School Bus Driver Essay: Responsibilities, Skills, and Benefits

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of the role of a school bus driver. It details the job responsibilities, which include safely transporting students, maintaining order, and performing vehicle safety checks. The essay highlights the required skills such as driving proficiency, knowledge of traffic rules, communication skills, and geographical awareness. It also discusses the work setting, including the school's location and the number of colleagues, and the use of a special ramp bus for students on wheelchairs. Furthermore, the essay mentions the benefits of the job, such as flexible schedules and the enjoyment of working with children. The essay also includes references to relevant books and online resources.

Essay

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Work setting.....................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................3

Work setting
My current situation is that I am a school bus driver at Sunbeam international school. To
have this position I have obtained a commercial driver's license as well as school bus support. I
have also completed my formal training program, to have this job. My current job consist of 20
hours or more a week. In order to operate full size school bus, from the Department of Public
Utilities I have obtained a School Bus Driver Certificate. I earn at an average of $15.21 per hour.
Revenue earned by me in this field is not enough to fulfil my needs. The most of my time I spend
is in collecting and dropping students from their homes to schools. There are almost 6 more bus
drivers who work along with me and the location of a school is not that good as it is in town. My
responsibility is to safely transport students from home to school and then again from school to
home (Caceres, Batta and He, 2017).
Skills required for this job are; perfect driving skills, & knowledge of traffic rules, proper
skills of communication, and most important good geographical knowledge. I run a special ramp
bus, which loads and unloads students on wheelchairs. Other activities I perform are:
 Sustaining order & proper strictness of students according to district policy.
 Deport safety & operational check of assigned vehicle daily.
 Performs annual safety instructions as required by law.
 Maintain vehicle's cleanliness in order to ensure safe working conditions.
 Address various meetings which teaches me safety rules, first aid, and updates on
training.
 Go to attend training programs to gain present knowledge of California Motor Code &
the Education Code as it applies to the performance of vehicles in the transportation of
school children.
 Performs related duties as needed (O'Neal, Ramirez and Peek‐Asa, 2014).
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Every day, I have to maintain a report about the number of students on my bus, whether someone
is missing or not etc. (Ismail and Halim, 2016). Moreover, I make notes when the fuel is going
to finish or when to give my bus for its service. These daily logs, support me to make sure the
accuracy in routes. As we all know multi tasking is a common requirement for school bus
drivers. I am not only have to drive safely but have other responsibilities also towards students.
My bus have large mirrors over from window that provides me the ability to see the whole bus.
Other duties that need to be considered are supervising behaviour of the students & and stopping
if any conflict arises. My duty is to maintain a report of those students whose behaviour is
harmful for others. However, there are certain benefits of being a bus driver :-
 I enjoy working with kids, as I love kids. I have an ability of making children feel
comfortable (10 Reasons To Become A School Bus Driver, 2016).
 This job provides a flexible schedule, hence, it is perfect job to earn more money.
 It has been determined that school system show appreciation towards bus drivers by
offering them bonuses.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Caceres, H., Batta, R. and He, Q., 2017. School bus routing with stochastic demand and duration
constraints. Transportation science. 51(4). pp.1349-1364.
Ismail, R. and Halim, F.W., 2016. The Influence of Personality, Driver Stress and Driver
Behavior as Mediator on Road Accident Among Bus Driver in Riau Province Indonesia.
O'Neal, E., Ramirez, M. and Peek‐Asa, C., 2014. School bus crash rates on routine and
nonroutine routes. Journal of school health. 84(9). pp.575-580.
Online
10 Reasons To Become A School Bus Driver. 2016. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://advanced.edu/10-reasons-school-bus-driver/>.
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