Thinking about supplementing your retirement income becoming a school bus driver?
The ads make it look appealing. Part time work. No weekends. Split shift, working a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the afternoon.
All school PA days off, summers off.
The ads focus on the pluses ... but you also need to hear about the other side of the coin.
All the ads feature a "reasonable" hourly rate. Most are around $20 to $22 per hour. Problem is that you are not paid anywhere near that amount. First, it's not hourly - you are paid based on the route's rating for completing the run for the entire day, plus 15 minutes. It's rounded off to the nearest quarter hour. The extra daily 15 minutes is specifically for pre-inspection and fueling the bus.
The rating is calculated from previous years and adjusted in the first month of the school year based on the route driver's time sheets. It's a formalized process that measures everything on the route. Number of left turns, right turns, amount of time doing a pre-inspection in the morning and "child-checks" on completing the morning portion and then again on completing the afternoon portion - plus clean up time (usually pickup any stray garbage and a quick sweep).
This totally ignores any delays. If you end up taking longer due to traffic, weather, road closures, police activity, late students, home or school complications. These are totally at your risk - you do not get paid any extra. You get paid the route time rating. Period.
The industry is plagued by driver shortages. Once you decide to drive, you'll be inundated with requests to cover other routes (or portions) to help get students to school and back home. It is typical to cover multiple schools. My last year driving, I covered three schools in the morning and four schools in the afternoon. It's a challenge keeping it all on time.
The other challenge is down time between schools. I usually had a minimum of 20 minutes in the morning between two schools, and 35 minutes in the afternoon. That meant I had to find a parking location and wait.
It's not difficult to find a parking location. Most malls or shopping plazas have lots of empty spots during the school day where you can park and wait out your down time. There is a hidden challenge, though ... you can bring a coffee thermos and a treat to tide you over (be careful though, the school boards and your operator (the school bus company) have restrictions on liquids and food in the bus (for potential student allergies) – you usually have to consume outside the bus. If you don't bring your own, by the way, you'll end up eating into meager compensation to get a Timmies (and maybe a donut too).
The cost of getting to and from your bus parking location has to be factored in too. At the end of the day, you will be hard pressed to earn more than minimum wage, if that.
One summer, I drove a transit bus. Unlike a school bus run, this is a regular 8 to 10 hour day. The company I worked for had one hour break for lunch. There were no formal breaks other than that ... you were expected to figure out washroom breaks and quick snacks during the run. Not that simple to do. Pay was lower than the school bus hourly fee, but it was for actual time worked (plus a 15 minute stipend daily for cleaning the bus and refueling).
Whether transit or school bus, you are taking on all the risks of driving. Most companies will pay for your license upgrade training and for the required Vulnerable Sector Screen tests. They will also reimburse you for driver abstracts if that is required of the job. That's the extent of it though. If you have any moving violations, parking infractions, or other MTO issues, you are on your own. If you have an accident, the company will cover costs for the vehicle ... you may be on the hook, though, for any resulting traffic violations. Any time involved in defending yourself is on your own.
I've now been retired for about six months. At the end of the day, I have just as much disposable income now as I did when I drove a bus. After calculating all my costs and loss of retirement "top-ups", I ended up working for about $12 an hour. A lot of that went towards the direct cost of working (extra gas to/from parking location, to/from office, food stuffs) and all the clothing, boots, writing implements, etc.
As other drivers have, I convinced myself that I was doing it for the kids. And, I really do miss most of the kids on my route. Overall, though, it's not worth it.
I worked for a total of five different companies. The first one ended up losing their contract to drive in York Region. One of the other four should have: getting paid was a challenge and they ended up evicted from their own office. I ended up stuck at the gas station having to pay for gas to fill up the bus because the credit card they supplied was declined. None of the other three were much better ... all mis-managed.