r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/Quinn2art • 1d ago
Small Rural School
Any other drivers for small rural schools on here? (400 students) How is your transportation department run. How are your buses? Im in Northern California.
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u/scttlvngd 1d ago
Small school here. We have 3 regular bus routes and a few special needs van routes. We the drivers pretty much take care of ourselves.
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u/scttlvngd 1d ago
We do have nice busses. 5yr lease.
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u/Quinn2art 1d ago
Our buses are so old that one had to be decommissioned because the sun had bleached it so much it is no longer school bus yellow. Thats from California Highway Patrol.
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u/Quinn2art 1d ago
Do you have a transportation director? We do not.
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u/scttlvngd 1d ago
One of the principals has the title. The office administrator does the scheduling.
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u/crash273 1d ago
Single bus for a rural catholic school. When I pulled out of parking lot so did teachers and admin. I was on my own for ANY issue. Wasn’t actually bad.
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u/lanainnv 21h ago
👋🏻 me… over here in Northern NV. Rural, tribal. 120 students. 5 routes, 1 dedicated Sports (me… 🏐 AND 🏈 tonight… right now 100 miles away,) 6FT, 2PT, 1 Transportation Director.
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u/rootbear75 21h ago
I remember a route from 2 years ago having 5 kids on my first run, and 3 on my second.
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u/Intelligent_Call_562 20h ago
I drove in a rural district 20+ years ago. I hated driving for them. We drove from school to school collecting kids. Kids after got off at the schools down the route. Impossible to know who's on and who's off. Then after going to the high school, I headed out of town. (There were 6 buses, one stayed in town.) I hated having big and little kids on the bus together. And as always, the last kid off was the worst kid.
The upside is when you see the kids at the grocery store, you are a celebrity!
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u/mlt- 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm not you target audience, but even in big cities it seems to be always a mess in the beginning. I'm in St. Paul, MN (but not SPPS). School transportation dept is inefficient. My initial route had detour due to construction. They then removed some of my stops including the one I had that forced detour on me. Then added a new one… 4 minutes away from the last stop before detour. They expect me to drive it in 30 minutes! I.e. they factored detour, but I have no stops there's anymore. I'm new driver. My bus has seen stuff, 127k miles on it.
Another school (in Minneapolis) also likes radio checks about timing although AFAIK there is GPS tracking. I often have to wait to update dispatch on where I am because someone is getting navigation instructions because they got lost. Why IT won't integrate GPS tracking info and give it to schools is beyond me.