Transportation Team Preps for School Start With Training Game Show

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — School transportation staff here kicked off back-to-school training on Monday with a familiar format: the game show “Family Feud.”

More than 350 transportation employees at San Antonio Independent School District (ISD) took part in two days of training on Monday and Tuesday. Topics included school bus safety, student discipline, general operating procedures, and risk management.

The training took a creative turn with the “Family Feud” format, which posed safety-related questions to contestants.

“It really was neat, as the game board was created in PowerPoint and looked identical to the show, complete with sound effects,” said Nathan Graf, senior executive director of transportation and vehicle maintenance for San Antonio ISD.

The transportation staff also showed their team spirit with school bus costumes, which some of the district’s drivers created with cardboard boxes. After the two days of transportation-specific training, the team wore the school bus costumes — and waved signs and did a team dance — at a district-wide convocation on Wednesday.

The convocation brought together all of San Antonio ISD’s departments and schools, with a total of more than 9,000 employees attending. Even in the massive assembly, the transportation team’s enthusiasm stood out: The department won the district’s “spirit stick” award.

“Everyone is so excited. … Many transportation employees were stopped in the hallway after the event and at restaurants with people coming up to them and congratulating them,” Graf said. “The morale of the team is through the roof!”

San Antonio ISD starts school on Aug. 14 this year. That’s two weeks earlier than in past years, when school started on the last Monday in August.