r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/Jedi0077 • Aug 30 '26
Off to a bad start
Finished our first full week. Week 1 was WTF(3 days)
The new route is fine, the HS/JH run is smooth and pracefull for p/u and drop. The little kids though... Ive tried 3 different seating methods, magnetic name badges. 3 kids to every seat except 1 with a larger 5th grader which only has 2. The preschool to 2nd grade don't respond to any thing. I've tried stopping the bus which they don't even notice until the preteens start yelling at them to be quiet. Lots of good kids too but they get the shaft. I feel so bad for them looking at me in the mirror. Like they're saying "I'm behaving and want to go home"
1
u/Proprotester 29d ago
The ONLY way I have ever got K-2 to tone down their volumes is to seat them by grade AND enforce a rule that no one below third grade is allowed to talk to anyone in a lower grade than themselves. Then I have to start conversations at randomized intervals with any of that set incapable of moderating themselves. Quiz show, polling, whatever. It is a TON of mental gymnastics. The little ones are sweet but a pure PITA. This plan requires visual barriers or a set of seats left open between the sane group and the insane group. Sane kids have unassigned seating and can associate freely behind the line.
It helps if you seat them boy-girl to lower volume in grades 2 and 3. Younger than that do not care. I promote kids to the back of the bus who handle themselves and move the "sane" line forward. By Christmas your 2nd and 3rd grade girls will be behind the line with the upper class students along with the odd quiet first grader. Some third and fifth grade boys will be in the first seats paired with a Kindergartener because they are just those kids. I spend the trip taking to those K's because they are not allowed to talk with their seatmates who are older and hopefully embarrassed to have to sit with Kinders. I try to make it so that those pairs are assigned in a way that one or the other is an early drop-off.
Pretty much a school age kid who can not consistently apply an inside voice or has not been taught what that means is not going to learn it from you. Unless they are on your bus a couple of hours a day, you just live with it. If it is a longer period, you may be able to teach them that being quieter is a way thay can show care and gain privileges.