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By ANGELA WEAVER
Staff Writer
ST. MARYS — Seven of the new staff members, who will be gracing the halls of various buildings in the district, gathered for lunch Friday morning. |
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Driving the future |
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Friday, 06 April 2007 |
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 By KAY LOUTH
Staff Writer
ST. MARYS — Dan Grothause, St. Marys School transportation supervisor, started driving buses for St. Marys schools nine years ago, Denny Dedrick, seven years ago and Mike Lieurance, six years ago. All three men agree it’s a big job. After all, they’re carrying the future.
Grothause says he was, "pretty much raised around school buses." Both of his parents drove a school bus for Fort Jennings and his dad worked on the buses. Grothause also worked on the buses when he was in high school. It was only natural for him to start driving the big yellow rigs. In 1998, he started subbing for St. Marys schools.
In spite of the stresses — and there are stresses — and in spite of the responsibility, Grothause relished the daily routine of being with the kids.
“I enjoyed being with the kids. I miss it,” he says. “It was actually my most relaxing time of day.”
Dedrick said he quickly found out that he can’t let his mind wander even for a second. “If you don’t keep your mind on what you’re doing, things happen, some good, not many,” he adds in an aside, “some bad. Inevitably somebody’s going to say, ‘Hey, you missed my stop!”
“It’s a whole lot more stressful than I ever thought before I started driving.” But he’s glad he’s not driving a bus in Dayton. Dedrick retired from a Dayton fire department and driving a bus in an urban environment is a lot different than bus driving in a small, rural community. Here, all the men agree. The kids are generally well behaved and polite, something that’s sometimes lacking in big cities. Dedrick remarked they hear horror stories from bus drivers in urban areas.
After his retirement, Dedrick moved to St. Marys and didn’t want to return to a traditional 40-hour workweek, so he took up bus driving.
And the work has its perks, even if isn’t what one thinks of as typical eight-hour a day job.
“I feel like I build a rapport with the students,” he says, “Some get on the bus and just ride and others want to talk. You’re an influence on their life, a role model and you develop a bond.”
That’s true for Lieurance too. He drives the bus for the special needs students. And they like attention. Grothause says they expect it. And Lieurance gives them the extra attention they need. He recalled one student likes to give him high fives when he gets on the bus and Lieurance goes along. It sets a good example and keeps students happy. Lieurance typically carries 18 kids on his bus, while on a regular size bus, which is a little longer than Lieurance’s, there are usually 75 to 80 kids on the bus. “Sometimes seems like 180,” Dedrick joked, noting that when there’s 80 kids on a bus and they’re all talking, it doesn’t’ matter if they’re whispering, it gets loud on the bus.
“The responsibility is a lot higher than teachers in class,” Lieurance says. “Running 80 kids down the road, you have to watch out for the safety of the children.”
And he maintains rules for the special needs kids as much as the other drivers maintain rules on their buses. “One rule applies to all. They respect that.” But he says his route is an extra challenge. One of his passengers requires a lot of extra attention but he still has to keep an eye on every passenger’s safety.
There’s more perks at Christmas time for the drivers as students bring in cookies and candy for the drivers in the season of good cheer. For Dedrick, those extras came to light when his dad passed away last May. “I was amazed at the number of cards I got,” he said. “It showed me they cared.”
And Lieurance often gets requests from parents that go above and beyond his bus driving responsibilities. The parents ask him to watch their children after school. “I’m thankful I have their trust,” he said.
They all agreed too, that kids can be rambunctious, but they all seemed okay with that.
Grothause manages 24 buses and 15 routes. There are 15 regular drivers and 33 substitute drivers. Drivers cover 1,000 miles a day and carry an average of 1,000 passengers.
Drivers are trained and some of the best training comes, Grothause says, when they are talking around the table after their routes — when the less experienced or new driver gets to talk with experienced drivers like Dedrick and Lieurance.
There are a lot of safety checks that goes on before and after a driver starts his or her route, Grothause said, including checking the bus for any kids that may have fallen asleep during the ride home or to school. The drivers, he said, have to put a sign on their back windows acknowledging they’ve checked the bus.
Grothause also pointed out that buses are a lot safer than they used to be. The seat backs are higher and are compartmentalized, which help kids in that compartment in an accident, which give and absorb the impact and energy of a crash.
And even procedures like loading and unloading have been revamped to make it safer for kids. In this day and age, there is a designated place of safety where students wait for a bus to arrive or to leave, Grothause explained.
“It’s been 40 years since there’s been a fatality on a school bus,” he said.
And just as bus drivers keep an eye out on their passengers, they are also keeping an eye out for everyone. In a program called Bus Watch, instituted after 9/11, drivers are trained to be on the lookout for anything suspicious. And they do. Grothause said one driver kept seeing a stranger taking pictures of her bus for several days. She called the police and the stranger was thoroughly checked. While it turned out the stranger was an insurance man, he could have been someone dangerous. And even something as ordinary as seeing a garage door down when it’s normally open can arouse concerns and it gets checked out too. Nationwide, 600,000 drivers have been trained in Bus Watch.
“We haul the most precious cargo — our future and we do it in the safest form of transportation available,” Grothause said.
“We take pride in our job and our parents see that."
Contact Kay at:
nkreporter@
theeveningleader.com |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 09 April 2007 )
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