The Charleston County School District (CCSD) has put a lot of time and resources in recent years into closing staffing shortages at its more than 80 school locations.
While having enough school-provided transportation for students lagged during this time, Charleston school leaders say the coming school year may start with something they’ve dreamed of — no vacancies at all.
State legislative action since 2020 has focused on increasing teacher pay to fill classroom vacancies. With most districts now seeing dramatic improvement, attention has shifted to support staff and transportation providers. CCSD partners with First Student, the largest student transportation provider in the country, to get drivers and get students to schools on time.
“Making that projection right now is difficult,” said Joshua Glenn, senior location manager for First Student in Charleston. “But our goal is to start the year with all positions filled, and we have an incredible amount of resources involved in making sure that happens.
“We have a couple things going for us,” he added. “We have a very strong relationship with CCSD. We can have honest conversations about things like driver compensation.”
Glenn said pay is often the crux of staff shortages. Ensuring drivers are fairly compensated for their vital role in education is a top priority for the company.
“Drivers have a huge responsibility,” he said. “One of the things we discuss with candidates in our CDL [commercial driver’s license] school is how important their role is in a student’s life. A lot of times it’s a sad reality that a bus driver might be the first human contact a student has in a day — the first person to say good morning to them. Sometimes, they’re the last person to say good night.”
Overcoming challenges
First Student provides transportation to students all over the world, which gives the company an “unbelievable amount of resources” from which to draw, Glenn said. Those resources go directly into bringing drivers into communities that need them and providing ample support to the drivers they hire.
“It allows us to manage start-up in a way that many other providers can’t do,” he said. “It’s all-hands-on-deck. We have an incredible amount poured into advertising, we’ve brought in some extra people to bring drivers on board, and we’ve hired additional trainers.”
But the Lowcountry offers some challenges that drivers in other communities might not deal with — just look at Charleston’s traffic. Nevertheless, Glenn said having strong and reliable school transportation can actually mitigate traffic congestion, too.
“Anybody can go out and see the difference in traffic on a school day versus during summer vacation,” he said. “A lot of that has to do with how many parents choose to drive their kids to school themselves each day. … A strong, reliable service can help reduce that traffic impact for everyone.”
And while weather can get a bit dicey during hurricane season, Charleston mostly avoids one of the worst weather conditions: snow. Glenn has experience with snow after spending years working for First Student in the Northeast before moving to Charleston in 2025.
“We’ve had concerns over high winds, especially crossing the bridges,” Glenn said. “But it’s nice to not have to clean up snow. That’s an entire operation. I’ve had days in Connecticut where buses have had to completely stop and shelter in place.”
Other staff vacancies
While positions for bus drivers and teachers have been addressed, CCSD still boasts a long list of unfilled support staff positions at its schools serving more than 50,000 students. Ranging from secretaries and teachers assistants to crossing guards and nurses, it takes hundreds of people to keep operations running smoothly, according to CCSD spokesperson Sully Witte.
“As teacher vacancies have continued to decline, school leaders are able to devote more time to interviewing and hiring for support staff positions,” Witte said. “Next year’s budget includes a pay increase and step increase for support staff. We are extending the experience scale from 35 to 37 years, further supporting retention efforts and recognizing the value of experienced employees.”
Extending the experience scale means long-term employees will continue to get raises even after working for 35 years.
As of June 16, CCSD currently had 48 teacher assistant vacancies, five school-based secretarial vacancies and 12 vacancies in other support staff positions.
But with about half of the summer vacation left, school officials say they are confident they can fill the gaps before school resumes.
Interested in becoming a school bus driver for CCSD? Visit workatfirst.com and fill out an application. Applicants can attend a paid training program to receive their CDL, and new drivers start at higher pay rates depending on previous experience.
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