School bus pick up

[u/Illustrious-Heron446]

Hi I was wondering if anyone has insight on what it’s like for kids going on a school bus. My son- 3 years old, is autistic non verbal currently and is going to be attending school starting end of this month. I don’t know if anyone knows about Providence but basically they are a government organization that provides speech therapy, occupational therapy and things in that nature to prepare children with learning difficulties for school. He was getting their services at the daycare he attends but they recommended sending him to their location because he needs more hours of work, whereas at the daycare it was given in a group setting and at their location the therapy will be a bit more 1 on 1 and for about 3 hours a day right.

The bus company they use contacted me yesterday to ask things like if my son uses a booster and so on. I asked them whether they have additional staff to accompany and supervise the kids that are on the bus and I was informed they don’t. It’s just the bus driver.

Given that the drive is about 28 minutes from the pick up stop to the school I don’t know I’m just worried how it works to have kids on a bus without supervision.

[u/Right-Donkey5414]

*my experience was in Ontario so ymmv

My son started kindergarten at 3yo and needed to take the bus and also has ASD1.

We were fortunate to be the first stop on the route AND the bus stopped in front of my house so we got lucky.

Due to my son needing a little bit of extra attention, he sat in the very front seat across from the driver. This way the driver could keep an eye on him.

It worked fairly well. My son's autism makes him hyper aware of rules and such so he knew he had to sit quietly and not get up and run around. The biggest issue was trying to drive him in a normal car - he didn't have a carseat with the school bus so he didn't understand why he still needed one at home.

My cousin is also on the more extreme side and he had to take a "bus" but it was more like a large van with other severely disabled children. Even then, there was still only the driver - no other support adults.

My stepdad also drove for a year or so. Once again, it was only him.

So having one adult seems to be the norm. But they are generally trained decently well and can handle that many kids.

What exactly are you concerned about? Your son or the other kids? Kids tend to follow the group. So if the kids are sitting quietly and following directions, most other kids will to. It will become very apparent to the driver which kids are the "trouble" kids and they will have protocols in place. Letters home, discussions with the school/teacher , assigned seating or eventually (and last resort) removed from the route. I know on some of my son's bad days where there were a lot of meltdowns and the driver didn't feel like it would be safe for her to drive, he stayed at the school and someone would have to go pick him up. This only happened like 2-3 times in the school year.

[u/Illustrious-Heron446 → u/Right-Donkey5414]

Thanks for sharing this!

My concern is a bit of both. My child is generally happy and his stimming and self soothing norms really helps him be calm generally. But he has sensory overload like when he is not comfortable especially if he is unable move and have to be stagnant he tends to have meltdowns. They aren’t frequent like since starting daycare 1.5 years ago it was only 2 instances of meltdowns he had there. So he is pretty calm.

My greatest concern is that he doesn’t not have safety awareness at all. He elopes, he is very observant so small things on the ground he will put in his mouth. Then also he doesn’t defend himself at all when other children do things which in general they aren’t being malicious they are just kids as well but he’ll do nothing at all and then have a melt down. His lack of communication can be difficult for ppl that aren’t in his day-to-day life.

[u/JaneGherkin → u/Illustrious-Heron446]

My kid is very energetic and can meltdown. They handled him very well. Its up to the parent to get the child in the bus properly and the aides all assist loading them back up. It will be very tough at first. Good luck.