Tag: school bus

Beware School Bus Sneaks and Stowaways!

Beware School Bus Sneaks and Stowaways!

John Rolfe

One of the more sobering realities of a gig chock full of sobering realities is our responsibility for every kid who comes aboard our school bus, and that includes the rascals who aren’t supposed to be on there in the first place.

(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.)

Every now and then a driver confronts a stowaway: the kid who tries to hop a ride to a friend’s house without permission from their parents. A bus pass from the school is required for such excursions — my district is starting to require all students to show ID when boarding — but these rogues try to sneak on and sometimes succeed. I’ve had to stop at least one strange face from getting off.

“And where do you think you’re going?” I asked one startled lad as he followed Chumley, one of my regulars, to the bus door after we arrived at Chumley’s house. “Do you have a pass?”

Relieved that I caught him in time, I radioed for instructions and was told he lived right around the corner, but I was to drop him at his house anyway. Fortunately, he just heaved an exasperated sigh and did not jump ugly with me. Drivers I know have had kids tell them to F off before barging out the door and scampering away. One of my regulars managed to scoot out at a friend’s stop and he ignored my pleas to come back. A middle schooler in my district is notorious for randomly riding buses to wherever he pleases.

Guess who will be liable if something happens to these rapscallions?

There are also kids who try to sneak back on to a bus after being booted off. I recently succeeded in getting a seventh-grader removed for constant misbehavior. Hortence Prunella was reassigned to a small bus, one of our Devil’s Island transports for the incorrigible, but one afternoon the assistant principal came aboard mine looking for her. Lo and behold, Hortence Prunella was found hiding in the back amid her usual partners in crime. She’d managed to come on without me spotting her in a thicket of kids. Every day now requires me to be vigilant for her possible return.

SEE: Who’s Who? Losing the Name Game

My after-school activities runs are particularly dicey because I am given only a basic route of main streets but not the names of the ever-changing cast of kids or where they actually live. They often look alike, but after a while I become familiar with some faces. Every so often a kid I’ve never seen before will ride and I’m supposed to let them off wherever they say they are going. Unfortunately for one girl who tried to pull a fast one on her mom, her nefarious plan went awry:

I was hauling my usual cargo of 25 or so kooks one afternoon when my dispatcher’s dulcet tones came over the radio: “Attention all after-school buses. Please check to see if a Beulah Belle Whipsnade is on your bus.”

When I inquired over the PA, a hand shot up in the back. So I reported that I was the lucky contestant who had today’s featured wayfarer on board. “Please drop her off at 2455 Bunkum Boulevard,” I was told.

Beulah was too far away to hear this crucial instruction, which made for a rather nasty surprise … for her.

About 20 minutes later, Beulah made her way to the front and said, “You’re supposed to let me off on Agita Road at Angelina’s house.”

Suspecting that this might be news to my dispatcher, I radioed it in and was told to stand by while a call was placed to Beulah’s mother. A few minutes later, I was told, “Her mother says under no circumstances is she to get off at Agita Road with that girl. She is to be taken home.”

When I relayed this to Beulah, she was hardly pleased and I soon overheard her grumbling to her friends, “The bus driver won’t let me off!”

This moved me to grab my PA and explain, “The bus driver is responsible for everyone’s whereabouts and making sure they get to where they are supposed to go. If you get off somewhere you’re not supposed to be and something bad happens to you, I will be in big trouble. I regret to inform everyone that I am not going to risk my job if I can possibly help it.”

SEE: Rockin’ the School Bus PA

So Beulah, who turned out to be the last one off, ended up sitting in the seat behind me, muttering “How did this happen?” and staring like a con about to go to the electric chair. Apparently her mom was waiting and wasn’t pleased.

I thank my lucky stars that my dispatcher radioed about Beulah, which enabled me to blow the whistle on her, but the close call makes me fret and stew over every passenger. They often come on in a fast-moving crush that makes it hard to take stock. Some ride infrequently, so they don’t seem familiar at first. I’ve called in my suspicion that Beulah was on board and trying to get to Agita Road again. (She wasn’t.) But she does resemble three other girls on my bus.

Kids think we run a taxi service. Gotta watch ’em all like a hawk.

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.

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.

School Bus Life Lessons: This Job’s No Joke

School Bus Life Lessons: This Job’s No Joke

John Rolfe

Of the many things I’ve learned from driving a school bus, one really stands out: This job can humble you in a heartbeat.

Plenty of things can go wrong. Many are not the driver’s fault, but some are, like getting lost in thought and missing a stop.

SEE: Zoning Out Is Not the Way to Go

Or losing your cool with kids. Or doing something silly and looking like a fool. I know all about that one.

You see, ever since I was a kid I’ve had a mischievous streak a mile wide, so I have a devil of a time resisting the temptation to do things like making, shall we say, offbeat remarks over the two-way radio.

(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 hear playful banter between drivers all the time, but I started cracking wise after I heard their announcements while they were backing out of their parking spaces in our compound. The mischief wheels in my mind immediately started spinning and one day I just blurted, “For your entertainment pleasure, 631 is backing out of space 90.”

I immediately felt ashamed of myself, but when no one said anything to me, I kept going.

A stream of similar messages followed. Stuff like: “631 backing up and bound for glory” and “631 backing up . . . but not indefinitely. I hope to stop at some point.”

I was also inspired by another driver who, when asked by our dispatcher how many kids he had on board, replied, “I don’t know. I’d say somewhere between seven and nine.” So I began commenting about the challenges of the job: “631 backing out of space 90 to suffer the little children.”

I’ve been told by some of my fellow drivers that they get a kick out of my announcements and even listen for them. Of course, that only eggs me on, increasing the urge to turn my bus into my own personal comedy club. As it is, I say bizarre things over the PA, such as informing kids who are complaining about someone’s rather noticeable fart that state law requires at least one such emission per trip so the bus does not run out of gas.

SEE: School Bus Life’s a Gas

These vocal gateway drugs led to drawings and messages in the dust on the back door of my bus.

A self-portrait.

But I’ve learned the hard way that it helps to remember that humor, like beauty, is in the eye (and ear) of the beerholder. Not everyone finds me amusing and they’ve let me know by erasing my dust messages or scrawling, “Wash your bus!” over them.

Even worse, it’s usually after I’ve said something goofy that I immediately do something embarrassing — like missing a turn, having to go miles out of my way, and arriving late at a school. Or a discipline situation arises, my video is pulled, and I end up under a microscope. I’ve been told that some school officials will watch the video of an entire trip and not just the incident in question in order to make sure the driver is not somehow at fault. So I’ve sweated out a few reviews.

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

The problem with trying to be a comedian is you can be a very conscientious driver but joking makes you sound like your mind is elsewhere and you don’t take the job seriously. This is a job that demands concentration and must be taken seriously. Plus you clutter the radio with inane chatter when drivers and the dispatcher need everything on it to be important, clear, concise, and not a distraction.

I’ve been left red-faced by our dispatcher saying, “We don’t need to hear this!” while I merrily prattled during a busy time on the radio. After I declared that it was “Time for today’s exciting episode of Assigned Seat Roulette, so let’s meet today’s contestants!” I was curtly and coldly informed by our former head mechanic that everyone, including the big bosses, can hear me and there is a very real need to remain strictly professional.

Gulp.

Clearly, I need to engage my brain before I put my mouth in “drive.”

You’d think I would have learned my lesson after four years behind the wheel. But you would be wrong. I’ve been chastened, and I’m very careful about picking my spots and not becoming an annoyance. But when volunteering to help out with after-school runs even though I tend to not know the routes (with predictable results), I’ll still say whatever pops into my head, such as: “631 to base. My luxury vehicle is empty and available for misguided tours of Greater New England” or “Bus 631 is now available for salvage operations, birthdays, bar mitzvahs and other social events.”

SEE: Great Misadventure: A Salute to Relief Drivers

I really do have to be very careful about letting my inner child out. This is a job that requires a responsible adult and it will quickly remind me when I am not being one.

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.

School Bus Confidential: Cupid Runs Amok

School Bus Confidential: Cupid Runs Amok

John Rolfe

One of the most heartwarming parts of this often thankless job is receiving Valentines from our passengers. Now I’m not deluded enough to think these notes of tender appreciation were cooked up spontaneously from the heart. They were squeezed out in school under duress from scowling teachers.

But even so, it’s nice to get a Dear John note from a constantly contentious passenger who easily could have faked being sick when the cards were assigned.

It also stirs the ol’ sentiments and nostalgia to see young love blooming in my big yellow nuthouse.

(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.)

Sometimes I find what we used to call “mash notes” on the floor. The first time I noticed actual romance was when Penny, a pretty eighth grader, attracted the attention of Mumford, a clearly smitten classmate who started sitting with her during morning trips to their school. A short while later Ethel, a seventh grader, proudly regaled the bus with updates of her long-distance romance via text with Butch, a fellow rider who had moved out of state. Judging by the flood of messages he sent her each day, Butch wasn’t focused on academics in his new home.

My middle school fearsome foursome of sixth graders — Sassafrass, Zoothorn, Wisenheimer and Lulubelle — talked constantly of popularity, dating, rating the personal appearance of classmates they considered fodder for canoodling, and (unfortunately) lewd acts.

SEE: Curses! From the Mouths of Babes

Even intermediate schoolers on my bus have not been immune to the ways of amore. Ophelia and Esmerelda, two somewhat saucy fifth graders, were catnip to Ignatz and The Stooges, a trio of enterprising lads who swarmed around these ladies each day. I couldn’t help overhearing a lot of chatter about who was asking who to the dance, and I loved this pithy statement by Ignatz to his pal Satch: “Just because she talks to you doesn’t mean she doesn’t hate you!”

Indeed.

Before I started driving a school bus, I’d never heard seven-to-nine-year-olds discussing dating let alone committed relationships. Fourth-grader Beetlebomb declaring, “I don’t want to hang out with my ex!” was arresting enough, but that declaration was topped by this corker from his pal Brutus: “I’m dating a supermodel.”

My, how times have changed.

SEE: They Ain’t Makin’ School Bus Drivers Like They Used To

For a grizzled, beleaguered driver, it’s always nice to find out you are appreciated.

When I was in grade school, girls had cooties and they thought likewise of boys, though there was some tee-hee activity about who likes who that I still hear from modern kids. Just the other day a group of third graders on my bus were accusing each other of having crushes on classmates. Gasp!

It wasn’t until middle school, probably mid-seventh grade, that I began to feel and behave awkwardly as nature worked its wonders. More than a bit of a nerd who was picked on by the cool toughs and jocks in my school, I nevertheless had a hopeless crush on Susie Gelman, who belonged to a group of popular girls who would never look twice at a chump like me.

But the day Susie spontaneously said “Hi, John” to me as we passed in the hall was a thrilling confirmation of my existence. Nothing more came of it nor the clumsy peck I later planted on Barbara Finch’s cheek at a Junior High dance, more out of a sense of “that’s what you’re supposed to do” obligation than any raging passion I felt. And my school bus was never the scene of romantic escapades for me or my friends.

Fortunately, what goes on now is more brazen chatter than action, though I have heard some salty tales from other drivers who told of kids being caught in the act on buses. Maybe it’s only a matter of time on mine before I spot a buss on my bus or worse. The world kids grow up in now is hyper-sexualized and I can only imagine the pressures they must feel. When I was a teenager I succumbed to the belief that I was nothing unless I had a girlfriend and “got lucky.”

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

Marjorie and Muffin are two sixth graders who sit well within earshot and make it impossible to not ignore them while they loudly compare notes. By any measure, Marjorie is what you’d call Boy Crazy. If you took the word “boyfriend” out of the English language, she would be mighty quiet.

A typical stream of her conversational snippets that find their way into my ears each day: “Everyone thinks I have, like, 500 boyfriends. I only had one in September … I didn’t date in first grade … He’s cute … I have a crush on him … That’s the boy who is in love with me … He broke up with his girlfriend … I broke up with him … This is my random boyfriend. That’s a photo of his foot …”

And this genuinely alarming statement: “I don’t even know who I was dating. We didn’t even like each other!”

One wonders when Marjorie has time for her school work or to do things like sleep and eat, but she’s obviously planning for her future. “We should go to college together,” she told Muffin. “We’d be real hot and go to all the parties and get all the boys!”

Maybe not if her mom still has anything to do with it. “She found out about Bartley and Lochinvar and made me stop dating them,” Marjorie groused one day. “She says I’m too young to be dating.”

Ya think?

SEE: The Back of the Bus — Where the Action Is

A few rows further back is Sheila the Siren eighth-grader who attracts lovingly ham-handed treatment from Ichabod and his sidekick Poopowitz. Whenever Sheila is aboard, the two lads cram into her seat, grab her belongings, mess up her hair and basically display male behavior that has been seen since the days of the cavemen. I keep expecting Sheila to complain, and I’m ready to move the two mashers to the roof if need be, but she assured me there’s no problem and continues to bear their “affections” with bemused grace.

All things considered, in a setting that is usually full of bickering, barking and bitter recrimination (usually mine), it’s good to see some expressions of affection though the ones that raise red hearts are much more heartwarming than the ones that raise red flags.

Great Misadventure: A Salute to Relief Drivers

Great Misadventure: A Salute to Relief Drivers

John Rolfe

There’s a reason why bus drivers in my district are asked to do a dry run of new routes before school opens. Some of us (mainly, me) are unfamiliar with much of the area we service and we need to familiarize ourselves with its highways and byways lest we go horribly astray.

I live 40 minutes away from my district, and for my first three years I drove regular, unchanging runs. But because of the driver shortage, I’m now being pressed into service on short notice, handed a run sheet (or just some general directions I quickly forget) for a totally strange route, and told, “Good luck and Godspeed.”

Now, some drivers (we call them “floaters” or relief drivers) do this kind of thing every day. They know the turf down to the last blade of grass and can tackle a route, any route, without advance warning, no freaking sweat. I marvel at how they got to that point.

(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.)

Just before the 2021 holiday season, I was assigned an afterschool run out of Runnynose Elementary, hauling 30 or so kindergarten-through-third graders. I didn’t know the route, but I thankfully had a run sheet because kids that young are rarely of help in finding your way to their homes.

SEE: Unreliable Sources: Directions and School Bus Tall Tales

The bus was barely loaded when a little girl declared she had to use the bathroom.

Fortunately, a teacher was on hand, checking on a lad who was in tears because his beloved regular bus driver had been replaced by my grizzled, forbidding presence. After the young lass returned from the pissoir, we pulled out of the parking lot only to have another girl declare that she, too, had to use the facilities. Now.

I started to ask her how far away her stop was but realized that was a waste of time. She naturally insisted that her back teeth were floating. So I radioed to base that I was returning to the school … but not until after I mistook the two-way mic for the interior PA and assured every bus driver in the district that they could make a wee-wee if they wanted.

“No thanks, I don’t have to go,” one replied.

Apparently kids are required by law to load up at the water fountain before boarding a school bus. I used to get bawled out by the security guard at Our Lady of Dismay Elementary for bringing my precious cargo back to let it do its business, so returning to Runnynose was likely to be an act of raw courage.

SEE: School Bus Life’s a Gas

No sooner did we pull up to the school’s front door than half the bus declared that they, too, had to tinkle. The teacher was stunned by the lengthy procession, which took a good 15 minutes to complete its ablutions.

“Water is either going in or coming out of kids,” I told her with an ingratiating smile and chuckle, though she wasn’t amused.

Expected to leave at 3:30, we finally pulled away at 4. The ride was chaos from the get-go. Despite my constant orders to sit down, urchins kept coming up the aisle to ask questions and report on crimes in progress.

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

“Fescue is choking my brother,” one somber lad informed me, only to return moments later and say, “Fescue is hitting everyone with a seat belt.”

So I grabbed the PA and ordered Fescue to the Honored Student Seat in the front of the bus. He replied that he’d be there as soon as he established a Wi-Fi connection. “What’s the password?” he asked.

SEE: Crowd Control Measures I’d Like to See

The quickly setting sun left me squinting in the glare of oncoming headlights as I tried to read my run sheet and street signs. Sometimes there were none, or no numbers on houses. Kids kept screaming that I was going the wrong way or had passed their houses. I kept messing up turns. Other drivers kept radioing me with directions. The dispatcher kept inquiring about my ETA to various destinations.

“When do you think you’ll complete your run?” he finally asked.

All I could honestly say was, “I’ll have them all home for Christmas if only in their dreams.”

Two kids (one of them Fescue, of course) didn’t get off at their stop, forcing me to stop several turns later and try to figure out how to retrace my path in a dark, unfamiliar neighborhood. I was hopelessly confused, soaking in flop sweat, and sitting at an intersection when the dispatcher radioed to tell me parents were trying to find me.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“From what I can tell, I’m at the corner of Surrender and Quitting,” I replied.

SEE: Bus Driver’s Wish: A Fraction of Distraction

Fortunately, the parents in question drove up moments later though the mother was less than pleased with the course of events (and my bus) that evening.

I was then left alone with Fescue, who had taken the seat directly behind me. Our conversation went like this:

“I’m hungry,” he said several times.

“I’m hungry, too,” I finally replied.

“What if I don’t get home?”

“You’ll get home.”

“But what if I don’t?”

“You will.”

“But what if I don’t?”

“I’ve been driving a bus for almost four years and I’ve never failed to get a kid home.”

“Are we going to spend the night on the bus?”

“No.”

“But what if we do? Do you have a blanket?”

“We’re not going to spend the night on the bus.”

“Everyone else got home safely. How come?”

“Because you are the last stop. You’ll get home safely.”

“But what if I don’t?”

“You will.”

“What if we have an accident?”

“I’ve never had an accident and I’m not going to start now.”

“But what if we do and I don’t get home?

“You’re going to get home!”

“But what if I don’t?”

“Kid, I will get you home if it kills me!”

I finally did get him home, and I lived to tell, but not until after I’d made a wrong turn that took me all the way to the town of Fishmeal, about 15 miles from where I needed to go. Thankfully, Fescue’s parents were understanding even though their dear son was two hours late.

When I returned to base, I discovered that the back of my bus was a riot of crumbs, wrappers and other trash. I worried that I would be locked in the yard while I fueled and cleaned up and went to the wee-wee room in the drivers trailer. That would have been a most fitting end to the day.

SEE: How I Won the Garbage War

So I tip my hat to relief drivers who fly by the seat of their pants with skill and steely resolve without letting neither snow nor pee nor gloom of night prevent them from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. How they achieved that state of grace could not have been easy.

As my Sainted Mother used to tell me, “You only learn by bitter experience.”

I’m getting plenty of that these days.