South Bend Community Schools’ enrollment appears to be up to start the school year, but there are still dozens of open positions.
Numbers are still preliminary, but Superintendent Mansour Eid told the school board Tuesday that the district currently has more than 14,000 students. But he said there were more than 40 vacancies for teachers.
“We are expanding the apprentice teacher program, but we don’t want to grow it too much,” Eid explained.
Board member Mark Costello said it can be hard to find quality staff members, but he believes everyone is “bending over backwards” to make the school year successful. "Those are the things you can’t control very well, but those are sometimes the most important things to keep in mind, if you want a successful start of a school year," Costello said.
The school corporation is short about six nurses and 12 bus drivers, according to Eid. He said First Student has agreed to provide eight drivers to help fill that gap, although its availability will be limited, since it moved its local operations to Niles, Michigan. The school district will pay at least $360 per day for each driver, under an agreement approved by the school board Tuesday. Board members also approved a contract with RM Transit to provide buses and drivers for three routes, at a daily cost of $518 per route.
Also during Tuesday’s meeting, the school board agreed to pay almost $360,000 in transportation invoices from the first half of 2025, for students facing housing insecurity and those in the foster care system. Eid said it’s a challenge to plan for this required service ahead of time.
"The number of McKinney-Vento students changes by the day," Eid explained. "The minute they secure a home, they no longer are in that category."
He said it’s often easier to outsource these trips than to change existing routes, especially when students have to be driven out of the county.
Eid also told school board members that the district has streamlined the process of notifying the transportation department of students’ address changes. He said more than 500 changes were approved, while about 50 were denied.
"The denied ones are basically people living in one district wanting to be transported into another district, especially when it comes to elementary schools," Eid told board members. "We cannot afford doing that."
Eid said some students who were previously given an exception will continue getting transportation.
