- Pearl Cline has been a
school bus driver for 28 years in Colorado's Summit School District. - She was recruited for the job without prior experience driving buses but now can't imagine doing anything else.
- This is what her job is like, as told to Insider's Sarah Jackson.
I've been a school bus driver for 28 years, and I've always liked my job because I feel every day I get the kids to school and back home safely, I've done a good thing.
I started my job after my daughter graduated high school; everybody was joking that I'd need to adopt because I'd no longer have kids at home. I was helping at the high school and the district transportation manager at the time said they needed a bus driver and they could teach me, and I thought, "Well, let's see what this is like."
The first year, I was scared to death
We had a training video showing a terrible accident, and I didn't think I could do the job after watching it. I couldn't deal with causing harm to a child.
I'd never had 60-plus kids who belong to somebody else to be responsible for. That scared me, plus the route I had at the time was like up a mountain, so that was a real learning curve.
When you're driving, it's like you're watching a tennis match. You're constantly moving your head, watching everything around your bus, plus the kids. I drive in a tourist town, and sharing the road with resort visitors can be challenging.
I'm one of the first people the kids see in the morning
That means no matter what's going on in my life, I smile and say good morning. It's like any job - it's all in what you make it. I try to be a positive influence. Somebody needs to be. I make a point to know kids' names. I enjoy being with them.
I have two stops for middle- and high-school students, and in those stops, I drive between 65 and 73 kids, sometimes more. With my elementary kids, I have to do a double run because there are so many of them.
I go in around 6 a.m. and usually finish my morning route around 9:30 a.m., then I come back for the afternoon at 2 p.m. and typically finish around 5:30 p.m. Plus, I inspect my bus before and after my morning and afternoon trips - four times a day.
The year began in chaos because we're still dealing with the virus
But because we're so short-staffed, the chaos never ended.
It's hard to keep a mask on a kindergartener or preschooler. Plus, people want it to be like it used to be, getting service practically door-to-door, but I just don't see that happening now.
The routes have been combined, and we used to have five buses for our number of kids, but now we're down to three. It's a struggle because you're really jamming kids into the bus. My bus has a 78-person capacity, but I've had 75 high-school and middle-schoolers on, and that's way too many. I don't feel it's safe to have that many kids in the bus, because the kids at the end of the seats are kind of holding each other into the seats.
We used to have a pretty stable group of around 15 drivers when I started, and pretty much everybody stayed for a good period of time up until maybe five years ago, when we started seeing fewer people interested in doing it. Many people think, money-wise, it's not worth the responsibility that comes with it.
When I started, I made $6.50 an hour. There are also a lot of drivers who have multiple jobs, and we lost some drivers last year who were worried about getting COVID-19. I thought about it for a little bit, but I figured I'd take my precautions and do what needed to be done.
I really enjoy watching the kids blossom in life
I've attended birthdays, weddings, and baby showers of some kids I've driven. Now, I'm driving the children of some of the first kids I drove.
I'm glad I got my license when I did. It was hard then, but it's even harder now. It's not just that anybody can climb on the bus and start it up and go. There's a lot of learning and testing. I continually learn in this job.
It's one of the most challenging things I have done in my life, but it's a good challenge.