The Jefferson County Public School District is making preparations to avoid a repeat of those long bus rides that marked the start of the school year last August.

Among several other strategies, JCPenney has given drivers with the Transit authority of River City or Task, the opportunity to get school bus certified.

How will that help?

Well, we'll have the answers in tonight's Education Matters.

Few weeks ago, the Board of Education went into an agreement with Target to have 70 drivers come over and assist us in our bus routes this year and getting them ready and certified to be on the road this year requires several significant steps, such as they have to get their S-Class permit and then go through the Kentucky school bus curriculum, training the classroom component, and then the road test.

One of the issues that we found early on was it was a large number of drivers that needed to be tested.

So we reached out to Kentucky State Police who stepped up and problem solved with us and with the transportation cabinet came up with the solution of coming here to do a pop up testing event for the car drivers.

What we're doing today is that written test for the school bus endorsement, which is required to have to drive a school bus legally in Kentucky.

The first step is what we're doing today is the written test.

Once they pass the written test, they have to keep that for two weeks and then there will be some training there.

And at two weeks with JCPenney's, we'll provide and then they will do a road test in a school bus.

And after that they will have their full school bus endorsement.

This is state licensure requirements.

So if you drive for the city, that's a CDL endorsement.

If you're driving for the school, that's the endorsement required, which is the required Kentucky school bus curriculum, which is in addition to the base CDL.

This is specific to school bus.

This is an endorsement additional on your CDL.

Kentucky law requires just one of the major differences is the railroad crossings, the procedures.

So there are specific questions or specific material specific to a school bus that a passenger bus driver for talk isn't mandated to to follow those procedures, but a school bus driver is.

And that's what the questions are today.

We will take as many drivers as we can get to the position that we're in right now.

With 561 drivers and 510 routes means with our average daily absences, we are close to being able to cover our base routing solution.

Our entire focus in operations has been for since the beginning of last year and moving forward that we have a successful first day of school this year.

Jeeps has a special hotline for families seeking information about the district's transportation system.

Calling 485 ride will direct callers to JCP staff members who will answer any questions.

And there is now a bus teller portal that lets parents see the bus stop assigned to their child.

You can check that out at JCP.

Yes.

First day dot com.