ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — For several days leading up to Monday’s start of the school year, bus drivers in Orange County have been preparing to pick up nearly 70,000 students.
About 900 school buses will be running hundreds of routes in Orange County Monday, and Orange County Schools officials say it’s the safest way to get students to school.
“School bus transportation is the safest form of transportation and for every school bus out there, it’ll replace about 36-40 cars,” OCPS spokesman Bill Wen said. “So, it’s important if they’re eligible to ride school bus transportation that (students) should.”
One of the ways bus drivers have been preparing for the start of the school year is training on how to identify and prevent bullying.
Becky, who has been driving school buses for 26 years, said it doesn’t take long to get to know the students and figure out who might have bullying tendencies.
“You can tell within the first week if someone is picking on somebody,” she said. “It’s pretty easy to spot.”
There are times when students, especially the very young ones, can be intimidated by riding the bus, Becky said.
In those cases, it helps a lot when for parents to make sure their child knows, or has copies of, their address and phone number.
“A lot of them are first-time riders so they get scared and shy and they don’t know where they live,” Becky said. “They live in the yellow house, so it’s really good for parents to tag them with their name, address and a phone number in case we do have a lost student. Our dispatcher can call the parents and they can meet us at the stop.”
Cox Media Group
