Please note: 

• These changes DO NOT change building start/end times or parent drop off/pickup times. All building schedules will remain the same.
• If your child rides a CCSD bus route that is affected by this change, you will receive additional communication directly from the Transportation Department, please watch for communication by the end of next week (November 14-18).
• This change impacts around 500 riders.

Prairie Families:

I apologize in advance for the length of this letter, but I am committed to providing a full rationale for changes impacting our students and families.  Given the current state of staffing challenges in K-12 schools across Iowa and the nation, I am asking all District families to read this communication.

As we emerge from the pandemic, the challenges of staffing are impacting all sectors of our economy.  Schools are also experiencing this unprecedented staffing challenge, which has been well documented in local and national media.  While Prairie and Iowa, in general, tend to be experiencing fewer challenges than other states, we have not been immune to the impacts of staffing shortages, especially in the area of transportation/bussing.

Over the past three years, these challenges have caused us to make difficult and undesirable decisions to ensure continued transportation of all District students who have the need to ride a school bus.  As we address these challenges, we give a great deal of care and consideration to how any change impacts our families.  While these decisions are often undesirable, these decisions are essential.   We know that changes to how we transport students impacts not only the schedules of learners, but also the lives of our families and we take that fact seriously.

The purpose of this communication is to make you aware of another necessary change to our bus routes as we continue to adjust to staffing shortages.  We also want to communicate the actions we have taken thus far to avoid these types of changes and provide a greater context for the challenge.  In short, we do not want to make these changes, we simply have no other viable options to address our transportation needs and goals while adjusting to this severe driver shortage.

While we were finding staffing challenges with drivers prior to the pandemic, in the 2021-2022 school year, we ran 40 regular routes and 10 specialized transportation routes.  These routes transported 3500 students and were carried out by 70 drivers and an additional 20 mechanics, office and support staff.  Due to staffing challenges, we are currently running 31 regular education routes, 5 specialized transportation routes and 5 van routes.  Our current routes are staffed by 52 drivers and an additional 25 mechanics, office and support staff transporting 3900 students daily.  Many of the additional support employees now drive on a daily basis as well.  Over a four-year period leading up to and including the pandemic, we are down 28 total drivers.

To adjust to the loss of 28 Drivers over the last 4 years, we have taken several actions including:

• Enhanced recruitment by attending and holding job fairs, recruitment events, advertisements
• Offering incentives for current employees, including coaches to get their license to drive a bus
• Increased the starting pay from $17.67/hour to $21/hour and the top pay from $20.36/hour to $26/hour and continue to monitor current rates of pay for this sector to identify needed changes
• Increased benefits to transportation staff, including an additional paid holiday
• Increased the employee recruitment bonus program for transportation
• Eliminated the opportunity to have two different pick-up / drop off locations or different AM/PM buses
• Continue to examine and modify routes for efficiency, including increasing our average bus capacity to 60

Our goal is to ensure that every student has a ride to school each and every day.

In order to do this, we must make another change to our system, we will be doubling some of our local routes beginning Monday, November 28, 2022.

What does this mean?  Some of our local routes will load a group of students, drop them off at their respective buildings, and then load another group of students of the same age.  Each building will have staff on hand before and after school to supervise the students that are being transported by bus earlier in the morning or later in the day.

Where will the students wait? Each building will have a plan and location for their students to wait in the morning and afternoon.

Why must this be done? We simply have no other viable options to address our goal of transporting all students while adjusting to severe driver shortages.  While Iowa law does not require bussing of all students within a specified range from school, bussing all students is a long-time commitment to our families that we want to maintain.

*Iowa Law does not require schools to transport students who live within 2 miles of their K-8 building of attendance or within 3 miles of their High School building of attendance 

Why my student? Routes were chosen based upon location to campus and the time needed to run the route.

How long will this last? Until we are able to secure enough staff to return to regular routing or find other permanent long-term viable solutions to this shortage.

Are additional changes to come?  More changes are likely if we continue to experience these staffing challenges.

How can I help?  If you know of anyone interested in driving a school bus, please have them contact our department. Requirements for driving a bus are listed here: Class B CDL Requirements

By being fully transparent about our challenges in this area, we are asking for your patience and understanding as we work through these challenges.  We are committed to keeping the needs of families and students at the center of our decision-making as we work to find solutions to challenges facing our school district.

In Service

Doug Wheeler
Superintendent of Schools