It doesn’t look like it, but PA school bus drivers play a crucial role in the students’ lives. While it is no doubt that safe transportation for the children to and from is essential, we tend to take school buses and their drivers for granted.
It’s easy for us to forget how something as simple as a school bus can impact more than the lives of the students but also parents, teachers, and other community members.
School bus drivers must transport and protect children to and from school. And to be qualified as a school bus driver, they must be highly trained and tested on the road. School bus drivers ensure that students are picked up from their homes and transported safely to arrive at school on time and then safely return home every school day.
These school bus drivers serve as bookends to your student’s school schedules. They also represent how the school district wants its wards to start and end their days during the school year. A school bus driver plays a significant determining factor in how these rides go. So, they also play an essential role in a school district’s academic success.
School bus drivers should be regarded as equal to the teachers, principals, school administrators, and parents in shaping a child’s performance and success in school.
Here are the following statistics to back up the importance of bus drivers to every school district:
- The National Student Transportation Association (NSTA) reports that every day, 480,000 yellow school buses transport students to and from school. Considering these numbers, school bus drivers are a large group that interacts with students every day and collectively impacts the students’ morale and willingness to go to school.
- The National Highway Traffic Association (NHTSA) reports that 94% of light vehicle crashes are caused by human error. The term “light vehicle” does not include the school bus but smaller vehicles like cars. School buses may be giants on the road, but they are the least likely to cause accidents. It’s because bus drivers are licensed and highly trained. It’s important to note that the licensing process for school bus drivers is very different from that for regular drivers. School bus drivers are tasked not only to transport the children to and from school but also to protect them simultaneously, which is a crucial role they should take seriously. In addition, all school buses must comply with state and local standards for construction and necessary regular maintenance. Without these factors, school buses wouldn’t have earned the “safest vehicle on the road” distinction from the NHTSA.
- The NHTSA reports that students are 70 times more likely to come to school safely if they ride the school bus instead of a car.
More than these numbers, school bus drivers can also positively influence the behavior of their young students. Schoolchildren can learn a lot from their bus rides:
- Children are like sponges – they absorb everything they encounter. They can learn any given behavior through observing other people and imitating them. School bus drivers who are kind, upbeat, and sympathetic will be a point of reference for a student to imitate similar positive behavior.
- School bus drivers will create a safe, calm, orderly, and welcoming culture among students when riding the bus, which can put their wards at ease.
- School bus drivers will promote a clear understanding of safety rules to the students by enforcing clear safety policies. They will not also hesitate to take disciplinary action.
The role of a school bus driver is essential. Not only are they making sure that the students arrive to and from school safely, but they’re also positively influencing them. All of these factors set students up for academic success. This article explains how PA school bus drivers often serve as community leaders.
Check out https://schoolbushero.com/jobs for school bus driver openings in Pennsylvania.