Smith asks state to allow $2.5M in bonuses for its school bus drivers
Would provide four payments of $2,500 to each over next 18 months
Although St. Mary’s public schools haven’t seen school bus drivers protest or have “sick-outs” recently, Superintendent Scott Smith is trying to provide them with retention bonuses.
At the school board’s Nov. 17 evening meeting, Smith said the school administration planned to request approval from the Maryland Department of Education to reallocate $2.5 million in federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds. If approved, the school system would provide each driver for its 42 school bus contractors a $2,500 bonus in December or January, followed by checks of the same amount in May/June and again at the same times during the 2022-2023 school year.
Unlike Calvert and Charles counties, St. Mary’s bus drivers have faithfully continued to report for work, Smith said. Public schools in Calvert and Charles had massive disruptions earlier this school year as bus drivers demanded higher pay and other benefits; those disruptions have largely ended as administrators work with the drivers there.
Smith noted that substitute bus drivers have been used on 10 or 11 St. Mary’s routes since the beginning of the school year, signifying a bus driver shortage.
“I want to publicly thank the bus drivers and the contractors for continuing to provide service,” he said.
He added that additional compensation as part of their regular pay would be considered for drivers during the budget process next year. Any pay increases would be implemented for the 2022-2023 school year.
The decision to request the reallocation came about due to the U.S. Department of Education’s Nov. 12 decision that said federal funds through the emergency grants could be used for salary increases and retention bonuses for bus drivers, he said. The school system
found out about the change on Nov. 15.
Smith referred to the pending $2,500 installments as a “down payment” to drivers. He’s hopeful they could ultimately be approved at an upcoming joint meeting of the school system and county commissioners.
In another news item, Smith said the system has 20 vacancies for classroom teachers, which he said is the largest number the system has had at this point in a school year. “It is extremely stressful,” he said.
He noted that COVID-19 case numbers have continued declining in the county and in the schools. However, he took time to rebuff a Nov. 16 report from The Baltimore Sun that reported high levels of coronavirus cases in St. Mary’s County, specifically at Margaret Brent Middle School.
Smith said the report was deceiving because it used accumulative data from the beginning of the school year. That school has had 101 cases since then, he said, but only one so far last week and two and four cases the previous two weeks.
As a school system, St. Mary’s had one case last week, 17 the week before, and 33 and 33 the two previous weeks, he said.
“We are definitely trending in the right direction,” he said, adding that as a result of the story, “People [across the state] said, ‘What the devil is St. Mary’s County doing?’”
In state news, the Maryland school board voted Nov. 16 to approve mandatory masks in schools into February.
During public comment, Sharon Page — who said she’s been a nurse for 35 years, including 17 years at St. Mary’s public schools — said she wrote to the state schools’ superintendent and state board of education and requested that the mask mandate go through the end of the school year.
Page said over 700 children have died from COVID-19 in the U.S.
“Please do not give into pressure from vocal parents and community members touting child abuse and mental anguish,” she said. “Just come and spend a day at my elementary school. You will see children learning, singing, playing and going about their business while wearing their masks.”
Page works at Hollywood Elementary School, according to schools.smcps.org.