Looking for advice from School Bus Drivers.

PRO:
No med cert. needed (certify "Exempt Intrastate")
Summers off, winter breaks off, spring break off
split shift: work a couple hours in the morning, then a couple in the afternoon.
ALL bus companies are hurting and will provide your ELDT course.
CON:
Kids are wild and cannot be disciplined by the driver in most districts
Pay is usually not worth the level of responsibility
If a more senior driver has the route your grandkids are on, you won't be picking them up.

 

Pay: Here the local school district is advertising $20/run.
Other's are advertising $12-$14/hr. Yes, the kids flipping burgers at McDonalds are making more.

All that for the chance to have to deal with kids than don't listen, having to drive vehicles that are so un-mantained as to wonder how they actually stop, and starting the day at 6am and ending at 5pm, but having an 8 hour break in the middle that you can't plan for anything because you have to be back in the afternoon.

 

I prefer hauling freight that doesn't talk back.

 

The medical and school bus endorsement varies by district. Most school boards or contractors will supply that training.
I'm in Canada, most of the drivers pay is around 20$ an hour.
I'm middle aged, a licensed mechanic, and have spent 8 years driving truck. The wife and I bought a small school bus company about 10 years ago.
It is honestly the best job I've ever had. I drive a run of Normal kids, and a special ed run of the worst of the worst.
The normal kids I have very little issues with. I'm calm at all times. The sped kids cause some major issues. You need to be in control of yourself at all times. Have a drink when its over.
I'll do it till I retire.
The schedule is awesome. Summers off. There is 181 school days a year up here.

 

Flint1...I think you're lucky up there in Alberta.
In general...The way things are going with schools. Flooding children with all kinds of toxins (vaccines). Children are being destroyed before they develop anything. I feel sorry for them. They're coming apart before they get anything together. Heck....got parents demanding decency in school and they're declared "Domestic Terrorists" by our DOJ for cryin out loud! There is no way in "H!" I would drive a school bus.
I did apply to drive a school bus back 20 years ago. I told them I would do what I had to in order to save a kids life. If it meant endangering my own life. Even if it meant to go against what is legal. I'd worry about reality first and the kids welfare. No way I was hired. Bus company was owned by a lawyer.

 

Vaccines are far from the worst of the problems. Illegal gambling in video games, poor diet, inability to properly socialize. Inability to play outside in a lot of communities. And then everybody trying to sell them on changing genders and weird scams. Oh and “the patriarchy”. Our new youth being messed up was years in the making. It’s gone WAY beyond participation trophies.

 

I'm a second year school bus driver in San Bernardino (about to transition to trucking actually, so the other way haha). I make $25 an hour now (big pay increase from last year), the only reason I can't see myself continuing long term is because I want much more hours than 30 a week at most.

I drive minibuses for special needs kids, and 99% of them are actually really well behaved. Even the ones throwing a tantrum aren't a huge issue because district is pretty good on not pushing drivers to transport students if they're really causing big problems.

I live in California and it probably helps that the laws here are friendlier to the school bus driver.

You get curmudgeons going all kids these days but the job is really what you make of it. Plus like anything else it varies -- by school, by city, by state, even by company.