Short-staffed Cafeteria, busing departments search for employees
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Students wait for sixth period to start during Targeted Instruction time in the CCA on Thurs. Sept. 9. Photo by Sydney Territo.
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Tiger Times
uring the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a severe drought when it came to job offers due to the economic strain placed on businesses. Despite looser regulations, these effects are still felt today. According to Reuters, an international news organization, regardless of the increase in hiring opportunities, there has not been a proper recovery of employment rates due to restrictions and fears of COVID-19. In turn, this has caused a cascade effect on understaffing all across the United States and is seen in Fishers with a prominent staffing shortage in both the transportation and food service departments in the school district. As a result, the department heads have had to find ways to adapt. Transportation director Zach McKinney worked around the shortage of bus drivers by implementing a three-tiered busing system, which staggered start and end times for the different grade levels so more routes could be achieved with
Sydney Territo
terrisyd000@hsestudents.org
fewer bus drivers. “You know, I would say that on average, in my experience, we had about 10 drivers retire,” McKinney said. “The average age of my staff is 55, so for a lot of the people who work in my department, this is their plan for retirement. They’re trying to stay occupied after retirement, but those in their later stages of life are ready to enjoy their retirement and will retire from being a bus driver. Because of COVID the previous year, going into the 2021 school year I saw an uptick, so instead of an average of about 10, we had 32 drivers either resign or retire.” According to McKinney, before the staggered start and end times, the bell times were so closely coordinated that many students would have to wait for bus drivers to finish other routes before being picked up. This caused them to have to stand through cold weather and storms, which was something he wanted to avoid. “For us, we’ve been very fortunate,” McKinney said. “We are short-staffed, but with a threetiered system we’ve been able to
accommodate our routes and generally, even with our driver shortage, we’ve been running on time.” While the busing situation could be solved by reordering the schedules, the food service department had not found a simple solution. Instead, they had to make more sacrifices due to a reduced staff count, which meant cutting some programs like the CCA café. During its time being open, the CCA café would open in the mornings before school, stay open throughout the day, including lunch, and would offer hot sandwiches and pizzas after school. They offered hot and cold drinks such as lemonade, iced coffee and tea. The CCA café was popular, as students would line up before school to get their breakfast, snacks and hot food after school. Senior Basil Koch experienced the café during their time as a freshman and sophomore and knows what it was like when it was open. Students like Koch feel as though it brought a special quality to the school, and that without it,
September 2021
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