Public School Drivers—
Building a Quality Workforce

The driver quality workforce that exists in our public schools does not occur by accident. This workforce comes together when public school drivers are included and recognized as part of the school districts' mission and goals — enhancing student achievement.

This effort must include result-oriented job descriptions and evaluations, new employee orientation programs, ongoing in-service training programs, and career-enhancing professional development programs for public school drivers.

This Web site highlights some of the challenges public school drivers face as they endeavor to build a driver quality workforce:

Who We Really Are and What We Really Do

"Children need all school workers! A person is not 'just a driver.' Drivers can see children when teachers don't see them, and recognize that children who are disruptive on the bus are likely to be disorderly in the classroom. They are Partners in Education! We need each other and everyone to make good education work." — Rev. Jesse Jackson

Our Job Description

Public school drivers are essential school employees who interact with students, teachers, parents, and the community every day. Drivers are the first and final link in the daily chain of events for every student in a school district.

What a driver performs in the course of her/his workday often is not known even by supervisors who are responsible for developing job descriptions for public school drivers. Here's a partial list:

A Driver's Typical Day Often Includes

• A driver's day usually begins as early as 5:30 a.m. (report time)
  
• Drivers must check all safety equipment on the bus at the beginning and end of each day – including roof exits, camera equipment, tires, air brakes, student seat belts, emergency exits and equipment packs, first aid equipment, breakdown flashers, strobe and emergency lights, and more. Something that is functioning in the morning may not be by 2 p.m. of the same day!
  
• Drivers must complete Communication Equipment Checklists — CB radio, cell phone, walkie/talkie, or other equipment.
  
• Sometimes equipment is dispensed that is non-functional. Drivers often supply their own batteries and other parts.
  
• Drivers must clean the bus. Because children transport a huge variety of things — both permitted and not permitted — to and from school, many items are left on the bus. The driver takes responsibility for finding, returning, or reporting all these things. Often they return student property on their own time.
  
• The driver is responsible for fueling the bus, checking oil and other fluids, and insuring the general workability of the engine on a daily basis, above and beyond the mechanics' job. This is messy, smelly, and dangerous (when proper training and equipment is not provided by supervisors). Many drivers bring their own clean-up supplies in order to avoid beginning the day smelling like a gas station!
  
• Drivers face daily challenges from route and road conditions. Are all routes open? Are there detours that the dispatcher did not pass on to drivers? Are there any accidents that have gridlocked a route? Has a route been changed without the dispatcher informing the driver? Has the dispatcher given the same route to a substitute driver by mistake?
  
• Very often a driver could have multiple emergencies during the course of just one day's work. It may begin with a flat tire and move on to detours that extend the route by miles. Communication through the dispatcher is essential. Often, however, the in-formation is not passed on properly and the driver is left to ex-plain to teachers and/or parents.
  
• A driver must handle and resolve behavior by students that puts them and other students and staff at risk. Student-on-student vi-olence is frequent. Weapons (such as knives, penknives, sharp objects, heavy balls, straps, belts, gym towels, books, metal boxes, hair pins and rubber bands, fake/toy guns, bats, cleats, football pads, pens, pencils, rulers, etc.) are brandished and sometimes used.
  
  Often drivers must "disarm" students of the seat belt buckles, as they often become convenient "weapons." One driver in New Jersey uses a "Drop Box" to deal with weapons. Upon entering the bus, students may choose to put their weapons in the box by the driver's seat and retrieve them at their destination, or surrender them to the driver during an "incident" and not get them back.
  
• Students often decide to go home with a friend. This creates problems for the friend's driver: who is the new passenger in case of an emergency, who has given permission for this child to ride a different bus, will parents or guardians be at the destination, were they notified of the change in arrangements, etc.
  
• Drivers of special needs children have a whole separate set of challenges. These children may have toilet accidents on the bus that require drivers to have supplies available. They may have physical needs (artificial limbs, wheelchairs, breathing equipment, etc.) that require the driver to lift or move equipment as well as the child. They may have behavioral problems that require the driver to deal with uncontrollable violence or outbursts.
  
• Mainstreaming of special needs children creates a particular problem for drivers, who often are not informed of their presence on the bus or given information about their disorder. Simple first aid training is not adequate for a driver with "mainstreamed" children on board. The driver often develops special first aid kits or individual emergency plans for some children, such as a bee sting first aid kit for an allergic child.
  
• Most drivers make it a policy to have a parent contact for young children. In most cases, the parent calls the driver about absences, but when there is no parent contact, the responsibility falls on the driver. One driver in Washington State bridged the "parent gap" for four months of the school year by taking the child home for 45 minutes until the parents were available. This is unusual, but the driver is still responsible when parents are not available when students are dropped off or picked up.

This list could be endless. Public school drivers meet these challenges with competence and personal attention. It is vitally important that what a public school driver really does on a daily basis is described accurately and comprehensively. Your written job description matters a great deal! It should describe who you really are and what you really do in a public school district and as part of the driver quality workforce.

To Section 2: Federal and State Statutes