Albemarle County Public Schools’ (ACPS) bus driver “shortage” may be—at least in part—self-created.
Correspondence received from an anonymous source within the ACPS transportation system takes aim at Transportation Director, Charmane White, and purports that incompetent management is impeding the implementation of obvious driver-shortage solutions.
According to the letter, many ACPS transportation department employees have a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) and could be utilized to ameliorate the division’s present student-transportation woes:
In the latter part of 2018 it became evident that Transportation management had decided they were no longer team players with the schools in their efforts to get the students to school. The then director of Transportation, Jim Foley, verbalized often that he “wanted the principals to feel the pain” as he felt the principals did not support his efforts in attempting to obtain driver pay raises. This is when management stopped allowing many department employees (mechanics, clerks, dispatchers, etc…) to assist on runs with no drivers. When asking if someone in one of these positions could cover a run the response would be “no, they said that they want the principals to feel the pain”. Obviously this mindset is still in play. There are many Transportation employees with CDLs that could be utilized as drivers; mechanics, parts and service personnel, office staff, and managers. They drove in the past when need dictated. Review the records, it was a consistent practice for ALL department employees with a CDL to drive if need dictated, until, as mentioned above, the attitude “we want the principals to feel the pain” was adopted in 2018. Needless to say, it is the students and drivers that have been most affected by the decision not to use all resources available to get the students to school. White, present Transportation Director, has been quoted as saying that utilizing these people takes them away from the jobs in which they were hired for. In times such as this shouldn’t they be utilizing all resources available to them? Why are they allowing the children to be late when staff exists to drive these routes? Why is this tolerated? Transportation has always been short of drivers, however, previous directors (Davis, Hastings, Smith) utilized all staff to fill the void and made it a priority to get the children to school on time. It was not a chess game or power struggle for them. Principals were respected. Transportation’s priority was to get the children to school. They did it, and everyone got the job done that they were hired to do. [emphasis added]
The letter goes on to list, by initials, those who have left driving positions because of substandard transportation department protocols and crony-based management hiring practices:
Yes, Transportation is short of drivers, this is not a new phenomenon, however, the shortage has increased significantly, particularly this year. This is not due to pay or there not being individuals that will drive, it is because of management. Had driver concerns been listened to and heard, a qualified candidate from outside would have been selected to replace Foley.
Employees are not leaving for higher paying jobs, they are quitting management. Ask *AR, DO, AB, CB, XJ, CS, MR, DW, DY, DB, RD, JH, AS, or TC, to name just a few, why they quit. Trust that more resignations are imminent.
Recent Schilling Show editorials detail other problems with ACPS Transportation and Division management regarding unbearable working conditions and lack of respect for bus drivers. These issues have yet to be addressed.
In the meantime, there have been unconfirmed reports that ACPS is packing more students on school busses than is safe, in order to lessen transportation backlogs.
Ultimately, responsibility for the ACPS transportation failure rests with the Albemarle County School Board and Superintendent Matt Haas, neither of whom appear interested in taking necessary remedial actions—or even acknowledging the chronic, existent problems.
I work for ACTransportation and it really is a shame how management treat the employees and how they refuse to guarantee our hours and pay us for holidays all the surrounding countries pay their employees and they don’t have the budget Albemarle has. They keep talking about team work there is no team work at ACPST the employees get no respect from management at all
Jane is completely right.. if you don’t rub elbows, bow, and jump to for management you get screwed over. I dropped to sub years ago to pursue another job (that fell through from lack of applicants to start a hire process) after my year review was held to a rating of 3(no raise) because I was late 2 days. Worst part being the average through all sections gave a final score of 4(a small raise) Coming back since I “betrayed the county” while just attempting to do better for myself and family I was not allowed full time contract. As a sub I was averaging between 50-70 hours a week filling empty runs and vacations. Then got repremanded for working to much as a sub. My final straw was learning I was making around 11 a hour while new hires with no experience coming in where being trained at 15 a hour.. and yes my request for raise was refused because I was only a sub..
Maybe comments such “If you don’t like it, we can have someone to replace you by morning!” or “Someone can always fill your place!” made my Charmaine White and Matt Hass have come back to bite them in the butt!
After 40 years of driving for ACPS, disrespect from downtown, transportation, and superintendents is the only reason I retired.
More to come later!
Frank you are so Right. They haven’t respected their drivers in YEARS and now our kids and fellow employees are feeling the pain. You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to that shit show!
I changed laterally within the county. Asked to be a sub driver for this year even was still receiving emails from transportation and was invited to go to there pre-service which I attend. After I went and asked what I needed to do to be paid. They told me that they weren’t going to pay me cause they didn’t put me as a sub. I went to hr and haven’t heard anything back about it. Charmaine was the worst choice to put in the office. When Jim was there last year he was willing to jump in a bus or van when he was able. I haven’t heard or seen Charmaine do it once this year. Weird….I know things weren’t perfect with Jim, but he did a Million times better at it. I have heard and seen so much racism that she has pulled its not even funny…..
Also, the shop is running in busses and I have seen other upper office staff drive. Bus drivers are doing the best they can and routing is doing the best they can to get people to kids safely possible.
Resignation
Due to the unfair treatment of my wife
Kim, I can no longer work as a sub driver
for Albemarle County. The only reason I
was a sub was to help with the driver
shortage when I was available and not
working at my real job. There is no
wonder that there is a driver shortage.
Your drivers are under paid and over
worked. There is no appreciation for
hard workers that you have like Kim. I
can’t be a part of an organization that
cannot appreciate hard work and loyalty.
I also feel as I was told at one of your
anti racism zoom meetings that I am to
white to work there. You can take that
any way you want but I feel that
reversed racism is a huge part of
transportation.
This was my resignation letter last year. I have been in the transportation industry since 1985. I have a CDL with every endorsement Virginia can offer. I drove a school bus thinking it was going to be a so-called retirement job. Albemarle County treats their employees terribly. There is so much drama in the transportation department it almost makes me sick. As I stated earlier I have been in transportation for a long time. If a trucking company was run the way that the school bus department is run it will be out of business in a year . I have never seen so much incompetence in all my life. There are some good people and I emphasize some but most of them have a title for a job they have no clue how to do. There is no wonder there is a shortage of bus drivers . The word is out. they are losing drivers left and right. I hope the parents speak out and get this incompetent Director of transportation removed. Maybe they can put someone in there that actually knows what they’re doing
I drove for acps and I requested help went through the chain of command asking and begging for help. My bus was so bad the kids were crawling over the seats wouldn’t sit down screaming like crazy to the point my bus rolled into another bus I almost had several bad incidents that all I asked for was an aide on my bus or a different route and Charmaine white said no to both so I put my hands on her desk got down to eye level with her and told her you leave me no choice but I quit she had the audacity to tell me to get off Albemarle County property and I said ha ha I live in albemarle and pay my Albemarle County taxes I can’t leave
Sharon – That sounds familiar. I’ve had the same issue for 5 plus years. The school has asked for assistants and so have I. It’s impossible to get any help, even when there is staff.
The pay discrepancy between existing employees and new hires is very real. It blows my mind that such a thing is even possible in a relatively populous and affluent county such as Albemarle. Still, I know it is very real: as a substitute driver with a few years of experience I am being paid less than the posted rate for new subs. I have talked to several people and have found this to be a common thing over the years. BTW, it is not limited to the School Division; it happens elsewhere within the Albemarle County government. This phenomenon where pay doesn’t rise or even keep up with market rates in the face of new hiring is known as Pay Compression (or Inversion in the most extreme cases) and you can look it up using those terms. From one source: “The most common consequence of pay compression is unproductive turnover. This is especially likely to be true of your best and longest tenured employees or of high performers or managers who have not seen pay increases along with their increased responsibilities or output.”
If you want to demoralize employees, playing games with their pay is one of the best ways there is. Morale within Transportation has not by any means hit rock bottom, and we have many wonderful and dedicated employees, but we will be facing an even bigger crisis over time if this really basic principle – maintain consistent and fair wages for everyone within a pay grade – is not figured out.
By the way my experience with staff driving buses is not as the author of the letter suggests. Mechanics and other staff have been driving buses since 2018 but dispatch has to exhaust all other options first. Jim Foley was often seen driving a bus himself, or directing traffic at a school, so I don’t agree that his driving principle could have been to do nothing just to make the schools feel pain.
WE must take exception with the statement that “Morale within Transportation has not by any means hit rock bottom”. The exodus of good employees, and the results from the Gallup survey, say otherwise. These issues are not about compensation. Perhaps some want to believe that they can just throw more money at drivers and the issues will go away, but that’s not the reality.
Anyone can submit a request under the FOIA to review the department records which will provide verification of employees that have driven. These comments, on Rob Schilling’s Facebook, were made by a former dispatcher “….as a dispatcher we asked repeatedly for them to drive and help us and we were told no”.
#FACTS#PUBLICPERSONA
Comments: “….my experience with staff driving buses is not as the author of the letter suggests. Mechanics and other staff have been driving buses since 2018 but dispatch has to exhaust all other options first”.
Our response: Anyone can submit a request under the FOIA to review the department records which will provide verification of employees that have or have not driven. These comments, on Rob Schilling’s Facebook, were made by a former dispatcher “….as a dispatcher we asked repeatedly for them to drive and help us and we were told no”.
#FACTS
Comments: Jim Foley was often seen driving a bus himself, or directing traffic at a school, so I don’t agree that his driving principle could have been to do nothing just to make the schools feel pain.
Our response: #PUBLICPERSONA
I have no idea what P’s responses mean. There’s way too much anonymity and sensationalism on this blog so I’m pretty much out of here.
I’m sharing my direct observation; please share yours. Kim was my boss and we talked a lot, and I’ve been in the bus lot seeing who is driving buses out to runs. Your indirect experiences really aren’t challenging my direct ones.
I’m not saying everything is great; I’m just saying that a few points were misrepresented.
[…] communication sent to parents on August 7 (see below) by Charmane White, ACPS Transportation Director, details the basis on which transportation decisions were […]