The School Bus Bill
I have recently been working with the School Bus Driver Association on a bill to help our schools with school bus driver shortages. There have been a number of people who have had questions about the bill, and so, I felt you deserved a more complete explanation of current law and the purpose of the changes.
Why this bill is important
- School bus driver shortages are negatively affecting our schools and students across Wisconsin, yet current law discourages our older bus drivers from continuing to seek re-certification. This bill maintains safety standards while retaining our senior bus drivers who make up roughly 25% of our school bus driving workforce. We need them to keep driving.
- Current law requires most school bus drivers to relicense every 4 years while our drivers over 70 need to relicense every 2 years. In addition, our bus drivers over 70 need to be medically cleared annually.
- Current law significantly delays medically healthy bus drivers from returning to work. The state review board who considers medical conditions affecting drivers licenses, sometimes only meets every few months. This can cause bus drivers who have already been approved by a medical professional to wait months to get their “S” endorsement reinstated, resulting in months out of work for them and extended shortages of drivers.
States without age discrimination in their bus driver licensing
- Many states have standards for their bus drivers without discriminating against the older drivers, including states such as Washington state, New York state, and Florida. In addition, our neighboring states have 4 year relicensing for all bus drivers, not the 2 year relicensing for 70 year old’s and 4 year relicensing for under 70 year old’s that Wisconsin currently has.
What the bill does
- We align with our neighbors and many other states to have one standard for our bus drivers to be relicensed, namely every 4 years.
- We maintain the annual physical examination of our older drivers to ensure they haven’t deteriorated in physical capability in the last year.
- We streamline the process to allow medical professionals to certify that our bus drivers have been medically cleared to safely drive our kids rather than waiting months on bureaucrats in Madison to certify what the local doctors have already determined. This gets our safe and reliable bus drivers back on the road, serving our communities.
Articles about the School Bus Bill
You can watch my interview with WBAY here.
You can read WPR’s article about the school bus bill here.
In-District Events
Saturday, August 16, brat fry supporting veterans and first responders at Kimps ACE Hardware, Wrightstown 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday, August 16, is a movie in the park at Zirbel Park, Wrightstown from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Wednesday, August 20, Music in the Park at WayMorr Park, Greenleaf from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Friday, August 22, is the Landings Car Show at 793 Tarragon Dr, Kaukauna from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Saturday, August 23, is the Combined Locks Firefighters Picnic at Memorial Park, Combined Locks from noon to 11 p.m.
Sunday, August 24, is the Brown County Izaak Walton League’s Trout boil, Pig Roast, and Auction at Osprey Point 3320 Monroe Rd, De Pere from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Tuesday, August 26, is Tunes on Tuesday at 104 High Ct, Wrightstown from 6 p.pm. to 9 p.m. More information can be found here.
