a few drivers who’d been doing it for their adult lives, 20-plus years, but that was rare. Tere seemed to be that turnover issue, which is what allowed me to enter the profes- sion. Te company was desperate enough to just drop flyers in mailboxes asking for drivers. As I said, it’s an ongoing issue in my son’s school district this year. Just not enough drivers. Not sure how to remedy that.
STN: How was working with parents, especially since they’re parents of children with special needs? Te transportation department? School administration? CD: Tat was all great. Tere were stan-
dard protocols that worked really well. My involvement with the parents was in excess of most drivers, as I ended up interviewing a lot of them for the book. Tere was a
sensitivity you ought to possess as a driver, a sense of each child’s needs as detailed by their parents—which is a different kind of intima- cy than my folks likely had with my own bus drivers. My dealings with my own company were generally pleasant; I took a lot of substi- tute routes to make some extra money, and the administration of those routes was very fluid and thoughtful. I had token interac- tion with the school; the chain of custody generally ended at the school yard, where the special needs instructors would take over, and then I would take possession of the kids for the drive home. But everything was pleasant, and there were no blind spots or issues of confusion—if there had been, I’m sure those would have been handled smartly.
STN: Do you have any advice for people considering stepping behind the wheel? What should they expect, either positive or negative? What surprises should they be prepared to encounter? CD: I think, as I said before, don’t really come in with preconceptions. Be fluid and flex- ible. Some things you can’t do anything about. Gridlock, weather, that kind of thing. With a transportation job, these can become bigger frustrations. Try not to let them be. I think one thing a prospective driver should be prepared to encounter is just how much fun the job can be. I was not at all prepared for that, it took me by surprise in the best possible way.
STN: What is your final takeaway from
your time as a driver? CD: Well, it was clearly an impactful expe- rience. I wrote a book about it. Never have I had a whole-cloth experience where I felt that the only way to talk about it, to work through my feelings about it, was to write a whole book. And to some, that might seem strange. I drove a bus. Tat was it. Yeah. Tat was it. And it was more than enough. ●
Read Craig Davidson’s Web Exclusive on his TSD Conference keynote this month at
stnonline.com/go/9c.
52 School Transportation News • MARCH 2017
CELEBRATING25YEARS
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