Strapped for Bus Drivers, School Systems Turn to Parents

To all the mothers who feel as if they spend their lives behind the wheel, consider the daily schedule of Valerie Petrey.

The Sterling mother of four wakes up at 6 a.m., picks up more than 100 squirming children, in addition to her own, and drops them off at three schools. In the afternoon, she takes them all home again.

For the past seven years, driving has been her job.

Petrey's decision to become a school bus driver is one that many mothers, and some fathers, are making in Loudoun County and elsewhere in the region to help school systems fill a key personnel shortage. These parents put up with traffic and candy-crazed students in exchange for the same days off as their children and more time shared with them.

In Loudoun, about half of school bus drivers chauffer at least one of their children, sometimes starting from the time they are in car seats.

"Some of these kids have grown up on our school buses," said J. Michael Lunsford, director of transportation for Loudoun schools. For the smallest children, parents there can strap a car seat into the benches directly behind the driver's seat, which have seat belts.

The policy of allowing parents to bring toddlers -- and even infants -- on board has helped recruiting for some school systems, including those in Loudoun, Fairfax and Prince William counties. Other systems, including Montgomery County, do not permit drivers to bring young children on board, citing safety concerns.

School bus drivers in Loudoun are paid a minimum of $15.90 an hour for a job that requires, on average, 3 1/2 hours of driving each day for the 183 days of the school year. In addition to medical and retirement benefits, drivers in Loudoun are drawn by a perk many working parents would envy: no child care expenses.

This year, Prince William school officials dropped the minimum age for children who ride on school buses with their parents from 2 years old to 6 months. The change drew about 60 new drivers, said Edward Bishop, the system's director of transportation services.

Every extra driver helps, transportation officials say. School bus driver shortages are a chronic problem across the country. In the Washington area, Loudoun has 35 unfilled positions, Prince William has 45 and Montgomery has about 50. In Fairfax County, where 1,100 school buses cruise the roads each day, there are 75 jobs open.

"I don't want to say we're desperate, but we've been close to desperate for the past two or three years now," Lunsford said.

Lunsford started driving a school bus when he was 16 and a student at Loudoun County High School in Leesburg. For $5 a day, he would drop off his friends, park the bus in the back of the lot and then hustle to class.

A generation ago, farmers, stay-at-home mothers and teachers drove school buses in Loudoun, in addition to students. Nowadays, drivers tend to be retirees, immigrants and parents looking for flexible jobs.

Previously, Petrey had a human resources job with Safeway in which she traveled the country opening new grocery stores. After her fourth child was born seven years ago, she decided to leave that career.

"I couldn't put another child in day care," she said. "I just couldn't."

After a friend suggested bus driving, she applied and took a month-long training course. When she first walked around the yellow bus with its waist-high wheels, she said, "it was terrifying."

Her new salary was a third the size of her old one, but she figured she was saving money on day care and business suits. She saved even more money by taking her children out of private school and putting them in public schools.

There are other advantages. Her youngest three children ride with her, so she spends more time with them. As a bus driver, she has gotten to know their principals and teachers, and she's had time to volunteer at their schools.

Overall, she called the job "very family-friendly."