EXCELSIOR SPRINGS – The school board approved an incentive Nov. 8 at the Support Services Center to address a bus driver shortage. The district will pay teachers $500 for obtaining a commercial driver license to drive buses, Deputy Superintendent Jaret Tomlinson said. The district also will pay regular drivers an incentive of $500 per semester, he said, which would cost the district an estimated $15,000 and $20,000 per year. Superintendent Travis Hux endorsed the plan, in use by the Raytown School District, where he had worked before succeeding Dan Hoehn in Excelsior Springs. “It gets harder and harder to find bus drivers every year,” Hux said. “It’s a split-shift job and you’re driving ‘a house’; you’re trying not to be hit by people who are looking at their phones instead of the road; you have student management – all that going on at the same time.” The district expects the incentive to recruit coaches to drive teams to and from events, Tomlinson said, which would help address a…