This past week was School Bus Safety Week, and Rebecca Melnyk, a bus driver with HSD for 19 years, taught the children all about bus safety. This year’s theme was Safely Rolling To My Destination.
She says that the two most important lessons to remember from bus safety are to listen to the bus driver and stay calm.
"I would hope that the kids just kind of stay calm, remember to listen to their driver and just be mindful of each other and then we'll all get out of the situation as quickly and safely as we can.”
She says they do safety drills twice per year at all of the elementary schools.
“October is front-door evacuation and April is back-door evacuation. I do Woodlawn and Southwood.”
Melnyk says there was a time when she crashed the bus due to the icy roads. She put the safety drills to good use that day.
“It was really icy out and I slid into the ditch and my front door was pretty much buried in the snow and I could not get out,” she says. “When the spare bus came, we did have to go out through the back doors.”
She says the kindergartners and grade ones are the kids who learn a lot from the drill, but it’s basically a refresher by the time they’re in grade four.
“They know lots. They definitely kind of tell me little things that I miss out on, so the older the kids get, then the more that they remember what they're supposed to do.”
The kids are always very imaginative when it comes to question period.
“Common questions... is the bus going to explode? Do we ever use the windows? Do we ever use the roof? How hard is it to tip over a school bus?”