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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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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The article doesn't seem to want to come up for me, but a quick Google search comes up with a couple stories relating to a bus driver leaving a bus running while stepping off the bus. In my district, we are taught never to get off the bus while it is idling with passengers on board. The only time it is acceptable for us is if we are doing our pre-trip inspection to ensure everything is operational. The reason why we are taught this is for safety. It can be very easy for a passenger to step to the front of the bus and press a couple buttons for fun. Pressing the wrong button or releasing the brake could endanger the other passengers on board. From a safety standpoint, the driver should have been suspended or at least very severely reprimanded. I don't think the offense warrants a loss of a job, but certainly a warning or some action for the driver endangering other passengers. That being said, there are some professions that allow for provisions of the driver stepping off the bus while it is idling, mostly to help a passenger. This can include luggage or any other items the passenger may be traveling with, along with and including walkers, wheelchairs, or other items. On a side note, the article I read on Google was about a driver who stepped off the bus to take a selfie with a Hollywood star. While the actions seem innocent, the driver utilized her cell phone on paid company time AND potentially endangered her passengers by stepping off the bus. Finally, while it is not wrong to ask for an autograph or selfie in general, it may look unprofessional to others, which is probably why she got reported.
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That's a tough call. Personally, on hot days, I bring water for all my bus kids. It may not be cold water, but it is liquid. If there is a definite need like the child is going to pass out or in serious health decline due to the heat, then I would probably send one of my more responsible kids in for water at the store and take the heat later from my supervisor. The biggest issue I have there is that there was either no one on the bus to supervise the kids if the driver got off or that kids can be hard to control if let off to go into a store.
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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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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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