School is out in 11 more days and boy are the kids getting nutty!  Along with my town ripping up the roads and digging ditches for new sewers (makes my job all the more exciting!) not much else new.  My new junior high route is going fine.  They all stay seated which is a big help.  The old driver had assigned seats which I am not a big fan of.  I told them that I was now their driver and I my goal was to get them home in a safe manner, if they can behave and stay seated we'd all get along great.  So far so good.

After having a few issues with my methods of discipline I will take a look at how my year went and do some things different next school year.  For instance I will NOT give a ton of warnings to kids.  I will let the schools handle this, some kids do not respond to being nice, especially junior high with their raging hormones.  Grade school kids I WILL assign seats, many of these kids use the bus as a gym, they argue with me and assigning seats will help with crowd control!

 

 

Last week was a very rough week for me.  I had some incidents on one of my routes.  It was best thought that I give this one run up and trade with another driver.  I ran the route yesterday and so far so good.  There's only 20 days of school left.  Hopefully things will calm down so we can all get through it in a safe manner!!!

24 more days!

The break room at my base (my work) has a black board (it's green) and on it says 24 more days of school.  The kids sure are acting like it's the last month of school.  I did rearrange my grade school route, and assigned some of the kids seats.  The good kids in the back can sit wherever, the 4th & 5th grade girls the middle of the bus so the "little" kids won't bug them, and the seat jumping kids in the front.  Every single day I get an argument from a 5th grader who is too big for his boots (his parents are going through a divorce), and a 3rd grade who loves to copy the other kids.  It's actually worked as fair as bus management goes.  That and giving them a written referral, let them argue with the assistant principal. 

Everybody has been coming into work too, which means we have extra drivers.  So I have had ride along standby drivers and monitors go with me.  I'd say half of them think that it is their job to tell me how to do mine.  Or they sit and scream at the kids to sit down.  The ones who are good usually just sit and talk to my kids and keep them busy.  Thank God somebody knows how to deal with kids.  Makes mine easier.

This will be the last month with the OLD bus 30.  She's a good old girl who's time has come to retire.  The bus has a side door, which they don't make anymore because kids were opening it and falling out.  Thank God that's never happened to me!!  Hopefully, next school year I'll get the NEW bus 30!!

 

 

 

evacuations

I have been super busy at work with bus evacs.   We have over 20 schools to do which adds up to a lot of kids.  I enjoy it though.  The kids really pay attention, which is great because they really need to be safe and prepared.  The rear door of the bus is really high off the ground so I have to lift the little ones down.  The bigger ones usually can get down by themselves unless they are showing off and try to hop down, then I make them go back inside the bus & redo it.  Basically I tell the high school kids to not dive out or they will smack their heads.  First I have to explain to them that a bus has no Park only a parking brake, and that the new buses have electric doors.  If the driver passes out they need to know how to stop the bus.  AND I tell them to not be dumb and try and smoke on the bus.  These are things they don't think of when they are riding to school.

 

I can tell it's near the end of the year.  The kids are going nuts.  AND some of my co-workers think they are the law and must police the rest of us. 

 

Oh well!

Good Friday

I am off for Good Friday.  This week we started Bus evacuation drills with the school.  I always particapate.  It's a great way to meet the teachers and the kids from the area schools.  This year was the first time I did a High school gym class.  Basically they know the drill, but I did explain how to open some of the doors on the newer buses.  I also reminded them to NOT smoke on the bus.  Most of them did not know how fast a bus can burn.  Plus they tend to try and dive out the back door. 

Spring is here, so is spring sports.  I am bidding on Saturday trips now and I have a soccer game next Saturday.  Extra money is always a GREAT thing.

Otherwise just big time spring fever for the little ones!

 

Have a great Easter Holiday!

Whooo hoo, I am off tomorrow!  Doing the happy dance!  Going out of town tomorrow first thing!

This week was actually a good week.  The junior high kids were their normal loud selves.  My girl who constantly is bad has been scared straight so to speak.  She tries to act like she doesn't understand why I wrote her up so much, but when I tell her my reasons why each time that I did it, she goes...."OOOOOOOOOOOh!".

I did write up two other girls for standing up every single day.  The one I know does it because she thinks I am afraid of her mom, sorry, NOT!  She should be the one who is afraid she has 3 daughters!!! 

My routes are all still under major construction so I have to reroute all over the place.  My sub rode with me yesterday and I told him all my short cut secrets, hopefully they won't be too rough on him.  Although I did have to stop today to break up a girl spat.  And I say spat because girls can be so mean to each other and this is only 4th and 5th graders.  ISH!  I even had a mom sitting on the side of the road waiting for her son, who also can be bad.  I made them wait while I told them all to quit being so mean, and play nice.  That'll last about a day!

A bus behind me today heading out of the Junior High had a goofy kid hit his bus with a rock.  He thought that he broke the window, but it didn't.  The kids on the bus gladly gave this kid up too.  Don't kids know that their classmates will turn on the in a heartbeat??!!???  They can be so naive'!!

I am off to enjoy my mini-vacation!

Thanks for commenting you all!

back to school tomorrow

Back to school tomorrow.  It will be a short week for me as I took Friday off.  Mark and I are going out of town to celebrate our anniversary.

~gotta go enjoy the last few hours of break!