well as hiring new staff heading into the new school year.
“Every student across the district who is eligible for transportation will receive transportation also free of charge from the WCSD," said Adam Searcy, the Chief Operating Officer for the WCSD.
As we've reported, the variance policy and procedures have slightly changed. From a transportation standpoint there is no real difference.
In the past, students have been able to apply to go to schools they aren't zoned for, which is still the case, however..."they won't be provided transportation like they would if the attended their zoned school, and that’s going to be the same going forward,” said Searcy.
Walk zones also came up in conversations with the school district. Once a student lives in a walk zone which is a zone a certain radius away from the school, if a student lives close enough, they'll have to walk to school instead of getting transportation from the WCSD.
Historically Searcy said the walk zone distances for elementary, middle and high school have been one, two and three miles but “about five years ago due to dire budget circumstances the school had to increase those walk zones at the elementary and middle school level to 1.25 miles and 2.25 miles.”
This year the school board approved the additional funding needed to hire additional bus drivers needed to lower those back down to one, two and three miles. But the district still needs to fill those open bus driver positions to lower those walk zones back to normal.
“We are funded and eagerly looking to provide that transportation to the thousands of additional students who will be affected by this,” said Searcy.
He said it takes a while to hire new bus drivers because they need to be very carefully trained with certified commercial driver's licenses, but they hope to have enough bus drivers by the second semester and since increasing wages for bus drivers, they say the pay is around $23 with full benefits starting on day one.
To apply to for open positions visit https://www.washoeschools.net/Page/1034.
