Principal pulls double duty as school bus driver due to shortage in South Carolina
A South Carolina principal started filling in as a school bus driver to help a school district struggling with a staff shortage.
“Everybody is called to do different things,” Tommy Bolger said Monday in a phone interview. “Mine just happens to be driving.”
Bolger, principal of Wren Elementary School, told McClatchy News he first took on the extra role in December after another bus driver went through a tragedy.
On a typical day, Bolger said he has been waking up at about 5 a.m. to make a 25-minute drive to the bus depot for Anderson School District One.
“Obviously it’s so cold, the bus has to be heated up for the kids so it’s not as cold when they get on the bus,” Bolger said.
Then, he starts his route of picking up about two dozen high school, middle school and elementary students — all before heading inside school to serve as principal. The schedule repeats itself in the afternoon, when Bolger drops children off at their homes, he said.
“It’s a 12-hour day, but everybody’s doing that,” Bolger said in a phone interview. “It’s not just me. You look at our front-line workers.”
Bolger, who is from Ireland, said he runs what others have called the “shamrock shuttle.” But it won’t last for long.
Another man has been training to take over the route, making Tuesday the last day Bolger will pull double duty as a bus driver, he said.
“It’s given me a new perspective of what they do,” Bolger told McClatchy News. “It’s an awesome responsibility driving a 40-foot bus (with) all the kids on there, and they do it every day safely.”
During the past months, students said their principal’s efforts served as an example to step up in times of need, WSPA reported.
“It’s motivating because if he can do two jobs, and if he can drive a bus, and drop kids off at their home, or bring them to school and be the principal, and do all that hard work, like we can do something hard too,” student Summer Owens said, according to the TV station.
With the end of this chapter, Bolger said he can get back to doing something he finds important: greeting students at the front of the school building.
“I miss that part, being at school just seeing all the kids in the morning,” he said.
Wren Elementary is in Piedmont, roughly 15 miles southwest of Greenville.
