Jared Soares The Roanoke Times

Sandy Bayse, a driver for Mountain Valley Transportation, greets summer school students before driving them home Wednesday afternoon. The private company operating Roanoke school buses is looking to hire 20 drivers before the start of the school year.

Sandy Bayse, a Mountain Valley Transportation school bus driver, said it takes kind, responsible and safe people to haul students to and from school.

Bayse, a bus driver for 21 years, is a certified trainer for the private company that operates Roanoke's fleet of school buses.

"Probably half the people who come into the [training] class don't realize the responsibility," she said. "They think it is a pie job -- it is not."

Several Roanoke-area public school transportation departments, including Mountain Valley, are trying to fill bus driving positions in time for the start of school. Mountain Valley has used banner-clad buses parked at schools around the city to advertise for the openings.

"We don't ever stop hiring drivers," said Ellen Sullivan, Mountain Valley's human resources director.

Transportation officials, including Sullivan, said they try to maintain a healthy cache of substitute drivers to fill in or to replace regular route drivers as needed.

Mountain Valley is looking to hire 20 drivers, and Roanoke County needs at least a dozen. Bedford County has four vacancies, Botetourt County has two, and Salem has one.

Ryan Edwards, a spokesman for Bedford County schools, said the division typically hires drivers from its substitute list.

"This gives us a chance to know the driver and know who we are hiring beforehand," Edwards said.

Franklin County schools recently wrapped up a training session that will add seven drivers to the substitute pool. Steve Oakes, the division's director of transportation and facilities, said he likes to have between 10 and 15 backup drivers.

"You can't keep too many of them because you may not have work for them," Oakes said. "It is a fine line."

Montgomery County schools' bus routes are staffed fully, said Supervisor of Transportation Rebecca Mummau.

"We trained just before school was out," she said. "Knowing it was going to be tight in the summer, we went ahead and did it."

But Mummau still is not turning down applications.

School bus drivers are required to carry a commercial driver's license with a pupil transportation designation. To meet that requirement, training drivers must operate a bus with students in tow for 10 hours on top of the initial accumulation of 24 hours behind the wheel. When school is out, that is hard to meet unless summer school is under way, Mummau said.

In addition to licensing, there are several other pre-employment requirements. Sullivan said she cannot hire anyone who has been convicted of a felony; applicants must possess good (but not necessarily spotless) driving records, and new hires are subject to background checks and drug screenings.

Drivers in training must take and pass the written learner's permit test and complete 24 classroom hours before proceeding to the behind-the-wheel hours. Once the training is complete, the applicants must test at the Department of Motor Vehicles for the commercial driver's license. The license test includes a pre-trip inspection, basic vehicle control and on-road driving.

Occasionally, after all the training is complete, Sullivan said a driver will be placed on a route and find out the job is not exactly what he or she expected.

Some drivers find the job is more stressful than expected. The jobs are part time, usually about 25 hours a week, and the time is split between a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon. Starting pay varies by locality, but ranges from about $9 to $11.75 per hour. Drivers are paid during training.

"We are looking for people that love children and love everyone's children," said Danny Carroll, supervisor of transportation in Roanoke County schools.

Louise Holland, a Mountain Valley bus aide, said that description fits her; she is a people person. She likened herself to a mother or a nanny to bus riders she sees each morning and afternoon. Holland also acknowledged that some days it is her job to give the children a little extra TLC.