Oklahoma School Districts Facing Urgent Need For Bus Drivers, Child Nutritionists, Support Staff

The new school year is just around the corner, and many school districts are still looking to fill open positions for bus drivers, child nutrition specialists, and even daycare programs.

Broken Arrow Public Schools is one district still looking to fill open support staff positions, but the district said it's in a much better position heading into this school year than last year.

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This year, Broken Arrow started this summer with about 50 to 60 open bus drivers, child nutrition, and childcare positions, but they've already filled about 30 of those so far. There were about 30% more open positions at this time last year.

Broken Arrow's chief support services officer, Rosalyn-Vann Jackson, said Broken Arrow is taking steps to recruit better and retain the staff it has through stipends and increased salaries. She said without sufficient support staff, it's the students' education that suffers.

"We have the opportunity to get students to and from school not only safely but on time, which is very, very important to the educational day and can impact educational outcomes. Attendance is very critical for education outcomes," Vann-Jackson said.

Having more staff also helps the many employees in Broken Arrow as well.

"Having the staff necessary lessens the burden on the existing staff as well and lets them know that their home-work life balance is important to Broken Arrow. As a family we want to make sure that they were taken care of as well," Vann-Jackson said.

Anyone interested in working at Broken Arrow Public Schools can learn more at baschools.org/careers.

Other districts are also facing big support staff needs. Union, for example, needs more bus drivers with eight openings, nine child nutritionists openings, and 10 teacher aide openings.

TPS said it's in a good spot with bus drivers but has about 100 positions open in child nutrition from entry-level to management. Jenks has just a few openings, including classroom teachers and speech-language pathologists.