Other drivers call long-time Katy school bus drivers Janell Triche, Diane Williams and Uli Ashmore "the dinosaurs," Triche said one afternoon, after their last run, at the giant bus parking lot behind Mayde Creek High School. All three started driving when their kids were small, then stuck around for decades.

"If everyone was like them," said Anders, the director of transportation, "we wouldn't have a problem."

"It's a perfect job for a mom," Williams said.

"And where else are you going to make this much money part time?" asked Triche.

Hunting for drivers

Katy ISD pays starting drivers $13.75 an hour - not as much as nearby Cy-Fair ISD's $14.32, and certainly no match for Houston ISD's $14.95.

Still, it's among the highest rates in the state, and almost twice the $7.25 minimum wage. Drivers are eligible for health insurance and retirement benefits, and Katy ISD even provides subsidized day care - $2 a day per child - during bus runs.

"When I found out that they were willing to take care of my special-needs child," Triche said, "I thought, 'This is perfect for me.' "

To make sure no potential driver goes unhired, the district offers training and help obtaining a commercial drivers license. It seeks drivers at job fairs, via signs on buses and school marquees, and in notices sent home in students' backpacks.

To keep the drivers it has, it's begun celebrating Bus Driver Appreciation Week, when drivers are plied with baked treats and homemade Valentines. At Beck Junior High, they're even saluted by the marching band and cheerleaders - "Bus drivers!" "Bus drivers!" - when they pull up to school for morning dropoff.

Still, it's not easy, finding and keeping people willing to haul kids to school. It's hard to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to start driving at 6, Triche admits. Lots of drivers prefer full-time work, or at least something easier to combine with a part-time job.

Many applicants lose heart early in the hiring process, Anders says, when they test-ride a bus stuffed with 60, 70 or even 80 kids. Maneuvering the unwieldy vehicle is only part of the job; long-haul truckers don't have to maintain discipline or worry about tears and forgotten backpacks.

And then there's the noise level of the average school bus. High school students, with their headphones, are the quietest, the drivers agree. But at the opposite end of the scale are grade-schoolers at the end of a rainy day, when they haven't been able to play outside. "They think, 'Oh yes! It's time to let loose on the bus!' " Ashmore said.

"You have to love kids," Williams said.

'Snakes & Alligators'

After the 2012 bus cutbacks, says Liz Johnson, the mother of three Katy elementary-school kids, "my life completely changed."

To deal with its driver shortage, Katy ISD radically cut back bus service. Before, buses would stop within a 0.3-mile walk from a student's house - "basically door-to-door," Johnson says. After, the district provided buses only for students who lived a certain distance from their schools - outside a half-mile radius for elementary; a mile for junior high and high school.

But only after the district mailed out bus-assignment postcards did parents realize the dreadful significance of the word "radius."

In Katy, there's a vast difference between the distance as the crow flies and the distance a kid would actually have to walk. "This is the land of cul-de-sacs and winding roads," said Johnson. "It's suburbia. We were never meant to be pedestrians."

Parents were furious. Roughly 6,600 kids lost bus service - about 20 percent of the district's enrollment. The bus no longer stopped near Johnson's house.

Johnson started a Facebook page called "Katy - Bring Our Buses Back." Two years later, the page has more than 1,000 members, and its focus has broadened to all things related to the school district. On April 14, the group will host its first-ever forum for school-board candidates. Transportation will be only one of the issues discussed.

But it's still a sensitive one. The cutbacks remain a sore subject. Every school-day afternoon, carpools cause traffic snarls outside schools such as Rylander Elementary, and the danger to un-bused students is the subtext of many local controversies.

To get to high school and junior high, some Cinco Ranch students take a shortcut that involves jumping from stone to stone across a Willow Fork drainage ditch - never mind the sign that warns, "Caution: Snakes & Alligators." The ditch isn't on school property. But should the school district pay for a bridge?

Last month, four teenagers attacked an autistic student and his younger brother as they walked home, beating them up and stealing a cell phone just 20 yards outside Mayde Creek High School's property line. Was their safety the school district's responsibility?

Considering changes

Now, cautiously, the district is again considering changes to its transportation policy - possibly staggering school start times to make better use of drivers, raising drivers' pay, and revamping rules about who qualifies to ride the bus.

Johnson monitors such proposals closely. Buses have taken over her life. She's been working closely with the district - making sure that every last avenue of driver-recruitment is explored, making sure the district understands parents' frustration, and that any changes are communicated better than those of 2012.

"I still want my bus back," Johnson says. "I don't know that I'll ever get it. But I want it back."

Lisa Gray

Gray Matters Columnist, Houston Chronicle

6 Comments

User6050100000587 Rank 8221

A couple of dollars more per hour would sure keep a lot of bus drivers in check for the next year or so. Do you realize how much the school district spends on each new employee when hired?

6 months ago 0 Likes

Quikboy Rank 12

This is more or less a reason why sprawling suburban lifestyles are actually very costly to society. Having to depend on motorized transport, despite being less than a mile radius wise from school, is ridiculous. Badly-designed street routes, lack of sidewalk infrastructure, among other things is why it's nearly ridiculous to walk/bike and it shouldn't be.

Sprawl has been found to be costly, yet we still keep building sprawl like it's no problem. Consumers just see pretty pictures and turn a blind eye to the reality of the costs it takes to maintain such a lifestyle. Well I guess for these Katy folks, the truth is revealed.« less

10 months ago 1 Like

Gary Sharp Rank 12833

Meanwhile we keep losing key midcareer bus drivers every year and it is getting worse and worse each year by Katy ISD having to keep training and replacing those drivers that we have lost. It just seems to me that Katy ISD compared to other districts are going around in circles. I believe that it is more important to education to retain bus drivers than it is to resurface practice fields and that is coming from a huge high school football fan. I just cannot believe it is that hard to staggar school start times and that is just a start up issue.« less

1 year ago 0 Likes

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JOSEPH Rank 875

I wonder if Ms Johnson is part of the group of people who fight tax increases and bond proposals at every turn.

1 year ago 0 Likes

johnson1 Rank 6717

@JOSEPH - actually, Joseph, I am not. I support Bonds and Tax increase that make sense and I am willing to work to help make them happen. I voted for the last bond that passed in Katy and I am looking forward to serving on the next bond committee that starts this week. This is not about money. Its about making the routes children walk safer. My neighborhood alone spent approximatelly $30,000 on sidewalks and walk paths to make the routes safer for the kids. But they still walk along a 4 lane busy road with speed limits of 35 miles per hour. And thats just my school zone and my neighborhood. All across Katy, HOA's and the Counties and City have had to spend a ton of money making these walk paths safe, but they can only do so much. We do what we can and we help when we can.« less

1 year ago 1 Like

marymcgarr Rank 407

@JOSEPH

There's no law that says people can't oppose a bond referendum that is poorly thought out, that is excessive, and that does not address what actually needs to be done.

Many of us have asked for bond referenda that are itemized so that as voters we can vote for what is necessary and omit the fluff. As it is, KISD pads bonds by 30% and keeps a slush fund for pet projects (like Astroturfing practice football fields at high schools when they are not needed or wanted by anyone other than the superintendent!)

Go to www.marymcgarr.com/Elections or find the entry on bond elections. I have documented over the years the bonds that have been put before the voters. When they asked three times for bond money to build Williams Elementary before they ever built it, that bothers some of us.

I'm also opposed to bond committees that are used by the District to supplant the authority of the elected school board. The school board is a government, and it is a representative government. Those board members are solely responsible for making a decision about a bond. Many of them don't even go to the committee meetings, so they don't hear what the committee members hear about the bond. And then there's the part about how the administration Delphis the committee members and manipulate them to simply rubber stamp what the administration wanted to do in the first place.

There are many issues tied to bond elections, and there's not much of a way for the citizens to hear about them. That's the way KISD likes it.

Mary McGarr« 4 Likes