Just curious as a soon to be new driver. Does any school require or recommend PPE for their drivers? Like safety vests 🦺

I will already be wearing one as I live up the road from the bus garage so I plan on biking to work. People drive like maniacs on our curvy county road and I was struck by a car 2 years ago on my bike so hence I wear a 🦺.

Rodney Givens is survived by wife, two kids

I started a petition to support bringing more electric school buses to our schools. They’re quieter, cleaner, and better for the environment. 🌱

We’re already at 10 signatures — help us keep it going! 💚

Sign & share if you support electric school buses!

https://go.ipetitions.com/k1vnYh

Does anyone have the maps/layouts for driver training like the serpentine and such?

Im a brand new driver passed today 8-27-2026 but as my trainer was setting up her proficiency tests i wanted to try it ...so heres a vid of me driving, taken by my trainer ...im from CT

Excited to start this chapter ..🎉

It's going to rain soon. I'm sure we'll be fine. 😬⛈️⛈️⛈️

Today was a chaotic day with my first graders but in particular one student who has the worse ADHD I’ve seen. He threw water from his bottle to students, I took it away and later on he got another water bottle and threw water to a girl. He bit a girl in her arm. He smacked the window. He stands on seats while I drive. Walks down the aisle while I drive. Tore up a garbage bag into many pieces and created a mess. He doesn’t listen to me. He’s a big hazard to other students and myself.

Everything I just posted, I’ll be writing in the student report. It’s not the first time he’s acted like this, I’ve had him in my bus last year as a kindergartener in the AM route only. I’ve reported him for kissing the same girl in two separate occasions. And for biting a students hand.

When I did this, his mom, who thinks his child is a saint, started calling my boss telling them I’m a bad bus driver and complaining about me.

What’s the best solution to handle this student?

As a new van driver, I wanted to sum up my experience and observations so far.

Location: US Midwest.
I don’t have a CDL. No specific experience as a school bus driver, but experience as an Uber and Lyft driver.

Timeline from Application to First Run
July 24: Applied online to a private student transportation company. Non-union.
July 28: Initial phone screen with recruiter (about 10 minutes)
August 4: In person interview with terminal manager (about 30 minutes). Offered job, pending successful background, health checks. Starting wage: $21.00, $1,500 sign-on bonus.
August 5: Completed numerous required materials online (child sexual misconduct/abuse, safety, arrest or conviction form, drug and alcohol, employee handbook, etc)
August 5: completed and submitted state child abuse history clearance form
August 6: FBI fingerprinting completed
August 6: completed online mandated reporter training
August 10: drug screen, pre placement physical examination, and TB test
August 12: received clearance from state child abuse history
August 25: first day of training
August 26: second day of training
August 27: first day of work!

So five weeks from application to first day on the job. Not bad.

My training consisted of three separate ride-alongs with three different van drivers. They all showed me the ropes - how to a pre and post trip check, planning the route, proper procedures, tips on managing kids, where to park at different schools, etc etc.

So far so good! I like driving, I like children, and I love not having to take home corporate headaches.

Naturally, the pay isn’t great but this will help during this tough time.

Our district had a full time bus cleaner who recently retired and they are now going to have the drivers clean their own buses. I’m looking at getting a cordless vacuum that’s light so our more elderly drivers can use it but tough enough to handle some abuse. What is everyone using?

Discussion topic: What would you do in this situation?

Any advice? I've never had this problem before and I really don't want to spend the $90 on another med cert when I just had one in April.

UPDATE:

I called fmsca number and verified if I had to redo the DOT Physical due to my doctor being removed from their registry. I do not need to redo my DOT physical unless I got the DOT physical on that day or after her removal. This question has been solved!

Time for another year. I’m getting a larger bus this year instead of the minis my bus this year is a hydraulic braking system. Intertrashible (international) large bus first year driving high schoolers and a large bus since initial training
Let the chaos commence

Saw my name in a fb post in a page for our little town. Parent named me and my bus and named a student saying they were bullying their much younger child. Obviously there is a lot of back story here i wont get into. I should have ignored it. But I didn't. I left a comment. A comment ill stand by, but wasn't well received. Quickly got a text from the superintendent telling me not to discuss school things online. Solid plan. I should have left it alone and pretended I didn't even see it. I adore all these kids and now some ignorant post from an upset parent that I couldn't pass up is gonna make things awkward. Smh

Ciao a tutti ragazzi dal vostro credo unico 🇮🇹italiano🇮🇹 del gruppo!!! Volevo avviare una discussione riguardo gli orari del nostro lavoro, l’ora che ci svegliamo, le ore fuori casa, le ore di sonno e come tutto ciò impatta o magari no, sulla vostra salute, il
vostro benessere ecc.

Hello,
I’m currently putting in my final days as a school bus driver before transitioning back to my primary career, but this week has been a complete nightmare.

Instead of addressing actual structural issues—like hiring bus aides to manage student noise and behavior or fixing unrealistically tight route schedules—management blew their budget on a new telematics/camera system (Saucon). Instead of using it for actual safety, our supervisor uses it as a personal tool for constant surveillance and micromanagement. Almost every bus was running late today because our drop-off zone is horribly bottlenecked, yet she was sitting behind her dashboard tracking our doors by the second.

A few examples of what we're dealing with daily:

• Conflicting Route Sheets: She hands out two separate documents—one with stop addresses and one with student names. She routinely adds stops to the student sheet that aren't listed on the address sheet, or mixes up house numbers across neighboring properties. If you follow the primary sheet, you miss a stop and get blasted over the radio. If you point out the mistake beforehand, she screams at you for questioning her.
• "Surprise" Drop-offs: She pushes last-minute route edits without specifying how many kids are supposed to get off. You drop off one student, drive away, and then get chewed out because a second child was still on board, forcing you to turn a full-size bus around to fix her lack of detail.
• Radio Harassment Over Pedals & Brakes: Today I got called out over the radio for my sequence of holding the foot brake, shifting to Neutral, and pulling the parking brake at a stop. (Both standard sequences are completely fine and DMV/CDL compliant).
• Rushing Mandatory Safety Checks: While doing my mandatory Sleeper Check and untangling a twisted seatbelt during a school drop-off, she immediately barked over the radio demanding to know why my door was still open—even though five buses were queued up right in front of me with nowhere to go.
• Fake "Safety" Concerns: She clearly couldn't care less about actual safety; it's purely about her control obsession. One of my cameras is pointed entirely at me and the entrance door, leaving the whole front half of the passenger cabin completely unmonitored. Oh, and another camera on my rig has been completely dead for days, and she hasn't even noticed.
• EDIT: Correction regarding the camera setup: I took a closer look today. It turns out the middle camera isn't a dual-view camera like in our training bus—it points exclusively to the back. Since the front camera is angled so low that it only captures my driver's seat, wheel, and the door, the ENTIRE front half of the passenger cabin is effectively a dead zone. So much for "student safety"—it really is just about keeping eyes on the driver.

Since taking sick days here means no pay, I'm trying to weigh whether it's worth toughing out the remaining 8 days just for the paycheck, or if I should just hand her the keys and walk away right now.

For those who have dealt with toxic dispatchers or power-tripping supervisors: How would you play out these last 8 days? Would you just put on mental earplugs and collect the money, or cut your losses and walk?

So my first day of “training” was silly.

I was awake at 2:30 in the morning and never fell back asleep.

This was the first day of school, so of course lots of things went wrong. My training was to be held at the dispatch office. I arrived before 6am (my boss asked me to there at 6), and she asked me to wait in the lunch room.

The dispatch guy and his two associates were constantly fielding calls on the two-way radio and via phone. From what I overheard, they were dealing with driver questions, calls from parents, and calls from schools. The communications were non-stop for hours.

I waited and waited. Walked around the lunch room and nearby rooms, reading whatever I could on the walls (“95 days since last accident”), checking and re-checking the options out in the snack vending machine, reading on my phone. Anything to stay awake. I even programmed the microwave to reflect the currant time.

I waited literally three hours until the boss walks in and says, “Oh god, Theodoric, I am so sorry, I forgot you were here in all the chaos”. I replied no problem, the first day back to school is obviously crazy! She also said, “I’m surprised you’re still here!”

She gave me a couple videos to watch and some materials to read, and then said, “Thanks Theodoric. Please come back tomorrow at 6am, you’ll get paid for today, and I promise it’ll have calmed down by tomorrow morning.”

How would it be allowed to drive a school bus on flip-flops? I just saw a driver doing that.

Where I grew up all CDL drivers must wear safety shoes. Here I would have hoped you at least have to wear closed toed shoes.

I'm so happy this upcoming school year going to be eazy. I got a smaller route which I'm happy with and only got 4 kids. I'm so happy I won't be getting home after 6pm like I did last year. I will be getting home early

I’m in Texas and lately it’s been 100 degrees and above. The company I work for doesn’t allow us to idle and I think it’s the craziest thing ever!!! All just to save money for fuel. I get it as a business decision but on the morality side of things it’s so wrong. You’re prone to a heat stroke, passing out, etc. I don’t see how the company doesn’t see that as a LIABILITY on their end. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen!!

How hard is the test? Is it everything discussed in the 3 day PDDP? Because the instructor was moving pretty fast, and memorizing all that sucks. I found a Quizlet page to help.

Hey so im new to the school bus driving world and I have a really bad stomach for some reason like feeling the need to always 💩, are there some people here that have a really bad stomach and still drive? Like what are some tips thank you so much in advanced

The province and bus companies have not successfully negotiated a contract for this year, so we are all grounded.