BAPS bus drivers to see second pay raise inside of a year

Written By: Brittany Harlow in collaboration with Broken Arrow Sentinel  

(BROKEN ARROW, Okla.) Last summer, Broken Arrow Public School (BAPS) bus drivers were included in a sweeping $2-an-hour-pay raise for hourly support employees across the district.

But district officials aren’t stopping there. During a December 4th Board of Education meeting, board members voted to increase bus driver pay again.

BAPS Chief Support Services Officer Rosalyn Vann-Jackson said prior to the hourly raise this past July, the district was in the lower half of the region in pay for bus drivers.

“When we did the $2 an hour raise, we were still at the lower region,” Vann-Jackson said. “Last summer we discussed, how do we become more competitive? Can we make another investment before the end of the year? Do we need to wait another year or two? And we decided to go ahead and make the investment for second semester.”

Bus drivers for BAPS currently make $15.66 an hour. Thanks to Monday’s approved increase, they will be making $17.16 an hour as of January 2024.

“We know how important it is for our kids to have a safe ride to school,” Vann-Jackson said. “Parents depend on our services. School buses are the safest form of ground transportation. And hopefully we can get ahead of the bus driver shortage by taking this action.”

Vann-Jackson told us she has been working in education transportation and support services for nearly two decades and school districts have been experiencing bus driver shortages the whole time.

“It’s just a very challenging job to recruit for,” Vann-Jackson said. “However, it’s very rewarding. It’s great because you work with kids, you are part of their daily routine, you’re the first face they see when they get on the bus in the morning and you’re the last face they see when they get off.”

She said driving a school bus can be a difficult job, and those with a CDL have a lot of options that don’t involve looking after children, which adds to the challenge.

“The great thing about Broken Arrow, though, is we have in-house student management,” Vann-Jackson said. “Our transportation delves out all of the consequences for misbehavior on the bus, which is unique. So we don’t have much of a challenge with that. We bring a lot of drivers from other districts to BA because of the way that we do student management on the bus.”

BAPS bus driver student management includes mutual respect, getting to know the students’ names, and positive relationships.

“We’re engaged with our students inside and outside of the classroom,” Vann-Jackson said. “And they build relationships and rapport. With that mutual respect, there are expectations. And our drivers set out those expectations for students and our administrators back up our drivers whenever there are behavior issues on the bus.”

Bus driver training and cameras on every bus also help to maintain positive interactions.

Vann-Jackson said the recent arrest of a Broken Arrow bus driver
for his response to unruly children was an outlier, unlike what normally occurs on the typical day-to-day. The district attorney declined to file charges in the case.

“There have been some negative things but there have also been some positive things from that,” Vann-Jackson said. “We’ve had community members that have been positive. We didn’t want those events that happened that day in October to occur with that driver, with those students, but it’s a reality of the nature of people in general. Overall, we have great staff, in general. Our drivers are wonderful. And for the most part our kids are, too.”

Out of 190 bus driver, aids, and mechanic positions across the district, there are currently 12 bus driver openings.

“We have a fantastic transportation department and I think this will just kind of help us to go over and above to show our people we really care,” Vann-Jackson said. “It’s not just for recruiting; it’s for retention. Our drivers deserve it and we have the ability to do it so we are taking the opportunity to.”

If you’re interested in becoming a BAPS bus driver, click here.