DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — Tesfanesh Tellore was one in a line of parents outside Robert Shaw Traditional Theme School in DeKalb County. Her son, Nathaniel, was wrapping up his first day of school.
"I'm feeling good, excited," Tellore said. "He wants to be an airplane mechanic, that's what he says. He likes to touch things, work with Legos."
Tellore said Nathaniel would need a good education inside the classroom to live out that dream. Monday also marked the first day of school for new DeKalb County School District superintendent Dr. Devon Horton. He said the district's biggest challenge is needing to hire hundreds of teachers and bus drivers.
"We're making sure that we can get well-skilled, highly-trained educators in front of our students, our bus drivers, making sure they have what they need, the support," Horton said.
Horton said an initiative was in the works to provide tuition assistance to develop a teacher employment pipeline from college. According to a spokesperson, the school district hired 750 new teachers but still has about 350 openings. The district planned to filled those gaps from its pool of 1,100 substitutes.
Bernando Brown, director of student transportation for the school district, said there are currently 600 school bus drivers on the road with the district. He said the district was still looking to fill 150 bus driver vacancies.
Brown said in response, the district is having some drivers run double and triple routes. In some cases, teachers, nutritionists and custodians are pulling double duty by getting behind the wheel themselves. Brown said parents can also sign up for alerts to know when their child's bus will arrive.
"We're just asking all parents to be patient," Brown said. "We want to make sure every student is picked up safely and not have to wait a tremendous amount of time at the stop to be able to be taken to school."
Tellore said she would opt to drop her son off at school herself. She recognizes the role teachers and school staff play in driving her son's dreams and the dreams of thousands of kids district-wide.
"Each school has their own management in how they run their school," Tellore said. "I believe they have to hire more teachers because this generations needs education. Education is important."