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school buses
Shanny
Posts: 2,456
Where are you all as far as your children riding school buses? They aren't very common where we live and most kids are in private schools with parents/nannies dropping off and picking up anyway. My sister and I have always said that we wouldn't let our girls ride school buses. My sister is a preschool teacher so up until this year her daughter was in her school. The few field trips she went on were in parents cars where my sister could neurotically install her own car seat and had a parent and/or teacher/coworker she trusted to buckle Dani properly. Fast forward - my niece has gotten an amazing opportunity at one of the top private schools in the area for kindergarten this year. My sister is able to drop her off and pick her up each day. But field trips are about to start. She talked to the director of the lower school yesterday and found out that children must ride the bus in order to go on field trips (no parent cars are taken and it isn't an option). My sister knows several people who were teachers at this school and aren't really the best at car seat safety, let alone driving a flipping bus! They have agreed to try and install my sisters car seat but no one has ever tried to put a 5 point harness, convertible seat in. All the kids use boosters. My niece will be 6 at the end of December and she weighs 34 pounds!! She is still in a Britax (marathon or one of the similarly sized ones). Even with the car seat properly installed and someone properly buckeling her, it is really more about the bus for my sister. Her options are to keep D home (which means either bringing her to school with her or finding child care). Leaving her in school where she would be in a Pre K class for the day or letting her go on the bus. The first one is a Halloween trip to the zoo and she is comtemplating taking the day off and just taking her to the zoo herself.
I have a feeling I am going to run in to this at the 2 options I am looking in to for Kate in a few years when she is finished at her current school. Just looking for thoughts and opinions. Thanks.
I have a feeling I am going to run in to this at the 2 options I am looking in to for Kate in a few years when she is finished at her current school. Just looking for thoughts and opinions. Thanks.
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Comments
he's ridden a bus several times for field trips - and I was bussed to school (45 mins each way) for elementary school. the stats for # of school bus riders a year and # of injuries to school bus passengers blows the "personal vehicle" injury stats outta the water.
for me, I'd be comfortable with my son riding a school bus for a field trip without me (I've chaperoned his field trips up till now because they were needing parents, in kindergarten its easier I guess).
DS (7) - d#470
Boy, n.: a noise with dirt on it.
People don't want to go on planes because if there's a mid-air problem, the chances of getting on the ground alive are greatly reduced. That said, the odds of you dying in an airplane accident are still hugely smaller than the odds of you dying in an car accident.
So, if you look at the number of daily injuries/fatalities from auto accidents, and compare it to the daily number of injuries/fatalities from bus accidents, I think you'll see a huge difference.
Outside of that logic, I really got nothin. Although the "kids can be really comment" probably warrants at least a thought.
As for carseats, I know the special needs buses use five point harness systems that attach to the floor of the bus, but the regular buses we drive are not equipped with this system. I asked the seatbelt question in my training, and was told that in the case of a fire or other emergency on the bus, it would be too hard to get every child out of their restraints in the two minutes that you should have everyone off the bus. For this reason, the seats are made especially high in order to create a "box" for the children, and the newer the bus, the higher the seats. It may not seem like it is safe for those of us who cringe at the idea of our child not being strapped in, but it is actually safer for them to ride the bus than to ride in your own vehicle. I drive 4k kids everyday, including on the interstate, and as long as they know to stay out of the aisle and, as I tell them, "back on back and bottom on bottom" of the seat, they are perfectly fine.
The only real issue I have with kids riding the bus, is one you are most likely to avoid when going on field trips. I think the younger kiddos pick up too much "information" from the older kids, and just like in public school, some kids are not the best influences for your child. A little off topic from your original question, I can tell you from a driver's perspective, the elementary are the loudest, but not usually bad kids. The high school kids are pretty easy, they just want to gossip about their weekend plans. It's the middle schoolers that are the worst, not yet adults, but they think they are! I still love them all anyway, and while I'm finishing school, I'm loving what I do.
If you want to know anything else, from a driver's perspective or from a mom with a child who rode the bus, I'd be happy to help. We were put through A LOT of training, I was very surprised at how many "hoops" drivers have to jump through before we are given a bus load of kids to drive, so I hope that helps to ease fears a little.