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.
Technically speaking, it is dangerous to brake check any vehicle because it will cause wear and tear on the vehicle. In addition, brake checking while one has children on board can put them in danger and cause unintended injuries. Sometimes I will demonstrate to children how fast a bus CAN stop because it helps them remember to stay in their seats, but over all I don't usually perform "brake checks".
On a legal standpoint, it is NOT illegal to do so, just unsafe.
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Being shorthanded is a tough subject as many bus shops everywhere are short drivers. Typically though whether or not SPED buses have monitors on them is based by state. I would research the laws in Virginia and see if not having a monitor is illegal on your bus. If it is, then I would make efforts to report the activity to the appropriate authorities. If SPED buses are not required to have monitors on them, then my suggestion is to do the best you can with the resources you have.
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Some school bus drivers may be retired teachers. Generally speaking, no, teachers are not school bus drivers, but paraprofessionals may choose to work as bus drivers to supplement their income too. As for handling badly behaved students, our course of action can include many steps. First we will typically try to manage the behavior on the bus by changing the students seat or assigning seats. Then we try to contact the parents of the student in order to try to get the situation resolved. If that fails then we write the students up and turn them into the schools. From there, the administrators of the school can choose to further discipline the student by taking away bus riding privilege. We are not allowed to physically discipline students as far as laying a hand on a student though.
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Personally, I like assigning seats because then each child knows they have a place to sit. A downside to assigned seats is having random children that do not normally ride the route get on a bus with a pass because they are going home with a friend/cousin/to grandmas. In my experience as a substitute, the drivers who have assigned seats on their buses tend to have calmer buses overall. The kids are less likely to act up and the ones that try to are quickly ratted out by other students who enjoy following the rules. Bus drivers do have the right to assign seats, and if I am on a bus and experiencing problems, I will assign seats to the children the day that I drive. It can cause problems with parents, but if I know where their kid sits, there is no fighting whether their kid misbehaved because their child sits in the same seat every day.
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Border Patrol Agent
Do you ever feel sorry for the illegals you catch trying to cross the border?
Hairstylist and Makeup Artist
What's the grossest hair ailment you ever saw?
Swim Instructor
Do parents ever get angry at you personally if their kid isn't learning fast enough?
I don't know if it is against the law per-say, however there have been a few times where I have needed to use a restroom. The ideal location would be on school property where I could run in and out really quickly. The main concern when a bus driver needs to use the restroom is the supervision of the children on the bus. In the cases that I needed to use a bathroom, I asked a fellow bus driver or an administrator to watch the bus while I ran inside to the school to use the bathroom. In all instances, the time spent off the bus was less than 5 minutes, just long enough to relieve myself.
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Well first, you did a good thing by calling the secretary of your school. The thing I would recommend would be calling the bus shop secretary and see if it has been turned in there. If the bus is the same, then you can look in the seat you were sitting in, and hopefully the game will still be there. However, a likely outcome is that someone else picked up your video game and has not turned it in. I'm sad to say that many students are not honest and you have probably lost the game. I hope you are able to recover it and get it back. Good luck!
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Honestly, if anything, I feel that the bullying problem seems to have gotten worse or at least more apparent. There are alot of anti-bullying media campaigns out there because there is an increased awareness of the problem. The issue now is more the bullies who blatantly bully in plain sight. Bullying can take many forms, some obvious, and some very subtle. The thing that has to happen in order for the bullying problem to decrease is for the consequence for bullying be something that the bullies actively dislike. If they don't like the consequence, they will not bully as much. The problem we have in school is that the consequences really have no effect on students that bully. For a student who is a good student, rarely gets into trouble, a lunch detention or losing their recess is a big thing and enough of a deterrent to have them avoid getting into trouble because that student's parents are often active within the school and actively take part in their child's education. If that student faces a consequence for misbehavior at school, it is likely that the same student will face similar consequences at home to show the student that the behavior in question will not be tolerated. A bully or someone who is constantly in trouble for other reasons, really doesn't care much about the school consequence because when they get home, the parents may be absent or simply not care to follow it up at home.
Thats not to say that there are exceptions to that assumption, but those children who lack discipline at home will invariably be in trouble at school for misbehavior. Some parents believe it is the school systems job to raise their child to be an upstanding citizen.
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