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'm not sure exactly what your question is, but from what I gather, safety is a concern. If the school district isn't doing anything to stop the behavior of drivers, then please report the behavior to the police. That being said, make sure you know exactly what the driver has said or done or you could be accused of filing a false police report. You may have a situation where the driver has been instructed to leave students.
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Typically, no. However there have been circumstances where a driver does need to exit the bus. It also depends on the situation. Some bus companies require bus drivers to also act as crossing guards so they have to secure their buses and escort children across a road. Another circumstance where a driver would need to exit the bus while students are on the bus is to either speak privately (at the doorway to the bus) with a parent or an administrator. Finally if the bus driver has to use the bathroom, in my district we are authorized to ask for someone to come watch our bus while we use the facilities.
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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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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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"My sons bus driver says to be waiting on him in someone elses driveway a 8th of a mile up the road. No other kids get on when my son does. Waiting means stand there for possibly 30mins cause this bus doesnt come at a regular time."
I copied the second part of your question here so that I can address both at the same time
First, if your house is a designated stop, my first suggestion would be to go to the bus shop supervisor and find out why he has not been stopping at the stop. There may not be an easy place to turn around down by where you live. Sometimes there are safety reasons why we don't go down certain roads. If the bus has no consistent time, this is something that should be reported to the bus shop as well. I try to be on the same schedule within a 5 minute time frame so as not to worry my students or parents. Third, I don't know the age of your child, but it is likely that if the child is in middle or highschool, it is easier to get the child to walk a couple hundred yards to where there is a safe place for the bus to turn around. On one of my roads, there is literally no place to turn around at the end of the road. I could go down it and back into someone's driveway, but I don't want to do that unless it is absolutely necessary or pouring down rain.
Keep in mind there are laws when handling back ups on a 40 foot school bus. The bus isnt exactly the most maneuverable vehicle too. Hope this helps.
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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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