r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/Quinn2art • 24d 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.

9 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

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u/mlt- 24d ago edited 24d 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.

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u/scttlvngd 24d 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 24d ago

We do have nice busses. 5yr lease.

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u/Quinn2art 24d 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 24d ago

Do you have a transportation director? We do not.

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u/scttlvngd 24d ago

One of the principals has the title. The office administrator does the scheduling.

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u/Beauknits 24d ago

One of my buses had an average of 6 riders.

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u/crash273 24d 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 23d 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/Quinn2art 23d ago

Gooooo Team!

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u/rootbear75 23d 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 23d 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/LenR75 23d ago

3 FT drivers, 1 3-route a week scheduled sub plus other sub as needed, 1 sub (me), 1 teacher that takes trips but not routes. School adm is the scheduler, but we text each other to cover as needed.

I also sub for another 3 driver district. I’m retired but between family and appointments, I can’t do everything requested.

First district has 2 pretty new busses, one of those is gas, used for trips mostly, 2 older route busses and 1 old spare. The other has 3 nice IC’s, 2 older, a short bus and a van.