State Senator Sine Kerr’s (R-Buckeye) Senate Bill (SB) 1630, which aims to alleviate the current school bus driver shortage Arizona faces, was recently signed into law by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey (R).
“Arizona is a prime example of just how grossly understaffed school districts and charter schools across the nation are when it comes to bus drivers,” Kerr said in a press release. “Drivers with a CDL [Commercial Drivers License] are in high demand, and we’re losing them to big companies like Amazon and Fed Ex. A mixture of outdated federal and state laws are only exacerbating the problem. The end result is children are experiencing big delays in their pick-ups, field trips and athletic events are being cancelled, parents are forced to drive inordinate distances to get their children to class, drivers are working sometimes 15-hour days to combat the shortage, and administrators are being forced to pick up some of the workload themselves.”
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