Unfortunately, as NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams stated, school buses can be “rolling repositories of racket.”
“All that racket can test the concentration and the patience of even the very best school bus driver,” he added during the lead-in to final segment “Making a Difference” on the April 27 broadcast. But not Rosemary Peterson.
The 63-year-old employee of the School District of Manatee County in Bradenton, Fla., has it all figured out. Nicknamed “Ms. Kookyi” by her students at Samoset Elementary School, she became so fed up with student misbehavior earlier this year that she almost quit over the fights, the disrespect, the horseplay. So one night, she tells reporter Kerry Sanders, she prayed to God for additional strength or the guidance to find another job.
“If a person cannot read, they cannot understand, they cannot comprehend, therefore they cannot learn,” she said the Holy Spirit communicated to her.
So, the next morning, Peterson told the children on Bus No. 546 that starting the very next day they were all expected to bring a book with them.
“We’re going to read,” she told them. “Sure enough, the next morning, everyone got on the bus holding a book.”
The kids now call bus No. 546 a “library.” It’s that quiet, as all the children read during their morning and afternoon commutes. After the children fasten their lap belts, the kids all take out their books and Peterson goes through pronunciation with the children. She even makes book report assignments, all books that the kids want to read, with the reward being prizes like cookies or other items donated by Samoset Principal Scott Boyes. The result is a student competition that gives Peterson more reports than she sometimes wants to read, but she realizes how important to still review every last one. One recent student winner read 18 books and wrote as many reports.
And the teachers love the program. Teacher Shirley Beckner said one student had been struggling with his work before Peterson’s onboard book club, but now he is reading fluently. Boyes said many young kids don’t like to read until they find a topic they really like, for him it was camping. He called Peterson’s initiative simple but one that most drivers don’t take.
This all goes to show you what a profound effect the school bus ride can have on children, especially those from lower income and single-family homes like the ones on Peterson’s bus. As she said, “There is a need there, [The parents] don’t have time to devote to their child to make sure their homework is done. So I became a little bit of teacher, a little bit of tutor, a little bit of mom.”
The concept of a “classroom on wheels” isn’t entirely new. Ray Trejo, a former school principal and the current transportation director at Deming Public Schools in New Mexico has been running a similar program for years. And he’s presented on it at the STN EXPO in Reno. And there are others, in one way or another.
In this economy, there is an increased emphasis growing in the industry to view transportation not just as a safe logistical tool to get kids to and from but to operate as efficiently as possible so more money can be saved for classroom education as well as to prepare the children to learn.
Certainly in this respect, “Ms. Kookyi” and others like her are making a difference. Check out our Facebook page to see how her story is inspiring others.
