Valley schools consider 'pooling' bus drivers when needed

It's a problem many school districts now share, the lack of qualified bus drivers.
Thursday, superintendents from all over Mahoning county gathered in Poland to talk about their issues and come up with solutions.
One superintendent says his district seem to loses them as they get trained.
"We're bringing people in to train and going through the whole process and then all of a sudden we lose those people, some to other schools or other trucking businesses or organizations like that as well," said Canfield Superintndent, Joe Knoll.
One of the potential solutions is sharing drivers when needed.
"I think the region is interested in sharing drivers throughout the district so, for example, when Poland is off and maybe Struthers needs a driver we might be able to lend them a driver to help us through this," said Poland Superintendent, Craig Hockenberry.
Having a pool of drivers the whole county can share is a good short-term solution but they need a long-term solution to the problem. The supers think they can have that if the state can relax their requirements that all bus drivers have a CDL license.
"We are imploring our state and federal legislators to look at that and determine what is specific in that training for bus drivers to ensure student safety vs. what is not applicable to school transportation drivers," said Traci Hostetler, superintendent of ESC of Eastern OH.
In the meantime, all local school districts are still looking for anyone willing to fill those important driver positions.