MOOSE JAW — Prairie Â鶹ÊÓƵ School Division’s transportation department is facing issues attracting and retaining bus drivers because regular SGI-mandated retesting requirements are placing undue stress on existing operators — with two recently quitting.
Todd Johnson, manager of transportation, presented the 2023-24 transportation accountability report during the January board meeting. The report contained information about the division’s activities in transporting students to school, the number of routes, run times, distance travelled and other statistics.
Drivers must retest every five years and have a current satisfactory medical examination on file with SGI, while department office staff annually review drivers’ abstracts through the MySGI Online program and monthly check licences using SGI’s internet site, the report said.
“This year alone, we’ve had two drivers that said the process is not for them and they are stepping away because they don’t want to retest,” Johnson told the board.
School bus drivers possess an S-endorsed licence, which means every five years, they must retake a medical exam, re-take a written test, re-perform the bus circle test and re-do the driving test, he continued. This retesting costs PSSD $46,000 every half-decade.
People with this licence are the only ones in Saskatchewan who must do this, which is “a real hindrance” since semi-drivers with 1A licences only require a medical exam, the transportation manager noted. Transit bus drivers in Moose Jaw, Saskatoon and Regina do not face these rigorous requirements, either.
Forcing school bus drivers to re-take these tests every half-decade is also “troublesome” because those operators experience “extreme worry” over several days, said Johnson. It’s also difficult for the department to reassure those drivers that they can pass those tests and that they can succeed.
“But some of them are just stepping away saying, ‘I don’t want the stress of trying to re-write this test again,’” he remarked. “So that’s the bad part. … This is a Saskatchewan theme.”
In comparison, other provinces want bus operators to have updated medical checks when renewing their licences, although anyone who has not driven in five years must re-take the driving exam, he added.
Johnson noted that attracting and retaining drivers is the biggest obstacle the department faces, a problem that he sees in every community that Prairie Â鶹ÊÓƵ serves. His report indicated that while the division has hovered around 106 regular bus drivers for several years, the number of casual drivers has decreased to 44 from 76 in 2019-20.
To address this problem, he thought the board should lobby the provincial government to make changes since many residents who may be interested in driving don’t know about the need to retest every five years. Meanwhile, he and other school division transportation managers have been in talks with SGI about adjusting the requirements.
“It seems discriminatory,” said trustee Mary Jukes.
Trustee Brett Hagan said it was good to be aware of the requirements that SGI was imposing on school bus drivers and how Saskatchewan was an outlier compared to other provinces. Moreover, he thought this showed a need for the board to advocate for changes.
The next Prairie Â鶹ÊÓƵ board meeting is on Tuesday, March 4.
