Schoolbus Driver: June 2005 Archives

I am ranting this morning. I read a few comments on another journal and it has gotten my dander up. So you can continue reading or you can stop now. This is a heated topic for me. You have the right to state your opinion but I would suggest before you put forth an opinion it be an educated one. Don't attempt to be an expert on the subject until you have experienced the job first hand and have done the research neccesary to be informed. Please don't fill my comments with negative remarks unless you yourself have been employed as a school bus driver or school bus monitor. Before Steven and I married, before I moved to Virginia, I worked for the school system in my county back in Georgia. I did substitute teaching and drove a school bus for many years. It is not a job I want to do again. Being a school bus driver is one of the most thankless jobs in the school system. Administrators, office employees and teachers often look down their noses and treat you as if you are an uneducated fool and incapable of getting a better job. For me it was a decision I made so that I could earn a living, have medical insurance coverage for my children and still be home most of the day to raise my children and homeschool Colby. Parents are the number one reason I do not ever want to drive again. I have an impeccable record and NEVER missed a day of work in 5 school terms. I was the only driver my boss ever wrote a letter of recommendation for. I am not bragging just stating facts. I had such an excellent record that a story was published in the newspaper. Several of the high school clubs raised money or donated money for some of the programs I implemented on my bus. I provided used library books, crayons, coloring books, pockets games, anything and everything I could think of to keep small children entertained. I drove a great school bus. It was a 2000 Chevy with a Bluebird body. It had a stereo system so children could listen to music as a reward for good behavior. When I left a/c was being installed in every bus. How's that for riding in style? The route I drove had 53 children ages 4-6 and 18 children ages 7-10. The school district split the routes because high school age students picked on and bullied little kids and it was deemed best to separate them, especially siblings. Many parents baulked at this plan but I promise you disciplinary actions dropped extremely. Let me tell you a little bit about school buses and their drivers. Drivers spend on average 3-4 hours in a moving vehicle with those school aged children. You get to know children beyond their name, age, school attended and where they live. A driver is often the most seen school system employee. They are the first representative a child sees in the morning and the last when they step off at home. They get the least respect from parents. Parents need to remember one thing: Riding the school bus is not a right a child deserves. The transportation to and from school is a privilege. Yes, a privilege and it is one that can be taken away. Parents who think they can throw their weight around and intimidate drivers are the reason it is now a federal offense to step onto a school bus and mouth off at a driver or stand at the bus stop and cuss and shout and make meaningless threats to the driver and/or other children. Many school systems do not back their driver's in adhering to state and federal laws. If an incident occurs it is the driver alone who is responsible for filing police reports. If a car breaks a traffic law involving the school bus it is the driver who has to file the transportation report and the police report. If an altercation occurs at the bus stop, whether the driver witnessed it or not, the driver is responsible for all follow-up in reporting an incident. During the last year I drove I was stopped at the entrance of a housing project. The bus was stopped with all lights flashing and the stop sign out. A car pulled up in the driveway of the housing project. The driver let her child out, looked at me, looked at the traffic, looked at me again and sped out of the entrance. She hit a child and NEVER stopped. I was held liable for the child. I had to file the reports with the police department without any support from the school system or school board. Do you believe this woman's boyfriend threatened violence the next day because I had to report the incident and her license was suspended? Do you think the school offered me any protection? I was told to file a police report of the threat. That was the length of the schools involvement. This is not uncommon. Conditions are getting better nation wide but most drivers know they are on their own. Do you want that resposibility? I would like to know what makes parents think their children are angels while riding a bus? What makes a parent think their child sits down and behaves on the school bus when most of those same children do not even behave in the family car? What makes a parent think their child never instigates an altercation? I had a parent file charges against me because she said her child was abused in my care. It wasn't until she saw the tape and witnessed her child leaving his seat, going to the back of the bus and punching a child in the face repeatedly. It was my obligation to restrain that child and call for backup. This 6 year old boy, fighting like a wildcat looked at a 6'4" 250lbs police officer and told him to "suck his black dick" and that he "could do any motherfuckinggoddamnthing he pleased" because his momma "said so." It wasn't until the mother was forced to watch the tape that she withdrew her complaint. I never recieved an apology from her or the school system. Why did this child do this? He was upset because the other child's father had an affair with his mother and no longer was her 'boyfriend'. The word of drivers became so disputed and created so many problems most of the schools districts in Georgia had video and audio equipment installed. I promise you one thing, any parent who watches their child behave like a monkey on a timestamped tape quickly learns their child is no angel. I can cite many incidents like the one above. The route I drove had seen 6 drivers who quit their job. I am the only driver to who managed to get those children under control and had the fewest incidents occur. Some states contract services from companies to provide transportation. For those I cannot speak. For the drivers in the state of Georgia I can. In Georgia, a school bus driver is employed by the local school system. Their pay is salaried and comes from two sources: the county and the state. The driver, while an employee of the local school system is also a state employee. They are licensed by the state and are held accountable by the local and state school boards as well as DOT (Department of Trabsportation). The DOT is the same regulatory authority that oversee truck drivers. To obtain my school bus driver endorsement I had to pass several tests: basic driving skills, airbrake assembly, road safety, school safety and a battery of DOT endorsed tests involving control of the bus, parking, stopping on a dime, backing into a loading dock, and being able to stop within 6 inches of a white line that can only be seen in a mirror, backing through a series of orange cones using only the mirrors and driving through cones set up a distance less than the length of the bus. It was NOT easy. I can drive a bus better than my Explorer. I had to attend classes and meetings throughout the year to learn the state criminal codes and laws pertaining to school buses, drivers, and child safety. We received no pay or compensation for the hours required outside of driving. I have spent many hours researching on my own. I have attended road courses and been to the automotive plants that build a school bus. A school bus is the safest vehicle on the road. The construction of the seats and the body have proven time and again to prevent injury WHEN YOU TEACH YOUR CHILD TO SIT DOWN AND REMAIN SEATED THE ENTIRE TIME THE BUS IS MOVING TO AND FROM SCHOOL. Seatbelts have proven in test after test to cause more injury than to prevent them. I am so sick of hearing parents argue for the need of seatbelts. Teaching your child to sit down and behave goes much further in keeping your child safe than a seat belt ever will. An average school bus capacity is 72. Smaller buses seat less, some buses seat 102. The average everyday school bus seen most often on the road seats 72. The federal government regulations allow for 10% over this number. Meaning a schoolbus that is constructed to seat 72 children can legally carry 79-80 children. This is what you should be raising hell about. Not the seatbelt issue. Let's do a "what if" situation. What if the school bus carrying your child is involved in accident? What if that accident involves a truck carrying hazardous materials? What if it involves water (a creek, river, lake, etc)? What if it involves a railroad track with an oncoming train? What if, what if, what if ... Yes, all these scenerios and more have occurred at no fault of driver. Not that I am saying all accidents have never been the fault of the driver, some have. What if your child were on MY school bus and one of the scenerios happened and all 72 children where in seatbelts. How many of those children under the age of 7 could unbelt themselves and exit the bus safely? Lets estimate that half of them could. So we have a total of 72 children on a bus. 53 of them are under age 7. 26 of them can unbelt themselves in case of emergency and exit the bus. What about the other 26 children still belted in? Who is watching those 46 children who have gotten off the bus while the driver is trying to unbelt the other 26? How much time lapses while the driver is unbelting? Do you want your child to be the last one unbelted? What if time is the issue and your child doesn't get unbelted before the bus fills with water or fumes or fire or a train hits it? School bus drivers are very aware of the fact that once leaving the school he/she is entirely responsible for every single child on that bus. The driver is responsible for every single action by every single child. Teacher have a tough job with under 30 in their classroom for 7 hours a day. Who do you think has a tougher job? A teacher spending 7 hours or less with 30 children or a schoolbus driver spending 3-4 hours a day with 72 children? Who do think makes the least amount of money and the least benefits? Who do you think will suffer the loss of their job first if ANYTHING happens to a child in their care? Any parent who has a child riding the school bus has the legal right to make arrangements with the school to ride the bus periodically to get a first hand experience of the job the driver does. At any point a parent can request the video tape be pulled and they be allowed to view student behavior. How many parents take the time to do so? How many parents know the driver beyond a wave from the front porch? How many parents take the time to go down to the bus stop and ask the driver if there are any issues? How many parents know beyond a shadow of a doubt that their child remains seated and keeps their hands to themselves at all times? I had 3 parents who did this. Out of 72 children only 3 parents took the time to ensure their child did their part in their own safety. Parents need to get involved. (Isn't that a broken record?) Parents need to get to know the school bus driver. (I made it a point of getting to know at least one parent of every child who rode my bus.) Parents need to enforce school bus safety EVERY SINGLE DAY. Parents need to be aware of all laws, federal and state pertaining to school buses and safety. Our school system required the parents of every child on the bus sign a contract making them completely aware of laws and disciplinary actions involved in transportation. How many of those parents actually read it? Not many, I promise you. Most didn't even remember signing it. Before parents jump on the bandwagon screaming about safety and seatbelts they need to be very serious about teaching their child to behave on the school bus and the importance of remaining seated AT ALL TIMES. Perhaps the only reason most parents scream about seatbelts is they know the only way to keep their kid in a seat is to restrain them with a lap belt. The stories I could tell of things that have happened on a school bus would send you reeling. Want to hear about the 7 year old who flashed the entired school bus? Want to hear about the little boy who pissed nearly every day at the mailbox and shook his penis at the kids on the bus? Want to hear about the two 4th grade boys who had a penis measuring contest in the back seat crouched down nearly in the floor? Want to hear about clearing up the vomit after a parent sent a child to school who was obviously sick? Want to hear about the child who decided to shit in the floor? Want to hear about 4 year olds who urinated in their pants daily because the parent had not potty trained them by age 4? Want to hear about sexually explicit conversation among 1st graders about their mother's ability to give blowjobs? In every single incident the parent steadfastly refused to believe their child was in any way at fault. Until they watched the tape. A school bus driver cannot keep your children safe without your support. A school bus driver cannot pay attention to the road and the traffic while trying to contain the behavior of out of control children. If you think you can do a better job than I ever did or a better job than most school bus drivers on the road, more power to you. Get out there and do it. Until that time how about being a little nicer to the person who gets up at 5am and makes sure your child gets to and from school daily even when it is raining, snowing, and sleeting.