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Easy does it
Teaching bus drivers rules of road, child psychology
Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by REID SILVERMAN
Bus driver trainee Cece Owens of Charlotte Hall looks to her side-view mirrors for assistance Tuesday during a training session with Rick Carroll, a St. Mary's public schools bus driver trainer, at the county fairgrounds.
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There is one lesson Rick Carroll, who trains school bus drivers, would like everyone on the road to learn: Slow down.
Carroll, a former Maryland Natural Resource Police officer turned trainer for St. Mary's public schools, conducts classes monthly for aspiring bus drivers. He said while bus accidents do happen, most can be avoided if other drivers exhibit patience around school buses.
"People will do everything under the sun to keep from getting caught behind one," Carroll said. "If they would consider as they pass [a bus] that their child or their grandchild is on the bus they might think twice."
An aspiring bus driver will need to go through about 17 hours of training with either Carroll or fellow trainer Diane Morgan before going for their learner's permit. The school system offers day and night classes, which alternate every other month, about 10 times a year.
"We are trying to make safe bus drivers," he said. Both local trainers are working on their certification to be Motor Vehicle Administration inspectors, which would allow them to test students at a course set up at the county fairgrounds south of Leonardtown.
"Diane and I are stricter on our students then they are at the MVA" and the students arrive well-trained for the tests, he said.
Along with the rules of the road and the mechanics of operating a bus, Carroll also imparts lessons he created about how to keep up to 80 children on a bus in check.
His five rules of interacting with riders include being consistent, firm, fair, calm and courteous.
"Respect the kid" in order to earn respect from them, he said.
He tells all of his trainees to learn every child's first name within one or two weeks and to learn something positive about each.
"Once you say the child's name and something positive about the child … you probably won't have a behavior problem the rest of the year," he said.
If a child does act up, first give a calm warning, he said. If it continues, the child is moved to the front seat, which he normally keeps vacant for that reason.
And on the occasion when the bad behavior keeps occurring a bus driver should send a referral to the school administrator, he said. "We've noticed a considerable change in the last couple of years" in how effectively referrals are dealt with by the schools, he said.
Carroll also tells bus drivers to reward children by allowing them to sit in the back seats of the bus as the emergency evacuation personnel or to be a line leader during an evacuation.
The monthly training classes vary in size from about a half dozen adult students to 17 or more. He starts the sessions with a rundown of the state requirements, including having no more than two points on a drivers license.
"Some of them will not make it all the way through," he said. There are usually one or two people who walk out of the class during the first break once they realize they aren't qualified, he said.
And then there is the $90 for a physical and $90 for a bus driver's learning permit, both of which have to be paid up to two or three months before the first paycheck arrives.
"For every 10 in class we get about seven on the road," Carroll said.
Once a person gets a learner's permit they go back to Carroll, who works with the driver one on one. Training begins at a course set up at the fairgrounds, where Carroll will go over the physical aspects of the bus, practice parallel parking and backing up and go out on the road for real road experience.
"I think he prepares his class for any situation that could come up," said Tina Shirley, who went through Carroll's training last year and has been driving for Lettie Marshal Dent Elementary and Margaret Brent Middle for almost a year now.
"It was amazing … There's a lot of things I didn't know that I learned" during the training, Shirley said.
Shirley has four children of her own ranging in age from 3 to 16. "It's helped me be a more patient and a better mom, really," she said.
Shirley said that she has called Carroll with questions that have come up since she has been driving a bus.
"I love my job," she said, adding that it is an important responsibility to care for others' children on the road. "It's a day care on wheels," she said.
Today, Oct. 21, is designated as School Bus Driver/Attendant Appreciation Day. This week is National School Bus Safety Week, which was recognized by the St. Mary's school board recently.
"If a child starts their day off with a good experience on the school bus, that continues into the school house," Superintendent Michael Martirano said. He praised the "love and care" that school bus drivers show children every day.
