DSUSD highlights work of bus drivers in new PSA

With school now coming back into session it means you’ll be seeing more school bus drivers out the roadways transporting students, but who are these drivers that parents entrust send their kids to school?

“Most parents don’t know what we do before we take the busses out,” Victoria Rendall, a bus driver with the Desert Sands Unified School District said.

She one of about 80 bus drivers employed by DSUSD. She says drives up to around 200 students a day during the work week, but she says there’s much more than taking kids from point A to point B.

“It takes us at least half an hour, 25 minutes or so to check out the bus completely. Make sure the brakes are working, the lights are working, the seat belts are working,” Rendall said.

A PSA is the result of Rendall’s effort to educate parents. It was produced with help from three students from the film academy at Palm Desert High School they now have a new found appreciation for the work bus drivers do.

“I mean I had absolutely no idea the hard work the drivers put in before taking out students,” Maria Lopez, a film student, said. “I mean I did underestimate them a lot and they do deserve much more credit than they have right now.”

Credit, Rendall wants to highlight for her fellow drivers. She explained that for many students, bus drivers are the first employees they see before they get to campus, whether or not students take the bus from home to school, she says nearly every student will be on a school bus for field trips, sporting events, or other extra curricular activities. Transporting them safely is a responsibility she and other drivers take seriously.

“Even parents have told me that ‘You treat these kids like their own’…and I go I do. They’re mine when they’re on this bus and they’re my responsibility,” she said.

Rendall got the idea for the video at the beginning of the previous school year, as she wanted to improve the perception of bus drivers.

“There’s too many things I see that are negative towards bus drivers. Getting into accidents…this and that. I want to show something positive that shows what we do every day to keep their children safe,” she said.

Rendall demonstrated how the busses were inspected at the depot making sure every component was working. She even guided News Channel 3’s & CBS Local 2’s Jeremy Chen on driving one. {“url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1032340047658446856″,”author_name”:”Jeremy Chen”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;I'm driving a school bus in a controlled course. It's all part of my story on bus drivers in the &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/DesertSandsUSD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@DesertSandsUSD&#lt;/a&#gt;. That's coming up tonight at 5:30 on &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/LocalTwo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@LocalTwo&#lt;/a&#gt; and 6 on &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KESQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@KESQ&#lt;/a&#gt;. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/zExAXaSY0r”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/zExAXaSY0r&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;— Jeremy Chen (@JeremyChenKESQ) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1032340047658446856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;August 22, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″} The film academy students spent the year making the video shooting and editing and having the bus drivers involved.

“I’ve always had respect for them but now I know the hard work that they put in when the take a bus out of the bus yard is great,” Lopez said.

Rendall says the response to the video has been positive and is hoping it leads to future collaborations.

“Some PSA’s we could do too, like red lights and where you’re supposed to stop for them, and there are other things we can do, so we’re looking forward to do more work with them,” she said.

Work that’s putting a positive spotlight on bus drivers. The film students says they are looking to possibly create more videos with other departments within DSUSD. The first day of school is Thursday.

The PSA can be seen here.