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Attendants
An essential part of the team...
Being a bus attendant
(sometimes referred to as monitor or aide) is a more
important and more challenging responsibility than
is often realized. Only those who’ve never done it
could think it’s an easy or simple job.
Perhaps no one in the
school community works in such close physical
proximity with children as an attendant. Successful
student management in the tight confines of a school
bus requires an understanding of child behavior,
patience, and a sense of humor.
Providing attendants
on bus routes can make a huge difference in the
level of safety provided to children. Most
importantly, the presence of an attendant lets the
bus driver focus on driving the bus and safely
receiving and discharging children. Distractions
caused by student behavior problems are a common
factor in school bus accidents.
Your role --
growing in importance
The attendant role has
grown in importance in recent years. School
districts are transporting increasing numbers of
children with increasingly severe special physical,
mental, emotional, and medical needs. At the same
time, behavior problems among “typical” children
appear to have deepened.
Many communities have
recognized the seriousness of the problem of
student-to-student bullying, and research indicates
the bus ride is one of the most common places for
bullying to occur. Fights and other forms of student
violence are serious problems for all school
districts, not just large urban districts - and it
is sometimes overlooked that many of the weapons
that wind up in the school building got there on a
school bus. The presence of a second adult on the
bus has become a necessity on many bus runs today. |
