How little the general public knows about the tremendous effort that’s made each school day to get 24 million children to school and home. If they knew how much teamwork, coordination and planning (and sweat and elbow grease) are necessary to keep the nation’s fleet of 450,000 buses in good working order, they would be amazed!
We often talk about the tremendous efforts of school bus drivers — heightened recently by the tragic slaying of the driver in Tennessee — but we often forget to applaud the efforts of the shop staff. Working behind the scenes, mechanics and their supervisors rarely get served with the recognition they so richly deserve.
Fully deserved recognition
That’s why we continue our efforts to feature some of these fine people in this issue. Our “Top 10 Maintenance Programs” article has become an annual showcase for exemplary school bus shops around the nation. Please take a few minutes to read this special section. And don’t forget to look closely at the photos, most of which feature a proud staff of maintenance employees.
In this issue, we also feature our annual maintenance survey. This year’s research presents numerous interesting findings. Among them, the fact that fewer than a third of school bus fleets have a formal maintenance training program is surprising, but not necessarily dismaying.
As I’ve said before, we should provide as much training as we can to all school transportation employees. Whether it’s a formal program or something less structured doesn’t matter so much as long as it addresses all gaps in the education of your employees.
In this year’s survey we asked you about the greatest challenges you face in the shop and here are some of your answers: