Tag: driver

School Bus Life: Dealing With Parents

School Bus Life: Dealing With Parents

John Rolfe

As the parent of four kids, I am more than familiar with kids’ shenanigans. That experience and hard-earned knowledge sure helps with my job as the pilot of a big yellow nuthouse. I also learned (the hard way) to discipline children (or at least try) … about 10 years too late. All of my kids are now adults with homes of their own. But my wife, who was burdened with the role of chief disciplinarian during their formative years, takes great satisfaction with my daily karmic payback in frustration and aggravation.

(This blog is based on actual events, though names, places and some personal details have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty and avoid libel suits.)

Knowing what many parents are up against, I can sympathize even though I often hear horror stories about how they treat school bus drivers. If we write-up or call out someone’s Precious Boo Boo for a good reason, we are often seen as the villain by their parental units. Sometimes, much worse happens.

A fellow driver — I’ll call him Harry — told me about a father who took exception to his daughter being disciplined by Harry for constant misbehavior on his bus. The father accompanied the girl to the bus one morning and began yelling at Harry, who eventually had to drive off in order to stay on time for his route. The father got in his car and pursued the bus, cut it off, got out, and resumed yelling. Harry threatened to summon police, but the irate dad followed him to the school and again launched a tirade. Harry had been totally right to write the girl up.

SEE: Wrong and Write: The School Bus Justice System

One day, another fellow driver — I’ll call him Lou — had to drop a group of kids off at a different location due to police activity on their street. Parents were expected to meet his bus at the new stop, but only one mother was there when he arrived. When Lou rightly refused to release all of the kids to her, she started screaming at him. She was going to come aboard but stopped when he warned her that cops would be called. (It’s against New York State law for unauthorized people, such as parents, to enter a school bus.) Even so, she still refused to let Lou return to the school with the kids.

I’ve had my (thankfully small) share of parents who were angry, usually because I was late — and often because their little angel or the rest of my precious cargo had been acting up and forced me to pull over and restore order. Some folks are extra steamed because their kid missed a game or appointment, sometimes at cost to them, and some demand compensation! The only consolation I can give is that there wasn’t an accident (with possible injuries) that would have made the bus arrive even later if it arrived at all.

The worst I’ve experienced was a mom who was justifiably upset that her son had been bullied, unbeknownst to me, on my bus the previous day. She was furious and started to come up the steps, threatening to “tear the heads off” the kids who had tormented her son. I fully understood her feelings, but had to tell her she could face criminal charges for boarding the bus and, quite possibly, murder. Thankfully, she calmed down when I gently assured her I would take the matter up with the school and have video pulled.

SEE: The School Bus Camera’s Eyes Have Seen It All

When it comes to enforcing rules, I try to speak to parents before getting the school involved. I disarm them by first explaining that I’m not singling out their kids, many are acting like lunatics (I don’t phrase it quite that way), and my concern is for their safety. Most parents I’ve met understand and try to help. One mom said she’d wait with her son every morning so I could let her know how he was doing. A dad told me to be sure to tell him if his son kept roaming the bus. I let him know. Presumably the dad took action, but nothing it seems will still the feet of Jehosaphat the Notorious Nomad.

SEE: Meet the Hellions

I take some (small) consolation in kids not listening to parents (hardly front page news) when they won’t listen to teachers, guidance counselors and principals, let alone humble school bus drivers. I also worry that if something happens to a kid — say, he or she gets hurt jumping over a seat back — while I’m focused on driving (many people seem to forget that is our main job), I will be blamed. So it was a relief to have the assistant principal at the middle school I drive for tell me, “Most parents sympathize with the driver in cases like that.”

I do find solace in knowing that many of the rowdy kids I drive will some day have kids of their own who drive them crazy. Too bad I can’t be a fly on the dashboard during one of their family trips when they are trying to focus on the road and all kinds of messy mayhem is breaking out in the back of the car. Won’t that be a jolly load of cosmic justice!

School Bus Life Lessons: Perils of Positive Thinking

School Bus Life Lessons: Perils of Positive Thinking

John Rolfe

No matter what we do in life, we are told about the benefits of a positive attitude and appreciating the good things that come our way. That mindset enables us to do just about anything.

Well …

Right. I’ve discovered that it also includes handling all the trouble that rains down as soon as you look on the bright side.

During my five years at the wheel of a big yellow madhouse, I’ve found positive thinking is the best way to court trouble and have it arrive at my bus door bearing wilted flowers and a box of melted chocolates.

(This blog is based on actual events, though names, places and some personal details have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty and avoid libel suits.)

Bascially, any time I think it’s going good, I doom myself to aggravation.

The first time this happened wasn’t long after I’d completed my training and was given a route in a big 40-foot bus. The thought crossed my mind that my runs were on time and the kids had been angels. Later that same day I hit and knocked out a tail light on a bus while trying to pull into the parking space next to it.

Fast forward five years. I most recently made the mistake of complimenting the usually rowdy kids on my middle school run for “keeping things civilized” for two weeks. The next day, they came off the spool big time.

“I knew was jinxing myself,” I groaned over the PA as they ran amok in the aisles, hootin’ and hollerin’ and cussin’ up a storm.

For good measure, the precious cargo on my after school run started acting up (again). Write-ups and suspensions had briefly achieved peace in our time.

Now, you’d think I would have learned my lesson, but you would be wrong. In between the two incidents, my sad story is littered with this kind of stuff:

SEE: Five Days That Made Me What I Am (Ready for Anything)

During the height of the pandemic, things were quiet — too quiet — in my district … until I was told by our head bus driver that there had been only one write-up and no complaints from drivers, kids or parents for an entire month. I replied that the kids on my bus were strangely cooperating and getting along and, gasp!, treating me politely and with respect. I actually wrote a column for my local newspaper about it and how kids like this can be good role models for adults.

The very next morning after the column ran, a driver radioed in that a girl on his bus had pushed another lass down and hurt her. Then a second driver reported that kids were pulling down their pants on her bus. For good measure, my intermediate schoolers got in on the act by sticking their arms out the windows and boisterously jeering and waving at cars behind us. I had to pull over and restore order.

“No good deed goes unpunished” is another fact of school bus life.

A fourth grader named Brutus always made me regret using positive reinforcement. I actually told another driver that I was nominating Brutus for a Nobel Peace Prize because he’d helped me defuse a scuffle by letting his frenemy Beetlebomb, one of the combatants, sit next to him and away from his foe, Hogshead. That arrangement lasted one day. Brutus and Beetlebomb started arguing about who got to sit next to the window. The next morning, they refused to get in their seats. That afternoon Beetlebomb informed me that he and Brutus didn’t want to sit together anymore. Then they went back to being at each other’s throats.

All of his took place not long after the time I was about to praise Brutus to the Principal during a visit to her office. That silly idea came to a screeching halt when she informed me that Brutus had slugged Hogshead in the gut (unbeknownst to me) during our trip that morning. Merely thinking positive thoughts about Brutus was enough to cause him to revert to the mean. But like Charlie Brown attempting once more to kick a football being held by the smirking Lucy, I gave him yet another chance after he stayed out of trouble for a couple of weeks.

SEE: Picking Your Battles With Kids

“I don’t want to hear any complaints about you,” I told him while allowing him to return to the rear of the bus as a reward for his improved behavior.

Of course, not wanting to hear complaints didn’t mean I wouldn’t hear them.

Sure enough, within five minutes I got three: Brutus was using the F word, standing on seats, and calling another kid’s mom mean names. “He’s picking on Gertrude,” Beetlebomb informed me. “She’s crying.”

SEE: The Rat Patrol (Snitches Can Be a Big Help)

So I planted Brutus in a seat behind me for the rest of the school year with no chance of parole.

I now doubt my sanity every time I do someone a favor, but sometimes it can work the other way. When I expect the worst, it doesn’t happen. I try this approach while watching my favorite sports teams.

I’ve also prepared big, windy speeches only to have the main miscreants not show up for a few days. But if I were a betting man, I’d lay my wages on the bus breaking down and/or the kids going haywire as soon as I think this gig is going good.

You’d think I’d learn by now.

But you would be wrong.

Getting Even: A School Bus Driver Strikes Back

Getting Even: A School Bus Driver Strikes Back

John Rolfe

I’ll be the first to admit it can take a while for my porch light to come on. But after nearly five years behind the wheel, I have finally realized that kids who raise hades on a school bus are totally unfazed by lectures, write-ups, detentions and suspensions.

These rascals just keep doing what they were seemingly born to do: run around in the aisle, jump over seats, make noise and messes, throw stuff, rough house, pester their fellow passengers, use language that makes Beelzebub blush, and put wrinkles on the forehead of the person responsible for safely hauling them to and from school.

(This blog is based on actual events, though names, places and some personal details have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty and avoid libel suits.)

Getting urchins to behave is an endless battle and most disciplinary measures fail to keep them disciplined. When the mayhem continues, I’ve found that a classic containment measure — moving offenders up to the front of the bus — only makes for more distraction. With hellions that close, you are much more aware of everything they do. And they will keep doing it. I’ve had fights break out — right behind my shoulder at 45 miles per hour in traffic — between kids I’d just been told by their school to move up.

SEE: Picking Your Battles With Kids

Another classic move, one that’s more effective, is to pull over and simply sit until the hooligans settle down. I explain over the PA that I get paid by the hour, have no particular place to go, and am in no hurry to get there. That can make my precious cargo start policing itself. But what truly curries my goat is when that cargo continues cavorting and raising Holy Hobbes after two, three or four pull-overs.

SEE: Keeping Your Cool

So I figured I needed some new ways to make them realize they will pay a price in aggravation. Inconvenience seems to really bug ’em. I started by taking a page out of my wife’s disciplinary playbook for our kids by quietly dropping the hammer when they think they’ve gotten away with something. For instance, when they get off at school, I give them the trash they left on the floor the day before.

SEE: How I Won the Garbage War

Or I write them up without saying anything, so they have the pleasure of a surprise summons to the principal’s office. But standard punishments only slow them for a day or two. Smedley, an incorrigible sixth-grader on my bus, was finally removed after four write-ups and a five-day suspension … for dousing a girl with Axe body spray, which is apparently the preferred stink bomb of the young miscreants in my district this year.

I have my wish list of things I want (see illustration above), but need realistic, practical tactics. After wracking my brain, here are some I’ve started to use:

Slowing down. Before a trip, I explain that the bus now has new technology: The more people stand up or move in the aisle while we are in motion, the slower the bus goes. Of course, I can only crawl on roads where it is safe to do so, but since I drive in a rural area, there are plenty of ’em and it’s a great way to drag out trips until the kids really want to get home and finally start to act like sane individuals.

Keeping the bad eggs on longer. My after-school run is a general route determined by how many kids are on board and where they live. I am free to improvise, so I will drop the good kids off first and keep the cretins on for as long as possible, often taking the longest way possible to their place of residue. But that depends on how disruptive they are being and how much of their shenanigans I can stomach.

Returning to school. The nuclear option, it requires permission from dispatch. I was told to have an administrator come on board. If all have left for the day, I can tell kids to call their parents for a ride. The first time I tried it, they got a stern warning from a no-nonsense, in-their-face security guard, but shortly after we returned to the road a kid set off a body spray bomb in back, forcing me to pull over. This led to a zesty exchange with the bomb thrower’s sister, who actually said, “Take us home right now! I’m sick of this $#it, you pulling over all time time!”

“You’re sick of it? You’re sick of it?!!!” I replied, absolutely gobsmacked.

She and her fragrant brother were written up with relish and suspended for a week, but the aggravation of that episode reminded me that it really helps me to stay calm and centered if I have a plan of response in advance. Given how limited our options are, fellow drivers in the Facebook group “School Bus Drivers are the Unsung Heroes of the Predawn Light” offered some suggestions:

Lois (Note: drivers’ full names are not used for sake of privacy) recommended what Amazon calls “the world’s loudest whistle.” She said she got one and blew it when her bus got horribly loud. “Then I told them I would hold it up and count to 10,”she wrote. “Before long I only had to hold it up and after a bit they just didn’t get so loud anymore.”

Tyrone cited a driver who pulled into a police station and told the kids she was going to get a cop to come on the bus and yell at them.

Bryan suggested playing horrible music on the radio and turning it louder until the kids cry uncle.

Brian recommended classical tunes — “They will either learn to behave or get an appreciation for classical music” — while Diann recommended blaring oldies or a gospel cd. But the problem I have with music is my boss told us to keep it low so he can hear what kids are saying when he has to review video. I’ve also found that they speak over the music, which only makes the bus unbearably loud.

SEE: Curses! From the Mouths of Babes

Brian had another novel idea I really like: “I’ve told them I would come in during their lunchtime and sit with them and all their friends in the lunchroom so I could ruin their time just like they ruin mine.”

Kids, especially the wisenheimers, get squirrely when they have to talk to you one-on-one. Cristal said that she releases her kids by row so she can confront wrongdoers.

“The kids most likely to cause trouble tend to sit in the back, and the last thing they want to do when they get to school is listen to you,” she wrote. “I will stand up before I open the door so I’m blocking the walk way, and then excuse one row at a time. When I get to the part of the bus that’s giving me the most trouble, I’ll say something like, ‘I don’t much appreciate how you’ve been treating me/my bus/each other, and I feel like you all can do better. Think you guys can make an effort to be better on the bus?’ Then I’ll let them all go for the day. If the behavior continues, I’ll do it again. I’ll do it over and over every day, and I’ll be honest with them.”

Cristal’s persistence reminds me of my wife, who knows that sometimes you just gotta grind ’em down.

Don’t get mad, get even. That’s my new mantra.

Buttering Up the School Bus Driver

Buttering Up the School Bus Driver

John Rolfe

The daily aggravations of this job can sure sour your feelings about your precious cargo.

I start each year full of good will, cheer and optimism. Two months in I’m curdled and crabbed by the lack of response to my greetings, the bloodcurdling language, the littering, and the refusal to follow simple rules that have been explained a thousand times.

Just the other day, after pulling the bus over several times to restore order, I was still treated to the sight of Wilhelmina, a particularly loud and active eighth grader, making her way up the aisle while we were in motion.

I pulled over yet again and when she said, “Sorry! I forgot!” all I could do was slump onto the wheel and mutter, “God bless your pointed little heads.”

(This blog is based on actual events, though names, places and some personal details have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty and avoid libel suits.)

Life has been especially enriched lately by the kids on my after school runs who won’t tell me where they get off … or tell me 20 minutes after I’ve driven past their house. This despite my explanation at the start of each trip that I don’t have names and addresses, only a general route, so it is up to them to let me know when to stop. Some do, most don’t. Having to wind my way back turns what should be a one-hour run into an open-ended tour of the county.

SEE: Great Misadventure

The kids who act like soccer hooligans actually give me a certain amount of perverse pleasure at keeping them on while I drop the pleasant kids off first. Some aren’t released until 6:30 p.m. or later…after leaving school at 3:30.

Nothing stops them, though.

With the start of the holiday season, it dawned on me that now that I drive only middle schoolers, I don’t get many cards and goodies like I did when I was driving a bunch of raucous rascals to and from Helga Poppin Intermediate. So I wasn’t feeling inclined to wish anyone a happy Thanksgiving unless they wished me one first. When someone in the back asked, “Hey, driver, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?” — after I’d pulled the bus over for the fourth time on the trip I recounted above — all I could reply was, “I’m seceding from the human race and moving to another planet.”

So I was stunned the next afternoon when some of the more lively ladies on the bus handed me notes.

I must admit, these messages gave me a dewy eye and a lump in the throat. Suddenly, all (well most of it) was forgiven. Or if not forgiven, I was at least willing to postpone poisoning the lot of them. Yes, this is the kind of thing that makes the job worthwhile, the pat of butter that soothes a driver’s suffering.

Of course, the girls barely paid attention to me when I told them how it was kind of them to give me the notes and how they meant a lot. And when I got home, my wife presented me with a reality check: “They must have had an assignment in class.

I prefer to think that somewhere underneath all their single-minded devotion to being contrary, raising hell, and making me rip what’s left of my hair out in tufts, these urchins do have a conscience and don’t live just to stick it to the old man at the wheel.

So in this season of peace (in theory) on Earth and good will toward all, I will do my best not to carry “Bah, humbug!” in my heart. They are only kids after all and they do always give me stuff to write about. For that I am most grateful.

Ghosts of School Bus Routes Past

Ghosts of School Bus Routes Past

John Rolfe

In this job, nothing reminds you of how fast time is flying quite like running into your former precious cargo years down the line.

Five years ago I was a new driver receiving a baptism by fire at the hands of a busload of rowdy intermediate schoolers. Now I’m hauling new batches of equally obstreperous middle schoolers, but it has come as a complete shock to discover some of my former tormentors on my bus again, although they have changed in dramatic ways as kids do in their teen years.

(This blog is based on actual events, though names, places and some personal details have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty and avoid libel suits.)

One day on my afterschool activities run — a loose route of main drags with stops at cross streets — a lad asked if my bus went to Headcheese Lane. The address sounded familiar although I didn’t recognize the lad. But as we approached his house, suddenly it dawned on me. Lo and behold, it was Jehosaphat the Wanderer!

During the three years I drove him to and from Helga Poppin Intermediate School, I was sorely tempted to staple Jehosaphat to his seat in order to keep him out of the aisle while the bus was in motion. Several write-ups and discussions with his concerned father could not still the lad’s ramblin’ feet.

“Oh, wow!” I cried. “You’re Jehosaphat McCarpetcleaner! I used to drive you!”

“Yeah,” he replied, though he was obviously not interested in talkin’ ’bout the good ol’ days when he had me yanking out my remaining hair in tufts. He’d filled out a lot and his once round face was more chiseled, yet I was tempted to say, “I didn’t recognize you because you were sitting the entire trip!”

Instead, I held my tongue and let him off with a “Have a good day.”

No, that was not what you’d call a tearful reunion. Nor was dropping off Birdie, Daisy and Maude, three lasses who were usually more well-behaved in days of yore. It took me a moment to realize who they were as they’d grown and changed, and I had to remind them of who I was. They responded politely but were not particularly thrilled by seeing their old chauffeur again, which was somewhat deflating as we’d had a cordial relationship. I’d even received several nice notes and cards from them thanking me for my efforts on their behalf. And I’d actually considered including the no-nonsense Maude in my Last Will and Testament as reward for her help reining in the male fools she did not suffer gladly on my bus.

SEE: They Ain’t Making Drivers Like They Used To

I’m happy to say that Oswald remembered me, though I would never have known it was him. As with Jehosaphat, a familiar house and address tipped me off. Once clean cut, earnestly nerdy and eager to prove that he wasn’t a miscreant, Oswald’s face was now buried under a thick mop of long curly hair and he was dressed like a typically cool middle schooler. Though he was hardly chatty or sentimental, I got a kick out of him looking up at me before crossing in front of the bus and giving me one of his old hearty but furtive waves goodbye.

Best of Fiends: Brutus and Rollo

During my Helga Poppin Era (2018-21), my bus was blessed with two lads I was ordered to keep apart because they interacted like two strange bulldogs. Separately, they were more than capable of turning the bus into a maelstrom and giving me writer’s cramp from writing them up.

SEE: The School Bus Justice System

Running into Rollo again after two years was alarming. I noticed a very big kid in the back standing and loudly chatting up girls, some of whom seemed annoyed. And once again, it was the house and address that made me think, “Could it be?”

This kid had a big ol’ head of bushy hair but my first thought was that he was an older sibling of my old nemesis. Nope, it was Rollo, whose immortal deeds included nearly giving me a heart attack when I looked in the overhead mirror and saw him waving a Harry Potter wand with a sharpened end on my crowded bus.

Truly at a loss for words, I let him get off at his house without either of us acknowledging the other. The same with Brutus, who directed me to a new address without ever betraying a hint that he knew me. I will give him this: He was a model passenget the entire trip. There is hope for mankind.

On yet another afterschool journey, I was shocked to see that Guttersnipe, a former hellion-in-training, was now in middle school. When I last saw him, he was a fourth-grade apprentice in the dark arts of stirring the pot and creating trip wires by fastening seat belts across the aisle. No write-up or detention could deter him. He still looked very much the same and had his old eye for the ladies (he typically bothered). I let him off the bus with a shudder.

Some memories are best left to fade into the ether of eternity.

However, one of my former charges is making an effort to never be forgotten. If there has ever been a Bane of My Existence, Robespierre was a strong contender for the honor. Rambunctious, cheeky and uncontainable, he likely set a world record for forcing me to pull over and restore order (which usually lasted five minutes, if that).

SEE: The Roadside Lecture Series Rolls On

In one of my, ahem, prouder and most, ahem, professional, ahem, moments, I’d warned Robespierre not to be “a smart ass” after he sassed me. To his credit, and my everlasting relief, he didn’t go home and tell his parents what his mean old bus driver had said. But despite all of our daily battles, he has retained some warm feelings for his former sparring partner. That became clear one afternoon while I waited outside Bubblefish Middle School as students were being dismissed. I noticed him walking past my bus with Beetlebomb, another charter member of the old wrecking crew.

“Hey, Mr. John!” Robespierre called out. “Do you miss us?”

“Not exactly,” I’d replied drily.

But our recent meeting on the activities bus was more cordial. Once again, he asked if I remembered him.

SEE: Meet the Hellions

“Oh, yes!” I chuckled, but I decided not to let bygones be bygones and not dig up old grievances. “How could I forget? How’s it going? You good?”

He said he was and I was glad to hear it. And although I hardly needed them, he kindly gave me directions to his house (now a fixture in my nightmares). We even shook hands as he departed.

So I have been thinking that while, unlike some of my fellow drivers, I’ve yet to have a former passenger come up to me and tell me that they appreciated me, I’m actually grateful to Robespierre and his rollicking cohorts. Why? Because they taught me how to better handle my current crop of middle schoolers without relying on strong drink, antacids and psychiatric therapy.

SEE: School Bus Life Lessons — Picking Your Battles

I never thought I’d say this, but these reunions, such as they were, made me misty for the good old days. They went by too fast.

School Bus Life Lessons: Keeping Your Cool

School Bus Life Lessons: Keeping Your Cool

John Rolfe

Legendary basketball coach John Wooden once said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

I just wrapped up my fourth school year of driving a big yellow riot on wheels and while I’ve never thought I know it all, I learned some important but unexpected stuff.

(This blog is based on actual events, though names, places and some personal details have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty and avoid libel suits.)

For example, it dawned on me that I really can keep my cool when the going gets hot.

My first year or so I would come back from runs vibrating with anger and frustration about the three ring circus I’d just hauled. This year, I realized it wasn’t worth letting myself be wound up by a bunch of rampaging and sometimes insolent urchins. Getting mad doesn’t help your concentration. Better to take cool, effective action (a tactic I learned from my wife while we were raising our four kids).

In other words, don’t get mad, get even.

The new group of middle schoolers I drove this year made every day a grand game of Whack-a-Mole. As soon as I got them to stop cavorting in the aisle, they started leaving trash all over the bus. After I made them be more tidy, they started wrasslin’, bickering about seats, and sometimes even fighting. When I put the kibosh on that, they threw stuff and sprayed what smelled like cologne, body spray or bug juice. (The school viewed my bus videos in search of vapers.) Then they went back to cavorting in the aisle.

Rather than blow a fuse, I just wrote them up or presented them with bags of garbage as part of my “Trash Back Bonus” program.

SEE: How I won the School Bus Garbage War

I have to admit I chortled with satisfaction at their surprise of coming to school the next day and being summoned to the principal’s office when they thought they’d gotten away with something. Or the astonished looks on their faces when I handed them a bag of candy wrappers, crumbs, empty water bottles and broken pencils as they left the bus.

Yeah, there were times I raised my voice in frustration or to drive home the message that I was serious about something. I always pointed out that I was only trying to keep them safe, but I found there was great value in doing a fake burn, at looking and sounding more angry than I actually was. My precious cargo sprouted “deer in the headlights” eyes and there was always a period of total silence occasionally broken by a “Hey, sit down!” they directed at someone who dared move.

I also had more subtle ways of getting even …

I confess I did spend more time than I should have thinking of snarky comebacks to smart aleck remarks. It felt darned good to be ready when Whipsnade, a seventh grader who was one of the most cheeky riders, yelled (after one of my lectures, of course), “Hey, Mr. Bus Driver! How come you’re so good at driving?”

When the titters and guffaws subsided, I replied, “I’m not good. I’m lucky. I’m legally blind and deaf in one ear. So you’d better hope my luck holds.”

They didn’t know quite what to make of that, but it was much more effective to let them discover that I meant what I’d said about not staying in their seats or the importance of not distracting me.

SEE: The School Bus Justice System

“Don’t push me” I’d told them. “I’m a patient guy but I have my limits.” Some of them learned the hard way what those limits are: four kids had their bus privileges suspended. Four more were removed from my bus altogether … for the sake of easing overcrowding that was causing conflict, but I strongly suggested to our router which kids I’d like to see on another bus in the name of peace and (my) sanity.

In the end, they turned out to be the best bunch I’d ever driven, though that bar was pretty low to begin with. They could have been worse, but I brought all of my tools to bear and saw some results. What surprised me was how easily I did it, like it was all second nature. That ease was a far cry from when I started this gig.

No doubt the summer school session and next fall will bring new learning experiences, but I feel more ready for them than I’ve ever been.

Happiness is a New School Bus … I Think

Happiness is a New School Bus … I Think

John Rolfe

The biggest surprise I’ve received (so far) in this job of never-ending surprises is a new bus. And not just a new bus. A brand-spankin’-fresh-from-the-factory new bus.

You could have knocked me over with a goose quill when I was told by my boss that I would be one of five drivers to receive one. I’ve only been at this infernal business for four years. Many other pilots where I work have more seniority. Second, I have a reputation as a bus killer.

No matter what wheel I climb behind, the vehicle under it is doomed to die of mechanical failure in short order. Mine have expired on main roads, side streets, a hill, an incline and the bus compound. Doesn’t matter if it’s the brakes, the fuel pump, the starter, the entire engine, the transmission, or some other gizmo, a mushroom cloud of distress is guaranteed to rise shortly after I turn the key. And the problems won’t be easily fixable. It will just be THE END for the bus in question.

SEE: The School Bus Slayer Strikes Again

(This blog is based on actual events, though names, places and some personal details have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty and avoid libel suits.)

As a newbie in 2018, I was assigned one of the district’s older buses, which I named Tarkus after the half-tank, half-armadillo creature on the cover of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s classic album of the same name. The bus rumbled and bounced like a tank and handled like an armadillo. What’s more, its heat (or lack thereof) was so bad that at least one parent complained about a partially frozen kid. (I actually thought of asking for permission to put a small wood stove in the back.)

And if that weren’t bad enough, the PA failed, leaving me to bellow at my always-unruly passengers.

SEE: Rockin’ the School Bus PA

When Tarkus went to the Big Bus Yard in the Sky after a year or so, I was assigned to a series of vehicles, all of which had at least 100,000 miles on them and some noticeable problems that I made worse by simply being their driver. Our mechanics sighed with despair each time I drove off in one.

So given my killer’s touch, the last thing I expected to get was a sparkling new 2022 International Propane Autogas CE with an 8.8L LP Gen II, 270 horsepower PSI engine, Allison fifth generation transmission (with fuel sense!), SmarTrac hydraulic brakes, electronic stability control, Bendix Wingman Advanced collision sensor system, and that new bus smell.

Turned out that my volunteering to cover after school runs (with often unfortunate results), and my showing up for work each day despite the Covid pandemic, had its rewards. Or so it seemed.

Lemon bus very pretty but the steering wheel has a squeak and the brakes on this darn lemon haven’t lasted me a week. (Apologies to Proctor & Bergman’s song “Lemon Car” sung to the tune of “Lemon Tree.”)

Of the five new buses that came in, four immediately developed bugs. One wouldn’t start for its maiden run because of an electrical issue and it later leaked antifreeze while its rear brakes smoked. A second bus had a front brake that rattled and it, too, later succumbed to the electrical issue. A third had to be towed back to base while out on a school trip. And the fourth developed a roof leak that later appeared in most of the others, including mine, which, like all the others also developed a weird tendency to shed loose screws in various places.

At least mine held up … except for a “check engine” light that came on and stayed on, defying efforts by our mechanics and the dealer’s staff to shut it off. And there was a cord that looked like an electrical plug dangling under the bus one day.

My new ride took some getting used to after my long line of diesel covered wagons. For one thing, the starting procedure required me to turn the key halfway and wait 30 seconds until all the dashboard lights went out. There was a front sensor that suddenly triggered the brakes if it felt I was getting too close to something for its comfort. This came as a bit of a surprise to me and my passengers one day. And the bus proved to be a fuel hog that gets about 12 feet to the gallon, so I had to gas up every day with about 30 gallons even though I was driving about 70 miles.

Oh, it was nice to have good heat and a working PA, though the PA mic was located above me to the left instead of in the dashboard. And when screws started falling out of doors and seats, and one of the fans above the dashboard suddenly came down during a trip, I began to wonder what would go next.

“Has the radio fallen on your head yet?” I was asked by one of my fellow drivers.

I thought she was joking, but then one of our mechanics mentioned that while he was out driving one of the new buses, he hit a bump and the radio came down, narrowly missing his noggin.

“Looks like you just got a bad batch,” one driver suggested, and our mechanic said he thinks the problems are Covid-related: The factory was probably understaffed and under the weather and people were just forgetting to tighten nuts and bolts and stuff.

A lot of good that does us, of course.

SEE: They Ain’t Making Drivers Like They Used To

Meanwhile, kids have christened the nice new floor with gum and the back of a nice new seat with Wite-out. I also discovered that my bus has a roof leak like the others, but I just figure it’s the manufacturer’s newfangled Student Irrigation System designed to keep precious cargo moist and fresh.

I was told that some of other drivers, the ones with more seniority, would likely grumble and even stare daggers at me when they learned that I was getting a new bus and they weren’t. I have tried to reassure everyone that I didn’t ask for my new bus and that they should probably be thankful for their older, more reliable models even if they have a wart or two.

I’ve learned that there are different makes and models out there — we use Internationals and Bluebirds — and they’ve come a long way from the days of manual crank door handles and stick shifts. The bus I’m driving now looks like it’s state of the art, but I can’t help noticing its distinct citrus flavor.

I guess that’s only fitting given my track record. So I drive on, waiting for Tarkus 2 to go belly-up like all the others I’ve ever driven, though it is kind of ironic that this one seems to keep going even though all signs suggest it won’t much longer.

That figures. The one that should be easiest for me to kill isn’t.

School Bus Life Lessons: Kids Learn the Hard Way

School Bus Life Lessons: Kids Learn the Hard Way

John Rolfe

It is often said that we bus jockeys can be a positive influence on our precious cargo. Besides setting a good example by keeping our cool and not cussin’ ’em out when they drive us to drooling distraction, we have opportunities to teach kids valuable life lessons.

I have devoted much of the past four years to convincing my passengers that the choices they make have consequences. For example, at the beginning of each school year I tell them they can sit with their friends and behave or they can misbehave and sit where I put ’em.

It’s amazing how they insist they want the first option but keep choosing the second.

(This blog is based on actual events, though names, places and some personal details have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty and avoid libel suits.)

It’s no secret that everyone, no matter their age or grade, wants to sit in the back of the bus.

SEE: WHERE THE ACTION IS

It’s either something in the air back there or the distance from the driver’s jaundiced eye, but a seat in the rear naturally inspires mischief, rowdiness, noise, projectiles, cursing, conflict, littering and other crimes against the soul. So I told my very first busload of intermediate schoolers that I would keep tabs on who behaves for the first week. Those who don’t will be assigned perches closer to their favorite bus driver.

“Hey, why do I have to move?” was the customary complaint from those I later condemned to the middle or front of the bus.

“You have to earn your seat back there,” I kept explaining. “You can’t be loud and bother other kids. You can’t keep running around in the aisles and distracting me. It’s dangerous. I don’t have many rules, but the ones I have you need to follow if you want to sit where you want to sit.”

SEE: PICKING YOUR BATTLES WITH KIDS

If I had a dime for every time I have delivered that speech only to have the kids get kooky as soon as I stopped speaking, I could retire in a kind of luxury that makes Buckingham Palace look like a tarpaper shack. Alas, kids, like many adults, can’t seem to grasp the notion of earning things these days. They want everything handed to them and believe they should keep them no matter what they do.

Robespierre, a fourth grader who became a living legend for his relentless rowdiness, was frequently remanded to the Honored Student Seat in the very front and he bitterly resented my praise of good kids. When I told Louie and Louise (an exceptionally quiet and polite brother and sister) that I wished I had a busload just like them, Robespierre yelled, “Why do they get to sit in the back?”

“Because they earned it,” I explained. “Louie and Louise never give me any trouble, unlike someone we both know.”

“Oh, yeah? Who’s that?”

SEE: IT ONLY TAKES ONE … TO DRIVE A SCHOOL BUS WILD

That group of kids was eventually replaced by time and new routes. Sad to say, most of them departed without displaying any evidence that they had learned their lesson. And even though Einstein defined insanity as repeatedly doing the same things and expecting a different result, I continue trying to drive home the notion that privileges come with a price (such as self control and responsibility).

This year, I gave my new batch of middle schoolers the same classic options: Choose your seat now but know you won’t keep it if you cause trouble.

Sadly, my sage wisdom usually falls on deaf ears.

Seven months and at least as many assigned seating charts later, most of these rapscallions still haven’t made the connection between their crazed actions and where their carcasses are later planted.

They also don’t seem to make the connection between their uproars and me suddenly pulling the bus over in a safe spot on the side of the road. For a while there I tried to use these pauses in our trip as teaching moments.

SEE: THE ROADSIDE LECTURES ROLL ON

Now I simply stop driving and sit quietly. (A colleague told me she keeps a book handy for such occasions and puts her feet up on the dashboard and starts to read.)

Of course, after I inform them that I am refusing to move until they settle down, and some long minutes pass, someone inevitably cries, “You can’t do this! You’re holding us hostage!”

“I’m not holding you hostage,” I reply. “You are. You can settle down and go home or you can keep acting like knuckleheads and we’ll sit here all day. I don’t care. I get paid by the hour. Ka-CHING! It’s your choice.”

Alas, after our most recent pull-over, they chose three more sets of write-ups, a detailed two-page (single spaced!) letter to the principal from yours truly requesting that this matter be turned over to the International Criminal Court at the Hague, and yet another set of assigned seats that left them gobsmacked and (relatively) quiet for at least a couple of days.

SEE: STUDENT MANAGEMENT, ASSIGNED SEATS AND SANITY

“Hey, why did you change our seats?” I was asked by Beulah Belle, a seventh-grader who’d given me writer’s cramp with the number of times I’d indicted her for rowdiness.

“Where do I begin?” I replied after staring at her in slack-jawed astonishment. “You really have to ask?”

“I feel sorry for you, man,” Axel a raucous seventh-grader said to Spud, his former partner in crime who found himself transplanted to the seat directly behind me and, for good measure, pinned near the window by an exceedingly quiet kid he does not know.

Hey, it was Spud’s choice. Maybe someday that will sink in, but I fear the sun will burn out first.

Unreliable Sources: Directions and School Bus Tall Tales

Unreliable Sources: Directions and School Bus Tall Tales

John Rolfe

One of the charming things about our precious cargo, is that they often want to assist us in our daily rounds.

Lifting the rear door handle or pushing a button to deactivate the bus alarm after arriving at school is seen as a great privilege by the younger ones. Beetlebomb, one of my noisiest and most “active” fifth-graders, redeems himself by informing me whenever I’ve left my flashing amber lights on. Other kids happily serve as spies for the sake of maintaining discipline.

See: The Rat Patrol

(This blog is based on actual events, though names, places and some personal details have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty and avoid libel suits.)

Of course, there are times you need them to help and they can’t, especially wide-eyed kindergartners who stare or shrug when you need directions and ask them where they live. Sometimes even older kids can’t tell you.

One day a teacher brought a sixth-grader to my bus and said, “He doesn’t know where he’s going. Let me give you his address. He doesn’t speak any English.”

Oh, goody.

I at least knew the way, but he had to get off at the end of a street I couldn’t go down and just walked away. Naturally, the next morning he wasn’t at his stop. I can only assume he got home.

“If he didn’t, you probably would have heard by now,” my wife says.

But I’ve learned (the hard way) to be skeptical of the information my passengers provide.

For instance:

They’ll say someone isn’t on the bus and then yell that they are … as soon as I’ve passed or pulled away from the kid’s stop. Beetlebomb, who seems to be up on everyone’s business, tells me when someone won’t be needing a ride on any given day. Sometimes he’s right.

“He went in early for chess club,” he’ll say as we approach Hobbestweedle’s house in the morning. But one day he claimed that Hobbestweedle had a dentist appointment and it turned out that he was merely late getting down his long, winding driveway to our pickup point. The lad was left behind to his mother’s, and my, dismay.

Live and learn … to take anything you are told with a grain of sodium chloride. Which is why I didn’t freak out the morning Brutus and Robespierre yelled from the back, “Hey, Mr. John! Beetlebomb is dead!”

“Well, that will keep him quiet until we get to school,” I cooly replied over the PA.

See: Now Hear This — Rocking the School Bus PA

Those kids, they’re always joking.

The Big Three: Robespierre, Beetlebomb and Brutus

The infamous Robespierre, one of the most rambunctious of intermediate school hellions, got everyone’s hopes up when he announced that he was moving to Arizona. I thought it was too good to be true, but when was gone for a few days I dared to believe though I wondered why our router hadn’t told me he’d been taken off my run sheet.

Then Robespierre showed up one morning with a big grin on his face and turned the grin on mine upside down.

Like Charlie Brown convinced that Lucy will actually let him kick the football, I also bought into Brutus (one of Robespierre’s partners in crime) informing me one Friday afternoon, “This is my last trip on your bus.”

“I’m sure you’ll make it a memorable one,” I said.

“I’ll be taking another one. My mom says you get me home too late.”

“Did you tell her that might be because you keep forcing me to pull over and make you sit down and be quiet?” I asked with a flinty squint.

See: The Roadside Lectures Roll On

Lo and behold come Monday morning Brutus wasn’t on and I rejoiced.

Turned out he was only riding in the afternoons. I thought I’d have a good cry but there was an unexpected blessing: Rollo, yet another rider of ill repute, was removed from my bus and assigned to a small one after repeated scrapes with Brutus and others.

A few days later I learned from Rollo’s new driver that Brutus was being added in the afternoon. Apparently, his mom had prevailed in her request to have her dear, sweet son delivered to her door more promptly.

I could only chortle at the thought of how thrilled Ol’ Brutus would be to find out he’s been reunited with his nemesis Rollo (I had to keep them separated) and that he will actually be getting home later because Rollo’s stop adds time to the new driver’s run.

I must confess that sometimes I can’t resist turning the tables, like when I had my riotously flatlulent middle schoolers convinced that state law requires at least one fart on the bus per trip.

See: School Bus Life’s a Gas

One morning after my “lively” crew was surprisingly quiet, I told them over the PA as we pulled up to Helga Poppin Intermediate School, “Hey, great ride today, people! I didn’t have to call in the National Guard or change anyone’s seat!”

“He’s pranking us!” I head someone say.

“It’s April Fool’s Day!”

It wasn’t and I wasn’t. Truth is, there are times when I can use the Guard’s help. Maybe some of my well-behaved riders will enlist some day.

Wrong and Write: The School Bus Justice System

Wrong and Write: The School Bus Justice System

John Rolfe

We school bus jockeys are encouraged to “write kids up” for transgressions ranging from basic safety violations — like distracting us or standing while the bus is moving — to more serious infractions like fighting, pushing, tripping, eating, drinking, littering, unacceptable language, destroying or defacing property, smoking, rudeness, excessive mischief, menacing, and violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause. 

(This blog is based on actual events, though names, places and some personal details have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty and avoid libel suits.)

Each written report (see form above) results in a talking-to by a scowling school official and the notifying of parental units. Sometimes the mere threat of my filing a formal complaint is enough to snuff misbehavior. Principal Diesel and equally no-nonsense Assistant Principal Carnage at Helga Poppin Intermediate are feared by all but the most hardened hellions, and the accused often beg me to not turn them over to face their wrath.

Principal Bullhorne at Bubblefish Middle School also runs a tight ship. The convicted are routinely frog-marched out to the bus by the scruff o’ the neck to stand sheepishly by while I am told of the verdict and sentence (usually in-school suspension — aka study hall — or an assigned seat for a month, which can be quite humiliating for a cock-of-the-walk eighth-grader who finds himself in the front seat near the despised sixth-graders).

Sometimes I speak to parents first — always emphasizing that I am not picking on their offspring, I’m only concerned about their safety — but even mom or dad’s stern warnings to behave are naturally forgotten quickly by the dear child in question. After Rollo the dreaded fourth-grader was written up twice in two days for tormenting other passengers by calling them unseemly names and seizing their possessions, he immediately resumed his antics after returning from the Poppin woodshed.  

As the dreaded Principal Diesel passed my bus one noisy, troubled morning, I mentioned that I was still going through the paces with Rollo. Diesel suggested I move Rollo’s seat yet again and wished me luck. I felt like a crew member of the doomed spaceship Nostromo in the movie Alien being told by Ash the cyborg science officer, “I can’t lie to you about your chances, but you have my sympathy.”

SEE: On Student Management, Assigned Seats and Sanity

Being a soft touch, I tend to give kids second, third, fourth, tenth and twentieth chances to go straight before I throw the book at them. When finally driven to hand up an indictment of fourth-grader Robespierre for constant rambunctiousness, brazen cheek and excessive mischief, I was so exasperated I thought about tacking on charges of crimes against humanity.

Robespierre was flabbergasted when he was condemned to the Honored Student Seat in the first row until further notice.

“Hey, it’s by order of Principal Diesel,” I told him whenever he begged for parole. (I finally sprung him, much to my regret, after two weeks.)

Sometimes, entire groups are sentenced. Finally reaching my fill of their raucous antics, I sent eighth-graders Skeezix (half-gainer over a seat back; standing on his head), Otto (water fight), Spud (dancing in the aisles), Jethro (roughhousing), Coggins (casting foodstuffs), and Herkimer (aiding and abetting) to the Fishmeal Falls District’s version of The Hague.

Chronic rule-breakers are given three strikes (write-ups) after which — in theory — they will be removed from the bus and assigned to another. I confess I felt much guilt when Lucifer, my most notorious sixth-grader, ended up on a vehicle driven by one of my colleagues. (Our small buses are often Devil’s Islands of the condemned.) I could only apologize and offer my sympathy while not lying to her about her chances.

Though the recidivism rate is sky-high, I press on despite a painful case of writer’s cramp from all the forms I fill out. I have to say it was a truly special moment the first time a chorus of “The Wheels on the Bus” broke out one morning. My middle schoolers switched the line “The driver on the bus says ‘Move on back, move on back, move on back’” to “The driver on the bus says ‘I’ll write you up!’ I’ll write you up! I’ll write you up!’”

They know. They’ve heard my tune many, many times.