curious how a school bus driver gets paid?

$50 a "run" there and back (just like Pepsi drivers lol)

That's morning pickups count
Evening dropoffs
Old timers get the vocational midday runs and ball games
Those pay 50 as well.

So you could conceivably make $200 a day driving a school bus where I'm from.

Same routes everyday.

 

I had a co-worker who drove school bus in Mississippi years ago when he was fifteen. The biggest boy in the school was appointed as bus driver.

 

True - in the far north the oldest kid takes the bus home, I do believe they must be 18 though.

 

I have one rule in trucking, I'm not hauling anything that is still breathing, ESPECIALLY kids!

Adam

 

In my area, drivers start at a little over $14/hr. Most drivers get somewhere between 6 and 7 hours per day. It's considered part time, but you are eligible for full benefits, insurance thru BC/BS and even a retirement plan after 10 years. You can park your bus at a school near your home or at one of the four bus depots we have around the county. Mine is sitting three minutes from my house.

The hours you are paid for depend on the route you are assigned to. They all have a clock in and clock out time based on where you park and where the runs are. Typically, you are on the bus around 6:15AM and your first stop is just before 7AM. You run elementary, then high school, then middle school. You are usually done and parked by 9:15AM. You have the middle of the day off (unless you choose to do field trips) then you get back on the bus about 1:30PM to be at your elementary school by 2PM. You run all your schools are are parked a little after 5PM. A lot of drivers have mid-day sources of income and quite a few have kids in school, so that's their time of day for housework. It's a good job for parents and they will work with you so you can drive your kid's schools so they can commute with you.

I guess every district does it differently, but here we receive about 85% of our pay when it's earned - the remaining 15% is banked so that we continue to draw paychecks during the summer. It evens out your income stream and allows us to remain employees during the summer so our insurance continues uninterrupted. I have met drivers that are seasonal and they are laid off and rehired each year - but I think the way my county does it is more common.

If you want to do field trips, that's a good way to pick up extra hours. On a Friday night football game for example, someone will cover your last school run of the day so you can be at the high school by 4PM. You are usually on the clock until 10PM or later, so there's an additional 6 hours right there. And you get paid to sit and watch the game - you stay on the clock the whole time.

And just like the trucking industry, we are seriously short of drivers. I am usually a "stand by" driver - I don't have assigned routes, I clock in and cover break downs, accidents and I cover for drivers when they need a day off or have a field trip. But we are so short of drivers right now that I have been covering an assigned route since the school year began. So if you know someone with a clean driving record that can pass a pretty thorough background check, have them check with their local school board. It's not a bad job, but you have to have a lot of patience. The drivers I know that quit usually quit because they can't deal with some of the kids we haul around. But those are stories for another day......

 

Edit: Duplicate post.

 

We actually keep a bus that's only for pub crawls. It gets pretty nasty in there. A couple weekends ago we had a particularly intoxicated group that vomited and urinated multiple times all over inside the bus. The driver didn't clean it out when she got back so the bus sat in the hot sun for 2 days before someone got around to cleaning the mess up. I took a peek inside and the smell almost knocked me over Dried vomit/urine everywhere. I felt seriously bad for the kid that gets paid to clean the buses.

 

Nope. It's very good BC/BS. Same as all the other school employees. My part only costs me $70 a month. However, I'm curious if that will change in the future. If they get crappy insurance they will lose a lot of drivers who do this primarily for the insurance.