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Greenwich parents will soon send their children off each day on school buses, but in light of the former Weston bus driver who was arrested recently for threatening Weston town officials, parents might be wondering how drivers are selected.
"I think what we have between the school system and the transport company is a good understanding of their responsibilities as well as the behavior of students," said Board of Education Chairman Steven Anderson. "At the end of the day you do not want problems."
Like many districts, Greenwich public schools use an outside bus company, Student Transportation of America. Brad Rumble, assistant manager of safety for the company, said there are about 94 drivers in Greenwich who all receive drug/alcohol screenings, a physical, background checks and driving history reports.
"We get complaints from time to time, but typically it's about how the bus is being driven," Rumble said. "The bus company number is on the outside of the bus so it's easy for drivers to stay in check because if a driver does do something that is out of the ordinary anyone can pick up their cell phones and make a call."
On the Greenwich schools Web site there is a system to report bus issues bus driver and student behavior issues or failure to follow procedures as well as reporting vehicles passing school buses, inquiring about transportation service parameters and requesting bus routing information. The complaints are forwarded from the Web site to the school's transportation department and
Anderson said typically school bus problems are minor, and usually deal with but route changes. "Most of the stuff we see and hear about are more about routes and stops," he said. "If there was something like, a bus driver that wasn't doing their duties, that would be brought to the attention of the bus company and dealt with before we had to hear about it."
The schools' transportation policies and procedures, labeled E051-4 can be found here.
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