The Bus Driver
15 Years Experience
South, ..
Female, 37
I have been a bus driver since late 2006. I know the inside story, the scoop, the down low dirt of what it takes to be a bus driver, how to handle kids and adults, and how to survive on the "streets" so to speak. I used to have a blog, feel free to browse it or ask me a question here.
I would need examples of the questions being asked in order to better understand the situation. That being said I rarely ask any child any side of a situation but his or her own. For example, on my bus on Friday, I had let one of my more challenging students sit further back from the front. As such, he subsequently threw something at other kids which made a big problem on the bus. Instead of accusing any one child, I asked each child what happened and their side to the story. This stopped them from being upset over the situation and allowed them to control their side to it.In the end, I got the truth about what happened, correlated by several kids, and not one of them accused the other of doing it.
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I haven't had much of a chance to blog recently. Its kind of a shame that I've not been as active in the blog-o-sphere. Maybe I'll create a new post referencing this Q&A so that people can come and get their questions answered directly.
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Buses and routes are typically determined by your specific company that you will be working for. In my district, the routes are designated by number and the ones with the longest routes in miles or those that do many field trips out of town get preferential treatment when the newer buses arrive on the lot. Most of our drivers keep the same route year after year so unless the driver voluntarily gives up their route, or retires, the routes stay the same as do the drivers. That being said, there is a fair amount of turnover between drivers and floaters and substitutes and its likely you would get a route in a short amount of time. Be aware though if there are several routes that are listed as "open" it is likely that those are the routes no driver wants because the kids are absolutely awful on those routes. On the other hand, it takes a special driver to handle those sorts of routes and make them "good" routes again.
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Each state has their own laws regarding the age of bus drivers. I think here in Georgia it is 21 or 22. Other than that I'm not sure. As far as time is concerned, yes it can be worked during a college schedule. In fact I am in college myself and manage my job and college.
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Then you may want to check in with the district and the bus shop to see if something can be done. Have you considered talking with the driver to see what his reasoning is? Maybe if you approach it with a polite manner, he might be more amenable to changing or giving an extra row of seats for space. Good luck.
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Have you tried speaking with the bus driver directly? Maybe there is a space issue and the driver has assigned seats. If your child is the last stop (in the morning), then it may be that the only seats available are ones with boys in them. If possible you could request that your child be seated next to a child of the same gender or paired up with someone else. When I have assigned seats on my bus, I usually will pair children together with ones whom I know are their friends on the bus. Sometimes with the younger ones, I will pair them up with either classmates or older positive influences.
As far as saying good morning or anything to the children, it is each bus drivers individual preferences. I prefer to greet every child with a friendly good morning. If I don't greet children, they know its either because I was distracted or otherwise occupied answering a child. Sometimes you speaking to the bus driver might bring about the change that your child needs. Good luck!
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It depends on the area. Some bus drivers drive the routes the same way in the evening that they do in the morning, therefore that first on first off philosophy works, but then there are some drivers who reverse their entire route in the evening so that first on is often last off. This is usually due to the area in question. For example, if a student lives 20 minutes outside of town and there are some students on the bus that live directly in town, the bus will often drop off those in town students before the bus makes its way out of town to drop off that one student. My bus route is a little complicated as I make two runs in the morning and two runs in the afternoon. All of my runs are set up to make sense for the geography of the area and to maximize the time efficiently while serving the most amount of students. Because my highschool is on one side of town and my middle school is on the other side of town (my elementary is in the middle) I often will drop off students on my way to one or the other schools or pick them up in the morning depending on number of kids and whatnot.
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