Bus driver and instructor Tessa Welch goes over the bus with Gray’s Creek Elementary principal Michelle Denton and assistant superintendent of school Jody Purvis during a driving lesson, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at the Livingston Parish School Board Offices in Livingston, La.
Bus driver and instructor Tessa Welch, right, works with Gray’s Creek Elementary principal Michelle Denton during a driving lesson, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at the Livingston Parish School Board Offices in Livingston, La.
Bus driver and instructor Tessa Welch, center, goes over the bus with Gray’s Creek Elementary principal Michelle Denton, left, and assistant superintendent of school Jody Purvis, right, during a driving lesson, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at the Livingston Parish School Board Offices in Livingston, La.
Bus driver and instructor Tessa Welch works with Gray’s Creek Elementary principal Michelle Denton during a driving lesson, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at the Livingston Parish School Board Offices in Livingston, La.
Gray’s Creek Elementary principal Michelle Denton goes through the steps of start-up during a driving lesson, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at the Livingston Parish School Board Offices in Livingston, La.
Bus driver and instructor Tessa Welch goes over the bus with Gray’s Creek Elementary principal Michelle Denton and assistant superintendent of school Jody Purvis during a driving lesson, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at the Livingston Parish School Board Offices in Livingston, La.
Bus driver and instructor Tessa Welch, right, works with Gray’s Creek Elementary principal Michelle Denton during a driving lesson, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at the Livingston Parish School Board Offices in Livingston, La.
Bus driver and instructor Tessa Welch, center, goes over the bus with Gray’s Creek Elementary principal Michelle Denton, left, and assistant superintendent of school Jody Purvis, right, during a driving lesson, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at the Livingston Parish School Board Offices in Livingston, La.
Bus driver and instructor Tessa Welch works with Gray’s Creek Elementary principal Michelle Denton during a driving lesson, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at the Livingston Parish School Board Offices in Livingston, La.
Gray’s Creek Elementary principal Michelle Denton goes through the steps of start-up during a driving lesson, Tuesday, September 20, 2022, at the Livingston Parish School Board Offices in Livingston, La.
Michelle Denton, principal at Gray’s Creek Elementary School in Livingston Parish, was in a bind.
Her school had grown, but she had lost bus drivers. The ones who remained — already stretched thin — were forced to run more routes, or take on second loads.
Students were showing up to school late; classes were regularly starting 15 to 20 minutes behind schedule.
“It became very frustrating,” Denton said. “My thought process was, ‘Okay, if I could get a short route where I can go quickly so I’m not away from school for too long, then maybe I could alleviate something.'”
So the principal, in addition to her many other duties, learned how to drive a school bus.
Denton is one of a number of administrators and coaches across the Livingston Parish School district who are undergoing the time-consuming process of getting a school bus certification to address a dire shortage of drivers.
And it’s not just buses — though school leaders agree that is where the district is hurting the most.
Teachers have been called to fill understaffed classrooms during their off periods when no substitute teachers are available. Central Office administrators have even shown up in the classrooms when the situation is desperate. Food service workers and other staff are filling in for custodians in some schools.
The ongoing struggle in Livingston Parish schools to hire and retain employees is not a new one, officials say. But the crisis is reaching a tipping point that academic leaders worry could jeopardize both the parish’s educational standing and the success of future students.
“Livingston Parish Public Schools, like many other school districts in our state, is facing the very serious threat of maintaining a highly qualified teaching corps, along with skilled, reliable support staff, to provide our students with the quality education they deserve and need to prepare them for the 21st Century,” said Joe Murphy, Livingston Parish Schools superintendent.
In response, the school board has approved the creation of a special taxing district that would collect money to raise salaries and attract workers. School leaders say it will give them a long-term source of money rather than the stop-gap measures they’ve used in recent years.
“Why haven’t we really raised the red flag before? Well, we’ve been able to manage. But we’re getting closer to that cliff,” said Delia Taylor, spokesperson for Livingston Parish Schools. “There’s not been a solution provided over these last few years. The cliff is still there.”
Livingston Parish school administrators remember a time, roughly a decade ago, when they welcomed about 40 new teachers to orientation before the start of an academic year.
In 2022, that number was closer to 200.
“That’s a tremendous amount of new teachers that have to be trained, have to be supported,” said Steve Vampran, who oversees the district’s human resources office. “We don’t like to see that big of a turnover year in and year out.”
Fewer and fewer area education graduates are choosing Livingston to begin their teaching careers, school board leaders have said. And administrators are questioning the quality of teachers they attract to parish schools, as more educators leave the state or seek nearby districts with better pay.
Now, the district has resorted to hiring “people with degrees,” but not necessarily a background in education, Vampran said.
Livingston Parish schools rank 38th in the state for average teacher salary, and last in the Baton Rouge region, according to data presented in a May 2022 legislative audit. At $50,243, the average Livingston educator pay falls behind teacher salaries in Ascension, East Baton Rouge, Iberville, West Baton Rouge and West Feliciana parishes, as well as the Zachary and Central community school districts.
Although district leaders have done their best to push through one-time pay raises and stipends when the dollars are available, it’s little use when competing districts do the same, Superintendent Murphy said.
“All we’re doing is treading water on this,” he said. “Yes, we support our people. Yes, they support us. All those things are wonderful. But at the end of the day, people still need to pay their bills.”
In the meantime, retirees are returning to the system to fill gaps even as in-house transfers between Livingston Parish schools surged this past summer. Administrators are encouraging paraprofessional district employees to earn their teaching certifications through Reach University, a program that provides flexible coursework options at a reduced cost.
And those 200 new teachers? There’s no guarantee they’ll stay past year one.
“We have an awesome team out here that supports and mentors these teachers,” Vampran said. “But if they don’t stay then we’re spinning our wheels in that regard, too.”
The teacher retention problem, which can be found in districts across the state, is nothing compared to what one school leader called an “extreme need” for bus drivers.
Murphy said Livingston’s average pay ranking drops even lower when comparing salaried staff members, such as bus drivers, custodians, maintenance workers and food service workers.
Denton, the principal undergoing bus driver training, said the certification process “is not easy,” and acknowledged the pay is low.
“At one point, back in the day, you used to have to fight for a route to drive a bus,” she said. “Now, it’s like we’re begging.”
District leaders said there are around 15 to 18 bus routes that have sat unfilled nearly two months into the school year. When a driver calls in sick, matters become more complicated. Officials said they could be trying to cover “as many as 30 routes a day” to ferry students to and from school.
Denton has witnessed this challenge firsthand. At the beginning of the school year, she sat down with her fellow administrators to reroute buses. They were all at capacity.
“It’s a struggle,” Denton said. “We’re on the struggle bus.”
Now, Murphy and other officials say they have hope things will change.
The Educational Facilities Improvement District, which was approved for creation by the Livingston Parish School Board earlier this month, will review local funding options for improving school system employee salaries.
The idea is that leaders will be able to recruit the region’s top educators and employees — and keep them happy for years with a salary that matches their level of experience.
In 1997 the state legislature passed a statute for some school boards to create the special taxing districts, and in 2011 lawmakers expanded the allowance to all school boards across Louisiana. The statue describes “a state of emergency” that exists in public school systems statewide and affects students seeking to be competitive in today’s workforce.
Public school boards in Tangipahoa Parish and East Baton Rouge Parish have previously elected to create EFIDs.
Like other governmental political districts, the district has the power “to seek local taxpayer funding for the limited purpose of supporting financial needs in the school system,” including, “most clearly, the need for higher salaries throughout the district,” said Cecil Harris, Livingston Parish school board president.
“We really are at a pivotal point in the history of our district in determining which way our future will go,” Harris said. “The shortages are such, that we are now competing head-to-head with other districts to survive.”
Email Jacqueline DeRobertis at jderobertis@theadvocate.com
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