![]() Atlanta Public Schools use bus monitors only on special education routes. Compensation isn’t everything,” said John Franklin, senior executive director of transportation for Atlanta Public Schools, noting that exit surveys of the city’s school bus drivers “often point towards student behavior and a perceived lack of help” from school administrators as their main reason for leaving. Shearouse said they put staff on “the problem buses - those with either the most students or those with the most discipline issues.” Henry County can’t afford to hire bus monitors, he said, but the school district is paying teachers, paraprofessionals and other school staff to ride elementary and middle school buses and serve as monitors, covering about 30% of their daily routes. But the district is still short 60 of the 300 bus drivers it needs for daily bus routes, which means that many drivers are doing double routes, some buses are crowded, and many students arrive at school late, Shearouse said. Henry County raised the pay of all its bus drivers by $2 an hour this year, to a starting wage of $19.79. ![]() "Driver retention is all based on student behavior," said Cliff Shearouse, executive director of transportation for Henry County Schools, which is using teachers and other school staff to fill in as bus monitors on routes with the most students and discipline issues. “Most of the time drivers leave it’s because of student discipline issues, so if we can get a monitor on the bus, the partnership that the driver then has with that monitor is huge … and it helps us retain those drivers,” he said. “Driver retention is all based on student behavior,” said Cliff Shearouse, executive director of transportation for Henry County Schools. “So whenever we have an extra monitor, it’s just a great asset for that driver and those students.” Why It Mattersīus drivers say managing bad student behavior is one of the hardest parts of the job, and it’s why many of them quit. That’s a lot for a driver whose primary focus should be operating that vehicle,” Ellis said. You know, we don’t put 60 kids in one classroom, but we will on a bus. “If you have students who are being disruptive … they’ve been in a very controlled atmosphere in a classroom for most of the day, the bell rings, and they mass exodus from the school they’re wound up, and you put 60 of those kids and you’ve got one adult on the bus. Marietta City Schools Transportation Director Kim Ellis said her district started using bus monitors last year on regular education routes and now has five monitors who float among the routes where drivers most need support. Such help could have come in handy earlier this year, when a substitute driver for Paulding was slapped by a parent, and other parents pulled students from the back of the bus at a busy intersection amid a tense altercation between the driver and a group of parents, captured on a video that went viral. “It kind of helps them with multitasking, to where they’re not keeping their eyes in the mirror the whole time and are more able to focus on the safety of the driving, while the other adult on the bus is able to focus more on the students.” “The drivers are really liking the additional help,” said Sissy Summerville, another assistant transportation director for Paulding. The monitors are helping to reduce fighting among students, as well as “to make sure they’re staying in their seats and not being thrown around the bus,” she said. These monitors are deployed on bus routes that have the most students and those which tend to have students with behavioral issues, Dyches said. Traci Dyches and Sissy Summerville are assistant transportation directors at Paulding County Schools, which is now using bus monitors on many of its elementary and middle school routes. About half of Paulding County Schools’ 104 bus monitors are now assigned to “regular ed” bus routes, Assistant Transportation Director Traci Dyches said.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |