ORANGE, Texas — Amid the many shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, you may have also heard about a shortage of school bus drivers affecting school districts across the country.
Southeast Texas is not immune to this issue, but one Southeast Texas college is helping to fill the void.
Lamar State College-Orange is working to crank out more licensed school bus drivers as part of its new course.
The six-week course came about thanks to a grant and college administrators plan to keep it going well into the future.
Stephanie Duhon teaches the Class B CDL bus driving course at LSCO.
She has a background in truck driving, but she's thrilled to train these students looking to become licensed school bus drivers.
"There's such a shortage of bus drivers that it's great that Lamar has picked up this program to help the school district and help the community putting people to work," Duhon said.
The course is offered at an accelerated rate of six weeks down from the normal 18 weeks.
Duhon said school transportation is a great field to get into.
"The perks of the school hours,” Duhon said. “You get the holidays off and the summers off. It's great for moms that wanna work as well because they do have the same hours and days as their kids. So, it's just a great opportunity."
An opportunity Shironda Jackson who is retired said she couldn't pass up.
After talking to her friend who works in the school bus system she decided to sign up.
"We kind of talked about it, and she said that she'd let me know that there was a class starting and so I decided to get in and I'm learning a whole new world," Jackson said.
Jackson said besides becoming a licensed school bus driver she's really doing it for the kids.
"I would love to work with kids and the community and we are going with 'No kid is left behind,' and if we could just help one kid it will be well worth my while," Jackson said.
Thera celestine with LSCO said students can go on the school's website LSCO.edu and fill out a one-page application for the course.
"There's some grant money available so there's a possibility the course could be covered at no charge to the student, so it's a great opportunity to take advantage of this free training right now," Celestine said.
Duhon and Celestine said it feels amazing to be able to put people to work while meeting the need of so many schools.