Come help us drive kids to school

My work with children has largely been voluntary over the years, from HELP in the 1980s to CASA this century. Each are programs I heartily recommend.

After losing custody of my boys nearly 40 years ago, I also mentored a handful of boys through a program at HRDC. When my sons returned to Havre, we ended up fostering three teenage friends of theirs and took in a disenfranchised foreign exchange student.

All of those experiences were gratifying, but nothing has been as challenging and rewarding on a daily basis as driving a Havre Public Schools bus. Imagine shuttling a hundred or more students K through 12 to school and home again five days a week, with lengthy naps in between runs.

Staff can even pick up extra pay by accepting the responsibility of driving activity and field trip groups to their destinations.

Bus driving, to me, is a retiree’s dream, but it is also a great opportunity for those in training for other careers to pick up some much-needed coin.

In my college days, I and a few friends applied for bus driving jobs. I washed out due to my keg-hugging ways, but two of my Butte buddies did get hired by HPS. They adjusted their class schedules to fit their work schedules and sailed through school.

For those who have careers with flexible hours, bus driving can be a very lucrative second job. It’s a union position with a number of paid holidays and retirement, overtime and insurance plans.

In each of my six years as a bus driver on Social Security, I’ve double my annual net income.

But the greatest benefit of being a bus driver is getting to know the names of all my passengers, greeting them daily by name, and learning a great deal about their personalities and likes and dislikes.

It can be a lot like herding cats when the kindergartners and first graders are released at 2:40 p.m. to swarm the bus. But I’ve learned that being upfront about the rules of the road, a smile and sometimes a gruff voice go a long way toward bringing the volume down to a roar.

My primary goal, as it is for all of us, is to chauffeur the children to and from school without mishap or injury. They are, after all, the most valuable cargo a driver can haul.

Unfortunately, we have a shortage of regular and substitute drivers at the moment, as do districts across the country.

Come join us at the bus garage. If you don’t have a commercial driver’s license, the district will help you get it. If you are already licensed, don’t hesitate to inquire about the job and benefits.

The kids need us; we need you.

Specific information about the position and contact information can be found on the HPS Transportation and Busing Home Page at the Havre Public Schools website at http://www.blueponyk12.com .

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Alan Sorensen is a bus driver for Havre Public Schools and a former editor of Blaine County Journal-News-Opinion and Havre Daily News.