Over 12,000 children who attend school in Perry Township begin and end their day under the care of a bus driver.  Driving a school bus is  a rewarding and challenging position in the school corporation.  Each day, 174 school buses drive the streets of Perry Township safely transporting children to and from school. Starting as early as six in the morning, our drivers pull into the transportation lot on West Edgewood and fire up those diesel engines. The buses don’t always like starting on those cold winter mornings so we keep them plugged in and our mechanics come in early to make sure we have our buses all warmed up and ready to roll.

Once on the road, drivers will pick up on an average between 40 and 50 students along their routes. The high school and middle school students are picked up first.  After the high school and middle school students are delivered to school, the elementary students are picked up.

Formal bus inspections are conducted by the state police every year in every school district in the state. Recently, three specialists in bus mechanics spent five days inspecting our entire fleet.  We are proud of our transportation director, the mechanics, and the entire transportation team for their work to keep our buses running smoothly and passing inspection again this year.

“We have to make sure our buses are not only ready for our February state inspection but that they are ready each and every time they leave the lot to pick up our children,”  stated Perry Township Transportation Director, Patrick Murphy.

Driving a school bus is not a job to the vast majority of the drivers, it is a commitment to the children and youth in our community.  Transporting children to and from eighteen school buildings each day is not an easy task but our drivers do it with skill and expertise.

We are currently in need of bus drivers and encourage you to apply.  Hopefully, you are asking yourself right now what kind of person Perry Township looks for to drive a school bus. There are some basic characteristics that we believe are essential.  You simply must have a sincere, heartfelt desire to protect children and keep them safe.  The person is compassionate, patient, firm, and fair. A quality bus driver understands that they are the first person students see in the morning on their travels to school and they understand that they are the last person that they see prior to arriving home.  Bus drivers have a dramatic effect on a child’s entire academic career.

We can teach you how to drive a school bus and help you prepare for the driving test, no problem.  If you have the above mentioned traits and truly, want to make a difference in the lives of children, contact us now at the transportation department and ask for Transportation Director Pat Murphy at 317-789-6225.