PennDOT Deputy Secretary Kurt Myers and Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) Secretary Dr. Noe Ortega today joined the Pennsylvania School Bus Association to encourage interested individuals to obtain Commercial Driver’s License to address bus driver shortage in Pennsylvania. “The school bus industry has been hit hard by COVID-19, and the Pennsylvania School Bus Association appreciates PennDOT and PDE’s partnership in working through the school bus driver shortage,” said Ryan Dellin...

Ryan Dellinger, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania School Bus Association (PSBA), joins National School Transportation Association’s (NSTA) Executive Director, Curt Macysyn to discuss the current bus driver shortage affecting our state of Pennsylvania. Ryan provides a look into his background, and transition as the Executive Director of PSBA. Then Curt and Ryan talk about the longstanding relationship between NSTA and PSBA, and how that relationship benefits members of both organizations...

Keeping in line with family tradition, it was only right that Denille Girardat, the president of the Pennsylvania School Bus Association and part-owner of a school bus company, found her way back to the world of pupil transportation. She began cleaning and sweeping buses for her family-owned transportation business, Girardat LP, in the early part of her career and later pivoted to a long-time role in retail. After much success, she went back to her school bus roots, increasing her involvement in...

The Pennsylvania School Bus Association is trying something new to recruit drivers. It launched a website, youbehindthewheel.com, to help link potential drivers with open positions. On the site, you can search for bus companies near you that are currently hiring. The association said salaries can range from $15 to $25 an hour with benefits. If you don't want to be a driver, school bus attendant positions are also available in some districts. Attendants ride in the busses to help watch the stud...

In order to address the driver shortage, the Pennsylvania School Bus Association has launched a statewide recruitment campaign aimed at raising public awareness of the shortage as well as providing a number of resources that can be used to recruit new school bus drivers. Harkelroad praised the PSBA for being proactive in trying to find drivers. “The Pennsylvania School Bus Association is one of the strongest bus associations in the country and recognized early in the shutdown that this wa...

The Pennsylvania School Bus Association is launching a campaign to get drivers behind the wheel. The “You Behind The Wheel” campaign is a statewide initiative to raise awareness about the driver shortage and recruit new ones.

“Statewide, we need hundreds and hundreds of drivers to be fully-staffed for this fall,” Ryan Dellinger, Executive Director of Pennsylvania School Bus Association, said. A bus driver shortage is nothing new, but the pandemic only made it worse. “The last thing we ever want to do is to have kids unable to get to school,” Dellinger said.

Pennsylvania School Bus Association Executive Director Ryan Dellinger said the school bus driver shortage in his state had been an issue since well before COVID-19 hit, but the pandemic added new obstacles. A significant portion of the school bus drivers across the state are retirees, he said, who don’t want to risk exposure to the virus.

There is currently an ongoing shortage of school bus drivers across the state of Pennsylvania. According to the Pennsylvania School Bus Association, the number of drivers continues to dwindle by the year. "This is something that is not only a state issue; it is a national issue. School bus companies and schools across the country are struggling to really recruit and retain drivers," said Ryan Dellinger of the Pennsylvania School Bus Association

Whether it's rising COVID cases, retirements, or a lack of funding, several schools are suffering from a driver shortage.