The West Side Story staff came together on Friday, Sept. 13 to personally hand-deliver each bus driver a thank-you card and a piece of candy from 2:10 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. as recognition for their service. These unique thank you cards were a result of Mrs. Gatlin’s class's hard work and creativity. The job of a bus driver is not an easy task and certainly takes patience, but West High’s bus drivers continuously transport students between East/West classes as well as to and from school daily. Some bus drivers are taking this on while balancing a whole other job along with it. This means some drivers get home late and have to wake up extremely early.
Mr. Calvin Decker works as Assistant Principal and a bus driver for West High school. He has been driving a bus for 33 years. Being a bus driver requires more than just basic driving skills. Decker states, "I use classroom management skills to deal with the students along with building relationships with my kids." As well as making more money as a bus driver, Decker explains, "The county is down bus drivers and I drive to help out along with the opportunity to talk to students on a daily basis." Decker has a commercial driver's license and a Class B license that qualifies him to drive buses. With this, there is also a five-part written exam, inspecting the bus, a driving test, and a seven part yearly bus professional development test. Three times a year bus drivers are required to get a random drug/alcohol test three times a year. Decker has a work day that goes on for about 11 hours. He declares, "I normally get my bus started around 5:30 a.m., do my inspection and paperwork and leave West High around 6:13 a.m." Depending on traffic, Decker gets back to West at around 4:30 p.m. and leaves it at the school overnight.
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