Customer Service for Schools
Compiled by Paul Schaumburg & the Graves County Schools’ Staff
These are ideas created in our Graves County Schools project a few years ago, in which co-workers with leadership skills led the discussion.
Serving Through Transportation
1. Greet each student by name as he or she boards the bus in the morning. Remember, you might be the first person that student sees that day.
2. Consider giving students positive (even if they’re inexpensive) cards when you catch them “being good.”
3. Use the “Connect 4” plan to build relationships with students.
4. Develop good relationships with parents, bus conduct designees, and the school as a whole – teachers, secretaries, and principals. Communicate crucial information back and forth.
5. Be a team player within the Transportation Department and within the school district. Take appropriate ownership of problems and address them.
6. Involve yourself as a bus driver within field trips as a volunteer, where needed.
7. Learn how to respond to students with their special medical needs, their medications, and possible reactions to those medications.
8. Set a limited number of simple rules for bus conduct and consistently follow them.
9. Choose your battles. The best way to avoid losing an argument is to avoid the argument entirely.
10. Avoid confrontation with a student in front of the student’s peers. Remove the student from the offense area quickly.
11. Use a questioning rather than an accusing approach in a conflict with a student.
12.Minimize the time you remain in conflict with a student.
Potential Transportation Policies
1. Consider establishing a follow-up/feedback form to report and assess bus conduct problems through proper channels.
2. Consider establishing policies involving discipline conferences between the bus driver, student, parent, and any other needed school staff to address specific problems.
3. Consider establishing opportunities for drivers to discuss with their peers ways to resolve problems while maintaining appropriate confidentialities.
4. Consider establishing policies so that safety rules are shared with all students, parents, teachers, and principals. Post a short list of the most important bus safety rules on each bus and in each school and send the list home with parents. Bus safety rules should be presented verbally in meetings with students and parents at school, possibly on back-to-school night.
5. Consider policies whereby drivers would host a “Parent Day” on the bus.
6. Consider establishing policies to improve communication between bus drivers and schools concerning students sent to the Murray alternative school. Schools could share information regarding the students’ problems and reasons they’re being sent to the alternative school.
7. Consider establishing policies so a bus driver can request parent notification concerning frequent parent absences at the bus stop for younger students.
8. Consider establishing policies providing an aide on every bus so the driver’s attention is not diverted from driving safely.
9. Consider establishing policies so that volunteers can assist on buses.
10. Consider establishing policies to provide bus drivers assistance with special needs students.
11. Consider establishing policies whereby the district enlists input from the Transportation Department concerning route changes, on-route emergency contact(s), new student information, a workable transportation dismissal plan at the schools, and similar pertinent data.
12. Consider establishing policies to correct the problem of students’ sitting too long on buses, when loaded at Central Elementary and at Middle School.
13.Consider establishing field trip policies whereby the field trip coordinator/teacher is responsible for logistics including driving directions, itinerary, and student discipline on the bus so the driver can concentrate on driving.
Question of the Week
What tips and potential policies to consider would you add to these lists?