So Moore sacrifices time with her family and works two other jobs to stay afloat financially: part-time security on weekends and seasonal work at the Greensboro Grasshoppers baseball stadium.

She considers herself to be one of the lucky ones. Moore has a safety assistant. Her job as a bus driver is full time. That’s not true for most other school bus drivers, she said.

“But we’ve got to take these children to school.”

Mounting stresses of the job, restrictions on overtime and years of stagnant wages have many Guilford school bus drivers — and other classified employees, such as custodians and cafeteria workers — wondering when will it be their turn for a raise?

Moore was one of three bus drivers who raised that question with the Guilford County Board of Education two weeks ago.

Bus drivers, rallied by Teamsters Local 391, plan to go to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners meeting tonight to push for increased pay. They plan to the return to the school board again for its budget meeting later this month.

The campaign to increase pay for those employees is expected to continue for several months, through the budget season, said Rachel Eitzen, the Teamsters’ members representative at Guilford County Schools.

Teachers should be paid more than they are, Eitzen said. What people sometimes miss, though, is teachers are paid a salary for 10 months of work, she said.

Employees such as bus drivers are paid by the hour. They are not employed 40 hours a week for 12 months.

“They’re completely underemployed,” she said. But those positions “are necessary for the education of the kids.”

Jeff Harris, Guilford County Schools’ transportation director, started driving buses as a college student and has worked for the school system for more than 20 years.

“I think pay is a big incentive for people to come to work for us, but they also have to look at the benefits,” he said.

Other companies might pay more per hour but don’t offer the type of benefits the school system does, he said. He estimated that about two-thirds of Guilford’s bus drivers are full time, working more than six hours a day.

Harris also understands the challenges of the job. Guilford, like other school systems across the state and nation, has a shortage of bus drivers. He estimated that Guilford has more than 30 vacancies now on top of about 16-18 daily absences.

The routes are long, particularly for the traditional schools. The countywide shortage of bus drivers means routes sometimes get doubled or tripled. Drivers sometimes have to drop off one load of students before returning to pick up the rest. It’s a situation parents have complained about to the school board.

Maximizing bus loads, meant to improve efficiency, may mean drivers have to deal with more student behavior problems.

“Many drivers are just frustrated because the students won’t listen to them,” Harris said.

“Obviously, we want to be as efficient as possible, but we also understand that when you put 45 middle school and high school students on buses, it becomes more difficult to manage,” he said. Some routes to elementary schools may have 60 to 70 students on a bus, he said.

Harris also acknowledged pay is an issue.

“It has been quite a while since there’s been a significant increase in pay, any type of increase,” he said.

Drivers and other uncertified employees received a 1.2 percent raise in 2012. They got one-time bonuses in the last two years: $500 in 2014 and $750 last year.

It’s not yet clear if bus drivers and other classified school employees will get a bump in pay in the state’s next budget. On Tuesday, when Gov. Pat McCrory announced his education priorities for the 2017 budget, he detailed proposed raises for teachers but not for uncertified employees such as bus drivers. State Budget Director Drew Heath said that information would be released later.

“What we want the school board to do is adopt a budget to go to county commissioners that includes a pay increase for the lowest-paid employees, which would be bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria workers,” Eitzen said.

That push likely will be a tough one. School leaders have already predicted that this budget season will be difficult. They have started discussing struggles with recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers and the need to make teacher salaries more competitive.

Some also argue that those calling for higher, more competitive wages for school employees often overlook the ones earning the least.

“It’s never the mechanics, the ones that keep these buses running safely so we can drive them and transport the students,” Moore said.

It’s never the cafeteria workers, cooking and serving food that keeps some children from going hungry, she said. It’s never those working to keep school buildings clean.

In Guilford County Schools, the pay scale for bus drivers starts at $11.75 an hour for substitute drivers and those driving activity buses. The rate for full-time drivers is a little higher, $11.87 an hour.

That’s lower than some other large school systems, such as Wake County and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, where the starting hourly pay rate for bus drivers is $12.55 and $12.94, respectively. It’s more in line with Charlotte-Mecklenburg, where bus drivers’ hourly rate ranges from $11.25 to $12.14, according to the school system’s website.

Many of the bus drivers are supporting families. Some are grandparents who are caring for their grandchildren, Eitzen said.

She said she has talked to many workers who qualify for food stamps.

“If they made more money on their job, they could provide the things necessary for their kids,” Eitzen said. “These folks already don’t make a lot of money, but they take great pride in what they do. They go above and beyond.”

JoCarolyn Wilkins, a Guilford bus driver, told the school board the drivers are underemployed.

“Many classified employees are struggling just to make ends meet,” she said. “With inflation and reduction of hours, we are making less today than we did eight years ago.”

Wilkins also read a statement from an unnamed colleague that noted the cost of living is increasing but their earnings are not. Another of Wilkins’ colleagues, one who works part time, said they go to work even if they are sick or hurting and have to pay for health, dental and vision because they don’t have benefits.

Moore read a statement from a co-worker who described spending about $1,000 a year on treats or other items for students, just as many teachers do. She cited another colleague who is 78 years old and has needed surgery for more than a year but is putting bills on hold because there isn’t enough income.

Moore also read a statement from another co-worker who talked about the stresses of the job.

“We as bus drivers deal with so much, from parents to kids to Guilford County staff, overcrowded buses, students with lack of proper medication, disrespectful students and parents,” the driver said through Moore. “I live from paycheck to paycheck (without) being able to get any assistance.”

Mary Donaldson said she began working for Guilford County Schools 17 years ago after a downsizing at Cone Mills, where she had worked 25 years. Her husband is a supervisor for custodians. Her son is a custodian and assists coaches with football and basketball.

They continue with their jobs because they love children, Donaldson said. But, she said, “It’s getting very difficult at times because we do need that raise.”

She said the salary she earns now is the same rate of pay as when she worked at Cone Mills.

“So there is your problem,” she said.

Being a bus driver involves more than people think, Donaldson said.

“It’s just not driving the bus,” she said. “It’s the importance of getting children to school safe also.”

Bus driver pay

The following is a sampling of bus driver salaries in North Carolina's largest school systems.

Guilford: $11.75 an hour for substitute and activity bus drivers; $11.87 starting pay for full-time drivers.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg: ranges from $11.25 to $12.14

Cumberland: $11.11 an hour (with benefits); $12.11 (without benefits)

Forsyth: Starts at $12.94 an hour

Wake: Starts at $12.55 an hour

Source: Individual school systems