The bus, festooned with signs, is a portable recruiting outpost for First Student, the Cincinnati-based school bus company that holds the contract to provide transportation for the Seattle School District.

Four days a week, two First Student school bus driver recruiters, Tolora Moss and Stacey Steele, answer questions, pass out fliers and job applications and sign up prospective drivers to fill the seemingly never-ending demand for school bus drivers.

The two have found that marrying the company’s need for workers with the needs of Department of Social and Health Services patrons for new income works well for both parties: The school bus transportation company gets new workers, and single parents and the needy find jobs.

Steele, herself a mother of two, said welfare and employment security offices, food banks and other social service agencies have proved to be fruitful sites for recruiters.

“We pay well. We offer benefits and advancement for those who are dependable workers,” she said.

Pay is $13 an hour for driving with a bonus of $650 if a worker sticks through a whole school year. Drivers are paid weekly, a decidedly attractive benefit for people who’ve had difficulty meeting their bills because they’ve depleted their financial reserves.

First Student’s Tacoma recruiting effort is indicative of the kind of extraordinary efforts bus transportation companies and school districts are making to find and train dependable drivers.

Nationwide help wanted advertising is peppered with recruiting pitches for drivers.

In some communities, the failure to attract enough drivers has led school districts to seek out-of-the-box solutions: paying public transit agencies to carry students, recruiting school district parents to drive and arranging school schedules so that children attend schools in shifts.

“In general, I’d say we’ve been very successful in our recruiting,” said Nicol Jones, a spokesman for First Student in Cincinnati. “We’ve made recruiting a community-wide effort. Many of our drivers have been with us for 25 or 30 years.”

First Student has an enormous appetite for drivers. It has nearly 50,000 school buses in its nationwide fleet and some 60,000 employees, most of them drivers.

Competing with other jobs has driven school bus driver wages higher. At First Student in Seattle, the top driver wages reach $17.35 an hour, said Moss.

And school bus companies are reaching farther from high cost cities to find drivers where living costs are lower.

Steele said First Student, for instance, operates shuttle buses up and down the I-5 corridor to provide transportation for bus drivers in more distant communities and to deal with increasing commuting costs.

The availability of school bus drivers varies with the health of the economy, according to Mike Martin of the National Association for Pupil Transportation. And while unemployment rates have risen in Washington to 5.3 percent statewide, they’re still well below historic highs of more than 12 percent in the early ’80s.

Business was fairly brisk recently at First Student’s Tacoma recruiting outpost.

“People usually are curious the first time they notice the recruiting bus, then they get up the nerve to fill out an application,” said Steele, herself a driver for nine years.

Sonja Lawrence of Shelton had come to the DSHS office with her boyfriend. She noticed the recruiting team, filled out an application and was scheduled for an interview.

“I’ve been looking for a job,” she said. “This looks like a pretty good opportunity.”

If she lands that job, she’ll move to Tacoma and stay with a friend to get access to the job shuttle.

Not everyone who applies can pass the requirements, said Moss. While there are no steep educational requirements, the company is looking for applicants with no felonies, no child abuse, sex, weapons or drug offenses. It also requires three years of driving experience with no more than two moving violations or minor accidents in the last two years. Applicants with a driving while intoxicated conviction in the last 15 years will be rejected.

Applicants must also pass a physical test and a dexterity test and have no positive results or refusals on a drug or alcohol test in the last three years.

The company offers three weeks’ training leading to a Class B commercial drivers license.

“Some of our applicants won’t qualify,” said Moss. “But for those who do, it can be a pretty good job,” said Moss, who started her bus driving career a dozen years ago in Kansas City and then transferred to Washington. “It’s worked very well for me,” she said.

John Gillie: 253-597-8663

blogs.thenewstribune.com/business

School bus driving jobs

company: First Student

Wages: $13/hour, 25 to 35 hours a week

Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401K

Location: Seattle, with shuttle bus transport to job site

Apply: In person, South 19th and State streets, Tacoma, Monday through Thursday, or by phone at 206-763-2222.

Requirements: 21 or older; good driving record; no felonies, drug, sex or child abuse convictions