Tag: school bus driver

School Bus Driving Tips: 10 Gold Nuggets

School Bus Driving Tips: 10 Gold Nuggets

John Rolfe

Now that I’m in the home stretch of my fifth year behind the wheel of a big yellow box of pandemonium, it seems like a natural time to look back on all that I’ve learned. And as my sainted mother used to say, “You only learn by bitter experience.”

These are the 10 things I wish I had known or at least fully taken to heart when I started in February 2018. Many I have written about at greater length during the three-plus years I’ve been squeezing out this blog, which by the way …

(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.)

1. Expect the unexpected

Vehicles, pedestrians and kids running late for your bus have a way of sneaking up unseen on all sides or suddenly stepping off sidewalks into your path. Animals dart out into the road where you can quickly come upon objects you don’t want to hit but have no room to swerve around. It helps to be prepared to deal with mechanical breakdowns, fallen trees that leave you sitting for the better part of an hour while your precious cargo grows antsier by the minute, panic-causing insects (spiders, especially) and, of course, unruly or downright bizarre behavior. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you’ll see something new … like the fourth-grader on my bus who got his thumb caught in the metal latch tab of a seat belt and had to be rescued by a crew from the nearest school I could find. (They cut him loose and took him inside to remove the tab from his hand … how exactly I don’t know, but he still had the thumb the next time I saw him.)

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

2. Never rush

I well remember feeling stressed when I was running late. Maybe I had been delayed in the bus yard by a mechanical problem. A kid or three were slow getting to their stop. Traffic was jammed or a light got stuck on red and I couldn’t move even with permission from my dispatcher. No matter what the reason may be, I’ve learned I can take a deep breath and remind myself that I’ll get to wherever I need to go when I get there. No one is going to get mad, and even if they do, I ignore them. Better late than never. Safety first.

SEE: School Bus Driving 101: Training Wheels | Shake Hands With Slack Adjusters | The Dreaded Road Test

3. The parking brake is your savior

It’s very easy to forget to engage it after you stop and then have the bus roll forwards or backwards, often while kids are getting on or off. I’ve heard stories of drivers whose buses hit parked vehicles or buildings. One even crashed through a chain link fence. Those drivers lost their jobs. So I’ve never forgotten something one of my trainers told me about that all-important yellow knob on the dashboard, “That’s your career right there.”

SEE: Tricks of the Trade

4. Do not brake check misbehaving kids

When our precious cargo is cavorting in the aisles and jumping over seats and we’ve gone royal blue in the face telling them to sit down, the temptation is strong to hit the brakes and give the rascals a jolt of reality. But drivers who did so have been brought up on charges of child endangerment, including one fellow in Colorado who had warned his passengers that he was going to show them exactly why not remaining seated was dangerous. The frightened kids told their parents and an uproar ensued. So lay off the brakes. Go slow instead if you can. I’m lucky to drive in a rural area with long stretches of empty road where I can slow to a crawl if things get wild in back. “The worse you behave, the slower the bus goes and the longer the trip takes,” I tell my hellions. I’ve got them trained. They notice when I slow down and get the message, especially if I pull over and sit.

SEE: The Roadside Lectures Roll On

5. Make your hourly wage work for you

When things get crazy and too distracting to continue, simply notify your dispatcher that you are finding a safe place to pull over and sit until sanity returns. Then do paper work. Pull out a book or newspaper and read. Give the Evil Eye. Make your passengers clean up if they’ve been spreading trash and crumbs. But take your time and keep ’em guessing about when you’ll move again. (If you reveal a set time out, they’ll just act crazy for however long you’ve said.) “I get paid by the hour and am happy to sit here all day,” I’ve told my rollicking crew, “so you are now funding my luxurious lifestyle and opulent retirement.” When they whine that they are hungry and need to get home or use the bathroom, I simply tell them, “If you want to get home on time, stop acting like jackasses.” (An unfortunate word choice, perhaps, but I drive middle schoolers who utter far worse things and sometimes you gotta talk a little like they do in order to drive home your point.)

SEE: Curses! From the Mouths of Babes

6. Keep a paper trail

It’s a frustrating fact of this life that no matter how many times you report or write up your hooligans, it can seem like nothing is ever done to make them stop. Schools and even bosses may not take you seriously or back you up. So talk to parents if you can. (I always tell them I’m not picking on their kid, I’m just concerned that their precious one is putting himself or herself and everyone else in danger by running amok while I am trying to drive.) Keep copies of your write-ups. Keep a journal with dates, times and notes about incidents and ongoing bad behavior. Write detailed letters to the principal listing your concerns and keep copies. God forbid you should be called on to defend yourself, but it will be a relief to have material to substantiate your side. Your persistence can get incorrigible kids removed from your bus. Just don’t let the, um, bastards grind you down.

SEE: Wrong and Write: The School Bus Justice System

7. Do everything by the book

Kids are always watching you and even monitoring your driving, even how fast you are going. (One wisenheimer kept making a noise like tires screeching every time I went around a corner…) They talk to their parents about you. They often use their phones to record you and anything that is going on. No matter how challenging things get, keep calm and know that the on-board cameras are your best friend. They are insurance against They Said/You Said scenarios, and kids, little dears that they are, will always insist they didn’t do or say something appalling that is right there on video for their parents and school administrators to enjoy.

SEE: The School Bus Camera’s Eyes Have Seen It All | Dealing With Parents

8. Stay focused

Zoning out is very easy when you drive the same roads every day or have long stretches without a stop. Force yourself to think about what you are doing in the moment. If you catch yourself enough times, you will train your brain to not get lost in thought (and train yourself to not get lost en route because you missed a turn). Limit distractions by constantly reminding yourself of your priorities. A kid being dropped off or picked up is always Number 1. Everything else can wait, especially responding to cries of, “Hey, Bus Driver! Butch is putting peanut butter on Maggie’s head!”

SEE: Route Hypnosis is Not the Way to Go | A Fraction of the Distraction

Assigned seats are helpful for keeping your mind on the road, but where you want to put your most rambunctious urchins is up to you. The most common practice is to make them sit in the front row — in the Honored Student Seat or, as one Canadian driver calls it, The Penalty Box. I’ve found that I prefer to keep my hooligans in back because they usually don’t improve their act when they are moved up front where I am now more aware of everything they do, including wrestling, fighting and using bloodcurdling language. I just let the cameras and write-ups ultimately do the heavy lifting. But according to an informal poll I conducted with several driver groups on Facebook, the front is preferred to the back by 36 percent to 19, with 33 percent of respondents saying the middle or “it depends.” Of course, I’ll bet that all of us identify with the 12 percent who replied with things like, “On the hood, preferably” and “In the principal’s office” and “Prefer they stay home.”

SEE: Student Management, Assigned Seats and Sanity

9. Stay calm and drop the bomb

It’s jolly hard to do when your blood is boiling over the defiance and disrespect the little angels are showing you, but never take anything they say or do personally. Kids are creatures of impulse that do not think about consequences. And there is usually more than meets the eye with many of them. Some come from horrendous homes. Some are facing pain and fear in school. Some have medical issues of which we aren’t aware. So stay calm. I’ve learned that in the worst cases, yelling at them doesn’t do any good. It’s better to just quietly drop the bomb on them later by writing them up or refusing to them a favor. (Funny how often they will ask for one right after you’ve read them The Riot Act.) Talk to and get to know them if you can. Some may not respond, but some may open up and pour their hearts out. I’ve been surprised to develop warm relationships with kids I was sure saw me only as some stern old fart, “The Man” they wanted to stick it to.

SEE: Picking Your Battles With Kids

10. Never think positively

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve invited immediate chaos simply by telling myself or someone else, “Gee, things have been going well lately.” You’d think I’d learn by now. Maybe during my next five years…

SEE: The Perils of Positive Thinking

School Bus Life Lessons: Teachin’ ’em About Consequences

School Bus Life Lessons: Teachin’ ’em About Consequences

John Rolfe

Correct me if I’m wrong, but school is supposed to be a place of learning. And I am told that a school bus is an extension of the classroom. I drive a school bus. So I assume that makes me a teacher … of sorts.

For the past four-plus years I have been trying to impart a few simple lessons to my passengers, the main one being that actions have consequences. Some of those consequences ain’t always good.

(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.)

Case in point: I frequently tell my precious cargo not to stick their hands out the bus windows while the bus is in motion. “If you value your hand or arm, you might want to know that kids have lost theirs when the bus passed too close to a tree or a pole or another vehicle,” I have said more times than I care to say.

Now, you would think this alarming prospect would make the children think twice.

You would be wrong.

See: School Bus Life Lessons: Picking Your Battles With Kids

Likewise, I tell them not to throw things out the bus windows because, one, littering is illegal and a crummy thing to do and, two, cars around us may swerve to avoid being hit by thrown objects and cause an accident. If you think that alarming prospect would make children think twice, I have a nice suspension bridge that connects Brooklyn (NY) to Manhattan Island that I would love to sell you at cost.

All this brings us to the case of Smedley, a rather rebellious eighth-grader who the other day hit an exacta of sorts. Glancing up into my overhead mirror (where we drivers see so many fascinating things), I noticed Smedley in the back of the bus waving his cell phone near the open window. A glance into one of my side mirrors then revealed a hand holding the phone outside. While stopped to discharge several students, I heard a cry from the back.

“Wait! He dropped his phone in the street!”

Naturally, Smedley and his friends expected me to go fetch the phone or let them off the bus to get it.

They were wrong. Terribly wrong. And horrified when I closed the door and drove off saying over the PA, “There’s are reasons why I’ve been telling you not to stick your hands out the windows! There’s one.”

See: Now Hear This! Rocking the School Bus PA

Of course I had to explain that there were these pesty things called rules, regulations and laws that forbid me from letting students out into traffic or to leave them unattended on a bus. But there was also a principle at work: Actions have consequences.

Several other groups of students have been learning this, the hard way, of late. I am now driving after school activity runs. My route is set but it deposits kids at intersections nearest their homes rather than at their doors. I am not given names and addresses. Therefore, it is up to the kids to tell me when I am getting close to their stops so that I can actually stop and let them off.

You would think that, after a long day, they would be eager to get home.

You would be wrong.

Not a trip has gone by where most of my passengers did not remain silent despite my constant pleas…except, or course, to cry out after I missed their stop. Please note that these cries almost always arose about 20 minutes after I’d sailed by it. They were almost always followed by phone calls to parents with complaints such as, “I’m still on the bus! Yeah! This is longest bus ride ever!”

“The reason this is the longest bus ride ever is because you won’t tell me where you live so I can take you there!” I have replied, many times, over the PA. “I am not a mind reader. If you won’t help me, you will just have to stay on for as long as it takes.”

See: Great Misadventure: A Salute to Relief Drivers

This does not seem to matter.

One pair of middle school girls was too busy dropping F Bombs and making saucy talk to listen to my announcement that I was on their street. Another time, I was left with one silent lad in the very back of the bus.

“And where are you going?” I asked. “Are we playing Guess The Student’s Destination?”

“Hokum Street,” he finally replied.

“It would have been nice if you’d said something while we were on it 20 minutes ago…”

Turns out, he was deliberately trying to stay on the bus. “I don’t want to go home,” he told me. “I did something dumb and got in trouble at school today.”

I didn’t have the stomach to ask what “dumb” meant.

In one epic case, we departed Bubblefish Middle School at 4 p.m. and a journey that should have taken an hour to complete did not end until almost 7 p.m. because two Sphinxes in the back allowed me to pass through their neighborhood and continue for 15 or 20 miles before they finally told me why they were still in the back of the bus after everyone else had gotten off.

And even then all they did at first was mumble.

“What?!” I bellowed in exasperated astonishment. “I can’t hear you! Come up here and tell me where you live!”

And even with that they only came halfway up before taking seats in the middle of the bus and mumbling again.

Thanks to the grace and guidance of the Almighty, I got them home before sunrise. But even using those kids as a cautionary tale has not convinced others that their right to remain silent can and will be used against them.

“If you won’t speak up, I’ll just drive all night,” I say now. “I get paid by the hour. You are going to make me a wealthy man!”

That’s something I’ve learned.

The School Bus Wildlife Sanctuary

The School Bus Wildlife Sanctuary

John Rolfe

In the best of times, I drive a rolling zoo. It’s yellow, 40 feet long, and packed with a variety of critters that make the job a challenging adventure.

On any given school day you will find on my bus:

Pigs: Experts at making breathtaking messes in which they often wallow. After repeatedly finding trash on the floor, I left the bottles and wrappers and medical waste (used masks, band-aids) on the culprits’ seats for them to dispose of when they returned. To a pig, er, kid, they just sat in it.

Screech Owls: Their shrieks and maximum-volume chatter drown out my two-way radio while raising what’s left of my hair.

Parrots: They can be relied on to pick up and repeat … and repeat … and loudly repeat … any profanity and inappropriate language they hear. And like the beloved but notorious bird, they pay no mind to who is in earshot when they repeat it.

Otters: According to Fauna Facts, they are very active, playful creatures that love to chase each other around, especially when they are bored.

Caribou: No, my passengers aren’t that large and they don’t have antlers, but caribou migrate long distances with round-trips of more than 745 miles. I’m willing to bet my last doubloon that the kids I drive also migrate at least as far if not more during a school year with their endless changing of seats and cavorting up and down the aisle.

Rats: The snitches who tattle on wrongdoers. I’ve found them to be of great help in keeping tabs on wrong-doers.

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.)

During down times (nights, weekends, vacation breaks), other varmints move in.

My district’s bus compound is haunted by a raccoon who is skilled at pulling unsecured doors open, climbing aboard, and feasting on trash that hasn’t been emptied.

As you can see, he or she has done quite well on my bus, once finding a large baggie of crackers I’d left in the garbage box in front.

There are also birds, robins mostly, that find their way in. One September I returned after two months to find a nest had been constructed on the first aid kit near the door. More recently, feathered friends have been finding open windows and hatches and leaving icky white reminders on the dashboard, seats and anything else they can perch on or above.

Fortunately, my bus doesn’t look this bad, but the birds that get in are trying their best.

So far, I’ve gotten off light. The driver who parks next to me has not, but even she doesn’t have to deal with what the pilot of one unfortunate spare bus will find when he or she is assigned to drive it. Often unused, it has become a full-time bird house that will require a massive cleanup (see photos above) if not a Superfund grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.

Honestly, those birds make the pigs I drive look like amateurs. And like the pigs, they aren’t very good about cleaning up after themselves. But that kind of stuff just comes with this territory.

SEE: How I Won the Garbage War

School Bus Discipline: Desperate Measures for Desperate Times

School Bus Discipline: Desperate Measures for Desperate Times

John Rolfe

When it comes to discipline, some drivers just have the magic touch. They command respect, effortlessly squelch insurrections in the bud, and pilot buses full of quiet, obedient children.

Then there are schlubs like me who rely on assigned seats, disciplinary write-ups, lectures, threats and shrieking to little or no avail.

SEE: The School Bus Justice System

(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 was with great envy that I listened to a colleague recount the good old days when she set a district record for kicking misbehaving kids off her bus in mid-journey. Yep. There was a time when you could simply stop wherever you were and order an obstreperous urchin to walk home.

Perhaps my futility is best captured by this early entry in the journal I started when I began driving in 2018: “To make the worst kids stop misbehaving, you can’t move them, you can’t talk to their parents, you can’t write them up. The only solution I can think of is lobotomy.”

Now, forced mutilation may be a tad extreme and not likely to be well-received by parents or the school district for that matter, but I have some other suggestions that I think are perfectly reasonable and would like to see implemented:

DOUBLE-DECKER BUS: A staple of London and tourist companies in other major cities, this is the most humane option on my list. It would enable me to quarantine the hellions upstairs while the good children ride in peace below.

HAND TOOLS: On many occasions I have threatened to come back and secure wandering children to their seats with my heavy duty staple gun. Jehosaphat, a particularly mobile fourth-grader, was told after many, many, many warnings and a conference with his father that he would be receiving the hammer-and-three-penny-nails treatment. I have yet to make good on these threats, mind you, but kids push me at their own risk.

SEE: Rockin’ the School Bus PA

ALTERNATIVE SEATING: After constantly moving the seats of expert firestarters to no effect, I announced that I would be putting them on the roof or in the luggage compartment under the bus.

Sometimes the old ways work best.

“You can’t do that!” Robespierre cried.

“Not yet,” I replied. “But I’ve asked my boss. I think he’s starting to come around.”

SEE: Student Management, Assigned Seats and Sanity

EJECTOR SEATS: It only takes one bad apple to ignite a behavioral conflagration, so having the ability to push a button on a grid and send the bad fruit into orbit a la James Bonds’ famous Aston-Martin would be a godsend.

TRANQUILIZER DARTS: To borrow the immortal words of the Beach Boys, wouldn’t it be nice? I mean, to have these at your disposal so all you have to do is pull over, take aim and restore calm to the bus?

SEE: It Only Takes One to Drive a School Bus Wild

RIOT GEAR: One raucous afternoon I pulled up to Fiends ‘n Fun Day Care and informed the lady at the door that a re-enactment of the 1886 Haymarket Riot was in progress on my bus and I had called for tear gas, but the district had yet to respond. I still think a cloud agent would help … along with a few flash-bang grenades to get the kids’ attention.

“I want the entire arsenal,” I insisted yet again while visiting the Head Bus Driver’s office to press my case. “If that’s my legacy here, I’ll be happy.”

“For the kids or for you?” she asked.

For me, certainly, but our router thoughtfully suggested a little something for our entire staff: “We need valium salt licks.”

No, this isn’t a profession for the faint of heart, so I heartily salute all those who can handle it without resorting to the wonders of technology and chemistry.

School Bus Driving 101: Learning From Mistakes

School Bus Driving 101: Learning From Mistakes

John Rolfe

Some days in this gig you can feel like an athlete having a miserable game. Try as you might, you can’t do anything right.

You keep hitting the curb when you make a right turn. You cut off other vehicles or run a light (especially with a cop in your rearview mirror) that you thought would stay yellow until you at least got through the intersection. You forget to signal for a turn or trigger your amber flashers or turn them off, or close the door before you start to roll.

(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 was always something, and it’s the bus driving equivalent of having toilet paper stuck on your heel at a black tie event. It’s embarrassing to have other drivers radio (everyone can hear) or signal you by pointing at something wrong (like your lights) or to have your head bus driver secretly following you in her car while all this wonderment is taking place. You don’t want to get the dreaded “See me” call on the radio.

See: The Dreaded Road Test

When a new stretch of road was added to one of my runs, I just couldn’t get it right for the first week. I kept messing up crossing one girl by approaching her house too damned fast (it always seemed to come up sooner than expected) and having to hit the brakes. Then I’d forget to open the door (which triggers the red flashers and stop signs) before I crossed her, or I’d stab at the door button on the steering wheel but the door wouldn’t open while she stood there waiting.

A change of bus has a way of bedeviling me. Tarkus, my regular ride, has a button in the back to deactivate the no-student-left-behind alarm. While Tarkus was in the shop for a week or two, the replacement required lifting the back door handle instead. When I finally got Tarkus back, I forgot about the difference, lifted the handle instead, and the alarm went off with a repeated blaring of the horn outside Bubblefish Middle School that morning and again in the bus yard that afternoon.

Nothing like a little spectacle to attract attention to your shortcomings …

For some reason, it always happens at a school.

My biggest lulu of a screw-up was when my two-way radio fritzed out as I began my afternoon run from Helga Poppin Intermediate. Robespierre and Guttersnipe, two of my most “challenging” riders, were at each other’s throats and the full bus was the usual nuthouse. While trying to fix the radio, I sailed past a turn for Fiends ‘n Fun Day Care, where I was to unload about a third of my precious cargo.

Bedlam ensued.

“You missed the turn!” the student body cried.

With my PA out as well, all I could do was yell in vain, “I know! We’re going back!” But by then Guttersnipe was crying (he’d been hit in the nose by Snodgrass, who’d gotten in on the action). Mortimer was in tears too because of the unexpected break in his routine. (For all he knew I was hijacking all of them to parts unknown).

With my radio out, I couldn’t call base to explain and didn’t want to stop and use my phone because the bus was too noisy. I just kept dropping off tearstained kids, and two parents called the office to complain. Near the end of the run, Hobbestweedle started singing “Baby Shark” to complete my mental torture.

The next day I was called on my boss’s carpet to explain. He was actually amused and he reminded me that Fiends ‘n Fun is in a big building that’s hard to miss.

See: Five Days That Made Me What I Am

I’ve never missed that turn since. Nor have I failed to look both ways multiple times after nearly having an accident. The morning sun was in my eyes and the intersection seemed quiet, but there are bushes down the road on the left and cars can appear suddenly, which is what happened. The driver then cut me off, stopped, got out and asked “You got kids on board?” When I sheepishly nodded, he snapped a photo of my bus and left.

To my astonishment, he didn’t call my boss.

The worst way to learn from your mistakes is by nearly hurting a kid. One of the biggest challenges is concentrating while picking up or dropping them off, especially if you have to cross them. One day I was distracted by Prudence asking me questions and I crossed Robespierre without triggering my reds. (The master switch was off.)

Then there was the time Oswald suddenly disappeared in front of my bus. He’d stopped to tie his shoelaces. Fortunately, I was watching him while Ocarina and Lucille chatted me up, but you just never know what a kid will do.

Another time, I was distracted by a blizzard of requests and popped the parking brake, intending to roll. Thankfully Prudence cried out from the seat behind me, “Wait! Calliope is still there” in front of us.

Those times really drove home that nothing matters more than focus. Thankfully I’ve not made mistakes like that again.

As one of my sage colleagues said after telling me of the time she sang loudly off-key without realizing her two-way mic was on, “You only need to make some mistakes once.”

Classic Mysteries: A New School Year

Classic Mysteries: A New School Year

John Rolfe

Expect the unexpected.

That was one of the first things I was told after I signed on for this gig in 2018. I can certainly say that 2021-22 looks like it’s going to be loaded with surprises.

Ordinarily, a new school year feels like Christmas morning. What dear, sweet new riders has our router gifted to me? Will the old villains behave any better? What changes were made to my route? What new issues will I be wrestling?

(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.)

At our annual orientation meeting we discussed timeless basics, such as defensive driving in intersections, how to avoid accidents when picking up or dropping off students, and some new wrinkles like our pandemic procedures. Masks must still be worn indoors and on buses, which won’t please some parental units. Seats must also be assigned, which our precious cargo surely won’t like.

See: Student Management, Assigned Seats and Sanity

I wondered how crowded my bus will be. After our delayed start in October last year, I had as few as three or even one lonesome urchin on some trips. When things returned to some normalcy in February, I had 20-25 hellions rather than the 45 I’ve been given this year.

With an entirely new route and brand new kids (only dreaded middle schoolers!), I definitely needed to do a dry run, which turned out to be a wet one. The sky opened with a Hurricane Ida downpour as I crept along streets and squinted at house numbers while angry motorists honked behind me.

Some streets weren’t marked and I got lost, in one case on a dead end where I had to back up my 40-foot bus unassisted. (Note ominous foreshadowing.) I wisely surrendered about half-way through my route and tried again a few days later.

Required to produce a seating chart for contact tracing, and having no idea who should not be seated near whom, I had the bright idea of doing a first-aboard, first-seated from back to front plan. This was blown out of the water when my opening day run sheet had even more kids and some route changes. All the numbered name cards I’d lovingly crafted were no good. So I let the buggers sit where they wanted and hoped for the best.

The biggest surprise of all awaited.

I was absolutely gob-smacked at how well behaved the kids were. They were quiet and said hello or have a nice day or thanks for a safe run. Even the two charmers I had during my summer school stint were amazingly pleasant.

In all honesty, I never thought I’d live to see (in my overhead mirror) the sight of middle schoolers (middle schoolers!!!) all sitting peacefully for an entire trip. Frankly, I thought I was hallucinating. And after my first 14 runs with this alarming new crew I was still waiting for them leave some trash on the bus.

See: How I Won the Garbage War

Some of the kids had been browbeaten into polite shape by their previous driver, who runs a tight ship. I will surely remember her in my Last Will and Testament. But the rest, mostly sixth graders who are naturally prone to going over to The Dark Side upon entering middle school, have also been angels. That’s a very good thing because there are several impossibly tight turns onto busy streets in my run. The last thing I need is insurrection in the back.

See: A Fraction of the Distraction, Please

Otherwise, the first week or so turned out to be a nice big box of chaos.

Many parents were late registering their kids for transportation, so their angels weren’t in our routing system or on run sheets. Our dispatcher had to tell us to pick up anyone we saw along our routes. Many kids got on wrong buses and drivers had to call in for addresses and other info. Our phones were jammed by schools and parents wondering where their children could be found. The usual delays that occur as we master our new routes were also compounded by the customary breakdowns of a bus or two.

See: The School Bus Slayer Strikes Again

Pressed into spot service after my usual morning and afternoon run, I took a busload of K-2 kids on a merry tour of Dutchess County thanks to an unfamiliar route and a road I’d never been on.

“I’m your substitute driver,” I’d told the 20 or so wide-eyed ragamuffins. “But don’t worry. I have the address for your houses. I know where to go.”

Famous last words.

The fun began when no parents were waiting at my first stop and the three kids who were supposed to get off there did not respond to my calls over the PA. After waiting five minutes, I continued on only to have my dispatcher call on the radio.

“Did you leave Huey, Dewey and Louise DeFungus at Recrimination Street yet?” he asked.

Told no, he informed me I had to get them back there post-haste … no, hold on, another bus would meet me further on up my route and take them back. Unfortunately, that route included no indication of where one street turned into another. A key turn-around point was also unmarked. I ended up going miles out of my way only to be trapped behind slow-moving bicyclists on a narrow country road after I’d corrected course.

By then, the world was inquiring of my whereabouts. My relief driver was pursuing me and running late for her next scheduled route. My next stop was an unmarked house, which, of course, I passed.

My dispatcher was now urgently and repeatedly asking for an ETA for the first three urchins, so I had to pull over to take stock. My relief driver appeared at the door to ask for Huey, Dewey and Louise and she was soon joined by a concerned cop, who wanted to know if everything was OK and see my run sheet.

Meanwhile, I spotted a mother braving traffic as she walked down the road in search of her wayward child.

“Great,” I thought. “I’m going to get her killed…”

Pleading for Huey, Dewey and Louise to make themselves known and come forth, I was informed by my dispatcher that my soliloquy had gone out over the two-way radio instead of the PA.

“I have to say you’re as good a public speaker as you are a writer,” he noted. I could only give thanks that I hadn’t called the kids stooges, knuckleheads and numbskulls as I had done with the intermediate schoolers I used to drive.

See: Now Hear This! Rocking the School Bus PA

Once back on the road, the remaining kids asked, “Where are we going now, Mr. Bus Driver?”

“I don’t know. Staten Island?” I wanted to say but keeping them calm was paramount. And as I pulled up to my final stop, I muttered, “At least no one has left the bus in tears.”

Famous last words.

Awaiting me was a smoldering mother who responded to my apology for being an hour late with “They missed their gymnastics!”

“Gymnastics” was all the two kids heard. So they exclaimed, “Are we going to gymnastics, mama?”

I was given a look of contempt as she told them, “No. Your bus was too late. We’ll go next time.” Which, of course, induced tears.

“Maybe that was your cue to break down and cry,” my wife later suggested.

Maybe.

With my new schedule, after school activities run, and role as an occasional wandering fill-in, I have to believe that “Where am I?” and “Where am I going?” are probably going to be the biggest mysteries this year.

Curses! From the Mouths of Babes …

Curses! From the Mouths of Babes …

John Rolfe

Nothing warms the heart quite like the sound of children telling each other to shut the F up in the morning.

No matter how many times I hear it, it’s always jarring to listen to a grade schooler drop the F Bomb like a seasoned dock worker. The forbidden novelty of the word and others like it is catnip to kids, and the peer pressure to swear is high, particularly in middle school where proving how tough you are is part of life.

(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.)

I may be a fossil but I still remember the thrill of cursing and getting a rise out of adults when I was a kid. My memories aren’t of doing it on the school bus, though. I vividly recall sitting in my neighbor’s bushes with friends and slinging some hair-raising language. We were under an open window and easily heard inside. Mr. Kohart came out and sternly told us to stifle ourselves as there were ladies in the house.

Now, even though I occasionally drop a choice oath when I’m angry away from the job, I’m the one trying to make kids clean up their verbal act.

Complaints about F Bombs and MF Bombs in the back reach me at the wheel. Sixth-grader Sassafrass has a mouth on her that could make the saltiest sailor blush but I’ve heard third graders using the P word and racial or sexual slurs. No matter how many times I scold them or remind them that everything they say and do is being recorded, they are often surprised to find themselves in the principal’s office after they’ve been caught in the video review of another crime.

See: The Camera on the Bus Sees All

During one memorable trip, seventh-graders Coggins and Ethel were unleashing a blue barrage of F Bombs, S Bombs and B Bombs. So I got on the PA and said, “Can’t you please watch your language? You sound like you’re possessed. Should I call for an exorcist?”

That stopped ’em, at least for a while. But cursing seems to be a contractual obligation for middle schoolers. When Lucifer, my prime purveyor of obscenity, went on vacation, fellow seventh-grader Butch stepped up to fill the void.

Sometimes I’m just not sure I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing. The engine is roaring, the two-way radio is blaring, and I’m pretty far away from the action. For all I know, my precious cargo could simply be talking about trucking and floral sets and I don’t want to look like my mind is in the gutter if I wrongly accuse them of smutty utterances.

And they like to keep me guessing.

One day on my Helga Poppin Intermediate run, Jehosaphat and Robespierre kept shouting words that sounded like curses: “Duck!” and “Ship!” in particular. The whole crew also took to shrieking the popular song “Old Town Road.” I looked up the lyrics and found a few dicey words like, “Cheated on my baby/You can go and ask her/My life is a movie/Bull riding and boobies/Cowboy hat from Gucci/Wrangler on my booty.”

It’s just unsettling to hear that stuff coming from tender voices, and sometimes I’d rather not know what is being said, like when a smirking Coggins passed me while getting off the bus. When I told him to have a good day, I could have sworn I heard him mutter, “Up yours.”

Of course it was possible that he was merely talking to his friend Jethro, who was right behind him. I’ve just been conditioned to expect the worst.

See: Picking Your Battles With Kids

And if they can’t rise to your level, they can always drag you down to theirs.

It is with much shame that I confess I’ve let a D Bomb slip on occasion. The first time, while quelling an intermediate school riot during an especially aggravating week, I quickly added “Pardon me” over the PA but no one seemed to notice. They certainly did the time time I blurted “Stop sticking your damn arms out the windows!” a few days later.

The bus suddenly grew silent and I heard one kid say in a stage whisper, “The bus driver said the D Word!”

In a Can-You-Believe-It? tone, another said “Damn!” … as my head slumped onto the wheel.

So much for the moral high ground. It certainly doesn’t help to lose it when you need to have your trip video reviewed because of a disciplinary incident.

The road in question.

My least shining moment occurred (of course) on the treacherous stretch of road where my riders always come unglued. It had been one of those weeks and my patience was gone. When the ever-challenging Robespierre spilled Esmerelda’s makeup all over the aisle and began wrestling with his frenemy Beetlebomb, I eventually pulled over and marched back.

See: The Roadside Lecture Series Rolls On

After letting them have it with both barrels (“What part of sit down don’t you understand?”) they gave me a few smirks and a giggle or two.

“It’s not funny!” I barked. “Behave!”

And with that I marched back to the wheel only to have Robespierre chime in with “I’m not laughing.”

Without thinking, I turned and snapped, “Don’t be a smart ass!”

Then came the Dark Night of the Soul: wrestling with the temptation to deal with this incident by myself and hope the video gets lost unseen in the mists of time. But someone had to tame Robespierre, who’d been up to no good all year. So I gritted my teeth and wrote him up, expecting a “See me” note from my boss after Principal Diesel had viewed the video.

See: The School Bus Justice System

I was sure Robespierre and his cronies would see to it that I was hung out to dry for cursing. Amazingly, I heard nothing.

My first thought was, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

I wisely kept it to myself.

Roadside Lectures Roll On

Roadside Lectures Roll On

John Rolfe

After a long, peaceful stretch of few riders due to the pandemic, I finally gave my first Roadside Lecture of the school year in mid-April.

Actually, it was a Schoolside Lecture delivered outside Helga Poppin Intermediate one morning while waiting to let the kids off my bus.

The topic: A refresher on my job and the two video cameras on board.

(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.)

“OK, people,” I said, standing in the aisle before the suddenly quiet congregation. “I saw some stuff yesterday afternoon that I didn’t like.”

I then mentioned the seatbelt trip wire (a timeless prank) I found stretched across the aisle next to notorious fourth-grader Guttersnipe’s seat. I didn’t mention him (he’s a firestarter in training) by name. I just said (while watching his smug expression turn into a cringe), “Whoever did it, you know who you are … and so do the cameras. In case you forgot, everything you do and say is being recorded.”

See: The Camera’s Eyes Have It

I then explained (for the umpteenth hundredth time) the importance of not climbing on seats or standing in the aisle because “if I have to slam on the brakes and stop suddenly, you’ll go flying. You aren’t watching the road like I am, so you won’t know if a car or a person or an animal darts out in front of us … and they can and do.”

Pausing for dramatic effect, I added, “Kids have fallen on buses and gotten hurt. It hasn’t happened on my bus yet, and I’m going to do my best to keep it that way. My job is to keep you all safe.”

Somehow I don’t think they were impressed.

Finally, having seen fifth-grader Clementine play peek-a-boo-duck!-peek-a-boo–duck! with me during the entire ride home — a sure sign that she was up to no good — I continued:

“I see you ladies in the back are having a grand old time with the windows. Please don’t throw stuff out or stick your arms and hands out. I don’t mind you opening them on a warm day but there’s a phone number on the back of the bus. So if you’re going to toss stuff or greet the public as you’ve been doing, be nice or they will call and complain. Then we’ll pull the video and you’ll end up in Principal Diesel’s office. As some of you know, the Principal’s expression can turn a man to stone!”

My audience’s silence lasted well beyond my brilliant, vaguely ominous closer: “Thank you. We’ll catch you later.”

You’ll often find me pontificating here.

See: The School Bus Justice System

I started my (hopefully) award-winning Roadside Lecture Series not long after I began driving my big yellow institution of learning. When warnings, threats and shrieking over the PA failed, it dawned on me that I had no choice but to find a safe spot to pull over, put my hazard lights on, and “educate” my precious cargo.

(I must admit I get a kick out of their reaction: eyes widening as the bus slows to a stop, silence growing as I rise from my seat and turn towards the back…)

Some of my topics: Why distracting the driver is dangerous (“Trust me, you don’t want us to end up in a ditch or wrapped around a tree”); the hazards of moving around while the bus is rolling, jostling in the aisle or using seats like gymnastics equipment (see above), and a scary thing called “black ice.”

It’s there (in the photos) that I can set my clock by the kids suddenly coming unglued after they’ve been little angels for the first half of the trip.

I often rehearse speeches (in my head) and have had plenty of practice actually delivering them. Sadly, I’ve had to repeat them many times. My most frequent site for lectures is a particularly treacherous, winding stretch of hilly, wooded road that’s loaded with hidden driveways, wandering animals (including a wayward cow) and other hazards.

“No matter how many times I tell you how dangerous this road is, you just don’t get it,” I keep saying. And it’s true.

Of course, within minutes of getting back on the road they are usually back at it. In that case, I resort to the unoriginal but classic move of pulling over, shutting off the engine and announcing over the PA, “OK, we’re not going anywhere until you settle down. We’ll sit here all day and all night if we have to. I get paid by the hour so you’ll just be helping me pay for my yacht!” Ha Ha.

See: Rocking the School Bus PA

That always gets their attention and inspires a few cries of, “He’s kidnapping us!” and “Call the cops!”

“Go ahead and call the cops,” I tell them. “They’ll take my side as soon as they see the video!”

I’ve had guest speakers before. Teachers, principals and other school officials have come aboard to deliver a few choice remarks and pointed suggestions. Maybe law enforcement personnel will be able to teach a lesson that finally sinks in.

School Bus Life’s a Gas

School Bus Life’s a Gas

John Rolfe

Not to be crude, but is anything more universally funny than the humble fart?

Rare is the person who doesn’t chortle at the sound or even the mere thought of a fanny beep. Doesn’t matter who or how old you are, a cheek squeak will likely raise at least a smile if not a crinkled nose.

Pardon me for going all pop psychology on you for a second, but it’s said that misfortune and indignity are the essence of humor. Think of a classic slapstick bit like someone falling down an open manhole. Trouser toots are a social manhole, especially in a dignified setting like a school bus.

(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.)

The timeless appeal of seam splitters was demonstrated by the mad-libs that my passengers Rollo and Calliope did during their ride to Helga Poppin Intermediate School one morning. They dutifully filled all of the blanks in the text with “fart” and that old favorite “poop” the way my kids used to do when they were young and getting endless hours of fun from making our boxy Apple computer’s voice say “Poop poop poop poop poop.”

Oh, the hilarity!

Asked by Rollo to read the ad-lib opus aloud over the PA — not quite the level of material our Bus Driver of the Year award winners typically share with their passengers — I was relieved when the call to release the kids came before I could get started destroying the last shreds of my professional dignity. But I’m sure it would have been good for a laugh.

One individual, a seventh-grader I’ll call Methane Man, has been a reliable source of thunder down under. He’s even reveled in his reputation for sparking gusts of laughter and howls of revulsion with a robust rump roar. Uncannily (pardon the pun) able to detonate a bootie bomb on demand by his pals, Methane Man was a source of daily amusement in the ranks until he experienced an unexpected gas shortage at the pump, if you will.

“I haven’t farted in a month. Is that bad?” I overheard him ask one afternoon during the ride home.

Unable to resist chiming in, I got on the PA and replied, “I thought it’s been a little too quiet around here.”

“I’m waiting for an explosion,” said Oscar, a fellow seventh-grader who sits perilously close to Methane Man.

An explosion was a distinct possibility given that humans typically backfire 14 times each day. In the meantime, ever-mischievous eighth-grader Coggins brought a whoopee cushion on board to help break the boring silence if not the actual wind.

“This is what my life has come to,” I thought as I was serenaded by rude noises all the way to Bubblefish.

See: Five Days That Made Me What I Am

Air biscuits aren’t the only things on the menu, mind you. From time to time there are pleasant sounds and aromas floating about my bus.

Kids have busted out their instruments and played a tune, though the temptation to simulate a tush tuba eventually overcomes them. Being the good influence that they are, I was tempted to put on a tape of “Our Song” by Roger Waters and Ron Geesin, a collection of syncopated flatulence, belching, wheezes and other bodily noises set to a bouncy piano, but decided against it when I envisioned being browbeaten by scowling parents and school administrators, not to mention my boss.

On the aromatic front, Heloise the middle schooler often boarded in the morning redolent of fresh bread or cookies. Exotic scents sometimes waft from the back, making me wonder if someone is making waffles or baking potatoes. After some runs, I expected to find evidence of a cooking fire, but fortunately haven’t … so far.

The remedy for a gas attack is always at hand.

One morning during the usual rollicking ride to Helga Poppin, I noticed something especially fragrant and was moved to grab the PA mic and ask, “Who’s using aftershave? What are you lunatics doing back there?”

“Oh, nothing,” Jehosaphat replied, giggling and looking guilty. Then I noticed his pal Beetlebomb spraying what turned out to be deodorant.

Deodorant would have come in handy the time I noticed all the windows were being frantically opened by my passengers.

“Someone cut the cheese!” Beetlebomb informed me, so I told him I would turn on the fans in front to blow the fumes away. (Those fans were frequently requested after that.)

When the kids kept complaining that Brutus and Hogshead were continuing to produce breezers, I was tempted to radio in that my bus was under a serious gas attack. Instead, I went on the PA and told my precious cargo, “Hey, thanks for the back drafts! I was afraid we were going to run out of gas. And cheese, too. I just wanted to say I appreciate anyone who helps us meet our daily quota.”

When they went silent and looked confused, I said, “I bet you didn’t know there’s a New York State law that says there must be at least one fart on a school bus during every trip.”

“Really?” someone asked from the sea of puzzled faces in my overhead mirror.

“Absolutely!” I replied. “You could look it up!” (Though I didn’t say where.)

I actually had them going for a bit, but it’s no joke that my bus runs on gas in more ways than one.

How I Won the School Bus Garbage War

How I Won the School Bus Garbage War

John Rolfe

It helps to have a sense of humor in this job.

That said, I’m blessed to be amused by how kids are forbidden to eat on the bus, yet their schools still send them home with armloads of candy, cookies and cupcakes after class parties. They’re sneaky little buggers when it comes to filling their faces, so my bus ends up looking like Times Square after a New Year’s Eve celebration — a kaleidoscope of wrappers, lollipop sticks, crumbs, and sprinkles.

“If you need Fruit Loops, just let me know,” I told my colleagues after my middle schoolers tossed cereal all over the back. “I’ve got plenty.”

(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.)

Mess just comes with this yellow turf. No matter how often I told my precious cargo to throw garbage in the boxes at the front and back of the bus and not on the floor, they kept doing it and no one would fess up. When I was told the district brass wanted drivers to sweep out our buses each day, I asked if we can make the kids help.

No such luck, but my plight inspired me to take action.

I created a “Trash Back Bonus Rewards Program.”

I wanted to call it “Live Clean or Die” or “Give Me Cleanliness or Give Me Death” but those names seemed a bit heavy-handed if not dire and threatening. The basic idea was to collect the garbage on the floor and give it to the litterbugs the next day as they got off the bus at school. (Thanks to the wonders of seating charts, it isn’t hard to trace trash back to its source.)

See: Student Management, Assigned Seats and Sanity

It seemed to work. Eighth graders Otto and Coggins were the first recipients and they looked shocked when I handed them baggies of ramen noodle crumbs that had been scattered around the back. The bus was much cleaner after that, at least while my middle schoolers were on board, and my messy passengers got better at using the trash boxes. Unfortunately, a raccoon in the bus compound didn’t get the memo (see photo).

One day, fourth graders Calliope and Ocarina asked me which school’s students were the messiest on a scale of 1 to 10. Thanks to its class parties, Helga Poppin Intermediate rated a solid 9 and I sang the praises of how neat the Bubblefish Middle Schoolers had been.

Naturally, the next day the Bubblefish brigade left a blizzard of Wheaties all over the back. I discovered it after I pulled in to pick up my crew at Helga Poppin. Clearly it was time for another round of rewards, but it was a Friday afternoon, so I wouldn’t be able to present prizes to the perpetrators until Monday.

That gave me time to come up with the idea for an official “Big Bag O’ Crap Giveaway.”

See: School Bus Life Lessons: Picking Your Battles With Kids

After we pulled in to the parking lot at Bubblefish on Monday, Coggins and his pals Otto, Herkimer and Jethro were each given a large plastic bag stuffed with cereal flakes and other valuables such as crumbs, bread crusts, soda cans, water bottles, yogurt containers, candy wrappers, half-eaten lollipops, gum wads, fruit rinds, apple cores, popcorn, tissues, pencil shavings, paper wads, pencil stubs, and pen caps — much of it bonus “value-added” material from Helga Poppin.

The lads were silent and a little contrite as they received the mementos of their work, and that afternoon I delivered an inspirational speech to the entire cast:

“You’re not supposed to eat on the bus, but being the fine, upstanding young citizens you are, I know you will do it anyway,” I said. “On Friday, some kind souls left me one sweet mess to clean up, so I strongly suggest that you aim the food at your mouths and not at the floor or each other. If you do not obey this command, you will continue to receive gifts like the ones I gave out this morning.”

For dramatic effect, I paused and added: “I may even show up at your house and dump the stuff on your living room floor. I’m sure your parents will be thrilled.”

The rest of the year went reasonably well, though Bubblefish did beat out Helga Poppin for the coveted “Bus 631 Big Bag O’ Trash Award for Excellence in Mess Making.” It was presented on the next-to-last day of school.

“It’s the end of the year and the school is giving out awards and honors,” I said as I stood before the winners with a huge white trash bag stuffed to bursting with the finest refuse I could collect in the final weeks. “So I thought I would give out one of my own.”

Seeing how enthralled they were, I continued. “No individuals were the clear winner. I’d say the residents of the last four or five rows are the most deserving for the sheer number of messes and their magnitude during the school year. This was a team effort and there’s plenty of credit to go around.”

And with that I handed the ceremonial bag to Mildew, an athletic eighth-grader who just happened to be the first person down the aisle after we got the signal to let ’em off the bus.

“It’s a team award! Think of it like carrying the flag at the Olympics,” I told her before giving each of her teammates a slap on the back and a hearty, “Well done! You don’t see this kind of commitment to excellence every day!”

And I don’t see as much trash anymore.

I’m now working on an award for the raccoon.