School Bus Management Part 2 – The Mormon Tabernacle Choir

 

 

 

If you haven’t read my post on the Con Air of school bus routes, start there. I provide some detail on transporting 32 Future Felons of America to and from elementary school twice a day.  That will make this post feel SO much more warm and fuzzy than it already is.

After closing schools for Covid in the spring of 2020, the following 2021 school year was really really different.  Transportation was in shambles.  Masking/cleaning protocols were put in place.  A lot of parents would self-transport because they finally realized what a petri dish a school bus was. Ridership plummeted.

Sooooo that meant that routes were ‘optimized.’  Fewer students, and fewer stops, and certain routes now had fewer hours.  Put in the mix that thing called a labor union, and then add the elephant in the room called seniority.  Just ain’t fair for a senior driver to be getting fewer hours that a new guy.  So in a great effort to be fair, everything got unfair in a great big hurry.

So you have 150 drivers now that must ‘bid’ on ‘new’ and ‘temporary’ routes from the top down.  Needless to say, I was still just a couple rungs up from the bottom at that point.   All I could do is hope for ANYTHING other than the route I had before.

So when I was called into the office, there weren’t any actual routes left.  Only relief driver positions.  That substitute stuff really really sucks. Because you can (and WILL) be driving a different route with different students in a different bus every day.

But, there is a guy more senior than me that bid on a route, and he decided not to come back right away. You know, just stay home with the wife and enjoy a Covid vacation from this full-time part-time job.  He was retired Air Force, so when bus driving turns into too much ‘work,’ he’s out.  So I get to drive what would be HIS route, until/if he returns to work this school year.  Whatever.

I had a really hard time getting to know the elementary kids.  I mean, just being able to even recognize them.  You get 45 kids wearing big coats, masks, and hats. There is not a lot to tell them apart.  I need a little more than eye color here.  Now putting them all into assigned seats helped.   But I just kept repeating the names over and over until I got to know them all.

Now, this was 180 degrees from my prison bus route.  It ran thru nice newer suburbia developments.  Clearly a higher socioeconomic area. 

A lot of stay home moms.   Lots of families with 3 -4 kids riding.  They would line up single-file for me at the bus stops.  Parents and siblings not of school age would wave as I drove thru the neighborhood.  Big wide streets, cars in driveways, lot of space to make those tight turns. 

But the students! They were all, well, for lack of a better word, just plain nice.  Very polite, personable, well-disciplined, neat, clean, and interacted well with each other.  Of course, I think it helped the route was 90% Mormon, which was great.  Very high regard for family and family values. 

And they showed it on the bus each day.  No fighting, no swearing, no trash.  Respect for authority, and they actually enjoyed riding the bus.   They would even crank out some choir songs from the church from time to time.

Every student on the bus participated in EVERY theme day the school had.  I didn’t even know they had theme days.  Wacky Hair day was crazy.  Dr. Seuss Day made me miss the Cat in the Hat. 

Career Day has all of these little kids in small suits and dresses that I have no idea were even a thing.  The best was the 100th day of school when they are dressed like 100-year-old people. 

You haven’t laughed until you see a bunch of small kids in grey wigs and their oversized grandparent’s clothes.   With a couple of them dragging walkers up the bus steps complaining they can’t find their meds.

And don’t start me on the holidays.   Xmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day.  I got candy, cards, and so much acknowledgment and appreciation for the job it was just amazing. 

One parent even made me a batch of cookies in the shape of school buses.  I had no idea being a school bus driver could be this interactive or personally rewarding.

Of course, the ending is a little disappointing.  I drove these kids for SEVEN months.  And then, the guy who originally bid the route and was taking a Covid Vacation decided to come back for the last five weeks of school.  Really? 

He had NEVER run this route or knew any of the kids.  Just came in one day, took the keys, and I never got to tell them goodbye.  Personally, I think he should have taken one of the open relief driver routes, union or not.  I would not (could not) do that to someone.

So a little bittersweet. Well, a LOT. It was a great experience for me, even if I did not have these students the entire school year. Just to see how nice and respectful and GOOD students can be. I’ve now driven the worst of the worst, and the very best of the best.  It’s great to have the two extremes under my belt.  

Just knowing these two extremes could exist goes a long way to really understanding and enjoying the job (and the medical benefits). An undertaking that is so very important and yet so underrated by most (and even vehemently reviled by a few).

But there are really some very unique moments of satisfaction and personal affirmation when interacting with great kids twice a day for the entire school year.

Such rewards you can only find with your hands on the wheel of the big, heavy, slow-moving, loud, battering ram of the public education system. And I’ll always manage my students to be better, now that I know it can be done.

Bus Driver Confidential out!