{"id":22198,"date":"2023-05-17T00:20:49","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T04:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=22198"},"modified":"2023-05-17T02:50:36","modified_gmt":"2023-05-17T06:50:36","slug":"brick-school-officials-endorse-bill-in-hopes-to-attract-drivers-for-small-school-transports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2023\/05\/brick-school-officials-endorse-bill-in-hopes-to-attract-drivers-for-small-school-transports\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick School Officials Endorse Bill, Hoping to Attract Drivers for Small School Transports"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A 9-passenger school van. (Credit: Rohrer Bus Transportation)<\/p><\/div>\n

A bill<\/a> pending before the state legislature gained the endorsement of the Brick Township Board of Education last week, as the district \u2013 like most in New Jersey \u2013 is struggling to find school bus drivers.<\/p>\n

The latest bill under consideration in Trenton to ease the hiring crisis is one that would allow drivers without a commercial driver\u2019s license, or CDL, to operate small school vehicles that can carry nine passengers or less. These drivers would still be required to obtain what is known as a \u201cType S\u201d license that includes all of the requirements, including drug testing, of a traditional bus driver without the CDL aspect.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hope is that we could get more drivers, because we\u2019re short, if we were able to only require the Type S endorsement without the CDL for vehicles with nine passengers of less,\u201d said school district Business Administrator James Edwards. \u201cThe CDL requirements require under-the-hood expertise on engines \u2013 nothing someone who\u2019s driving a nine-passenger vehicle would need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Assemblyman John Catalano (R-Ocean), who is currently running for Brick Township mayor, attended last week\u2019s school board meeting and said he had concerns about the bill and would not support it in its current form, however he did not elaborate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not voting for it at this moment,\u201d Catalano told board members. \u201cI want to discuss this assembly bill with some of the co-sponsors who are for it. When it is finalized, if some of my concerns are not met, I will not be voting for it in its present state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair of bills that would authorize \u201cType S\u201d drivers to forego the CDL, S-3203<\/a> and A-4835, were both introduced last year and both have been approved by their respective committees to be sent to the full bodies for a vote. The Assembly version of the bill was released from its committee last week.<\/p>\n

The board unanimously endorsed the bill, suggesting it would help attract drivers. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the national labor crisis has sent salaries for drivers with CDLs soaring, with many school bus drivers favoring higher-paying districts and private busing companies, or operating vehicles other than school buses.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough, the bus driver shortage is not as high as it was during the peak of the Covid -9 pandemic, school districts are still finding it hard to find drivers,\u201d state Sen. Vin Gopal said in a statement when he introduced the bill. \u201cHaving more applicants qualify on the S level certification will help us meet the need that has become evident based on conversations with school officials and parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gopal chairs the state senate\u2019s education committee.<\/p>\n

The bill, as voted upon last week in committee, includes a number of safety measures and potential penalties for \u201cType S\u201d drivers who do not possess CDLs. A person who operates a Type S vehicle while their license is suspended or revoked would be guilty of an indictable offense \u2013 New Jersey\u2019s terminology for a felony.<\/p>\n

The bill also provides that the Type S driver who is found to have left a pupil on a bus at the end of the route, is to be suspended for six months for a first offense or permanently revoked for a second offense. A suspension would not be lifted until the drivers completed a 10-hour refresher course.<\/p>\n

The bill also requires a 90 day suspension if a driver is convicted of three or more motor vehicle moving violations in a three-year period, or accumulates six or more motor vehicle penalty points while operating a commercial motor vehicle or non-commercial motor vehicle.<\/p>\n

\u201cType S\u201d school buses are those that weigh more than 3,000 pounds, but are designed to carry no more than nine passengers, not including the driver.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bill pending before the state legislature gained the endorsement of the Brick Township Board of Education last week, as the district \u2013 like most in New Jersey \u2013 is struggling to find school bus drivers. The latest bill under consideration in Trenton to ease the hiring crisis is one that would allow drivers without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[24,4484,1317],"class_list":["post-22198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-schools","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-featured","tag-school-bus-drivers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/school_van.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-5M2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}