ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Have you ever wanted to drive a school bus? Saturday morning in St. Johns County is your chance.
You can get behind the wheel for a test drive at a St. Johns County District Schools recruitment event called “Come Drive the Bus With Us.”
The school district's assistant director of transportation, Phil Rizzo, says if he could, he would hire 30 school bus drivers right now because that's how many they need. He tells First Coast News that this has been the district's toughest year when it comes to the number of people applying for the job.
The point of the event is to get people behind the wheel of a school bus and to be showed what it is like. Rizzo says this is a main obstacle when people consider becoming a driver.
"Just take a little test drive because one of the fears is a lot, ‘I don't know if I can handle driving that machine,’” Rizzo said.
Rizzo says in 2022, the school district had about 57 people drive buses at the event and hired about seven to 10 people. He says if you decide to pursue the career, you must pass multiple tests at the Division of Motor Vehicles and go through a course that's three weeks long.
The job comes with health benefits and the starting wage with no experience is $16.65 an hour. Rizzo says once the district hires more people, it will help cut down on the time it takes to get kids home from school and cut down on traffic at parent pick-up lines.
"If I could hire them and fill all 30 vacancies between now and the end of the year, that would be tremendous,” Rizzo said. “Just a matter of getting enough folks interested in applying and [getting] through the process."
The Come Drive the Bus With Us event starts at 8 a.m. and goes until 11 a.m. at the Public Safety Campus Test Track on Gaines Road in St. Johns County.