Drivers Ask Board for More Bus Monitors

Pair: Student safety requires drivers having ‘eyes on the road’

By Adam Reinherz
The Tube City Almanac
March 16, 2025
Posted in: McKeesport and Region News

Bus driver Stephanie Pollock speaks to the McKeesport Area School Board. She and other drivers are asking for more help with discipline on school buses ‘so that we can put our eyes back on the road.’ (Adam Reinherz photo for Tube City Almanac)

Two drivers implored McKeesport Area School Board to protect area children and increase the number of people working as monitors on bus rides.

Sidney Walker and Stephanie Pollock spoke at Thursday’s meeting and recounted alleged incidents involving strife, violence and misbehavior, while cautioning listeners to act before potential tragedy strikes.

Walker and Pollock, who both drive for Krise Transportation, emphasized that neither is a representative of the company and were merely speaking as private citizens concerned with the wellbeing of local children.

“You have no clue what we as bus drivers have to go through,” Walker said. “I implore you to come ride with us one morning, going to Francis McClure. I have been called out by name. I have been spat on. I have been accused of all kinds of foul things, not only from the children but from the parents.”

Pollock told the board that morning bus trips aren’t as bad as afternoon runs.

“He wants you guys to come on a morning run. I'm doubling that. I want you on an afternoon run,” she said. “The mornings aren't that bad because these kids are tired. It's early. They're sleeping — Do me a favor, come on our elementary school runs from Francis McClure. I promise you, you will see a whole other side of these kids I don't think you ever thought you’d see. You have first graders and kindergartners talking about how much weed they're going to smoke over the weekend, how many females they're going to get, using the N word, using the F word.”

Bus driver Sidney Walker addresses the McKeesport Area School Board. (Adam Reinherz photo for Tube City Almanac)

“You will not believe some of the actions of our young children. It's unreal. It is truly unreal,” Walker said. “Can you imagine having to watch drivers, watch kids who have weapons — who are threatening each other — fighting on the back of the bus, hanging out the window…If I have an accident and it's my fault, no one's going to hear that I was looking in my mirror trying to tell a child to sit down. My CDL licenses are at stake.”

Bus monitors are hired by the district and largely consist of educators seeking additional income, according to MASD Assistant Superintendent Matthew Mols.

Monitors receive an hourly wage of $26.50 and typically work one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon. A shortage of monitors precludes inclusion on every bus.

Principals assign monitors to “where the highest need is, but they're not consistent every single day,” Mols said.

Walker and Pollock said they’ve gone most of the year without monitors.

School Director Diane Elias said she wouldn’t have known about the situation without hearing from Walker or Pollock and questioned how information is shared between bus drivers and the district.

If an incident occurs on the bus, “we write it up then it goes to the school,” Walker said. The school then requests a recording and “they would respond.”

In an effort to learn more about the matter, Superintendent Donald MacFann said he would personally reach out to Krise Transportation for recordings of alleged incidents. 

Audio and video surveillance of bus rides has been permitted by MASD for more than 10 years. The decision to allow recordings, solicitor Gary Matta told TribLive in 2014, stemmed from “all kinds of problems on school buses.”

On Thursday evening, Matta acknowledged these difficulties have not been resolved.

“This has been a problem for several years,” he said. “That's why we had problems getting bus drivers — because some bus drivers are saying, ‘I'm just not doing it anymore.’ It's a problem to get aids on the bus. I mean this has been going on well before this administration has been in place.”

What’s changed, according to Matta, is the nature of the misconduct and those committing the misdeeds.

“It appears to be getting a little bit worse. Before it was more high school and middle school. Now we're even having those problems with elementary buses,” he said.

Mols confirmed that “the biggest problems are from the elementary schools.”

School Board President Mark Holtzman Sr., a retired police officer, bemoaned the state of transportation in the district and recalled his own efforts to aid drivers more than a decade ago.

“I've been retired 14 years, and 14 years ago there were times we had to stop, as the police, and get on the bus and tell the kids behave. And they did, they sat down right away, they definitely sat down,” he said.

Still, the district needs to investigate its routes and determine whether the current transportation plan is effective, Holtzman said. 

Pollock noted her route, which covers McKeesport and White Oak, can take between 30-45 minutes.

School Director Jason Pavlecic questioned whether student misbehavior is due to the long time that bus trips can take.

“If they're on a bus for 45 minutes, in the elementary age, they're going to get restless,” Pavlecic said. “I think of my 5-year-old nephew, whenever you have him in the car, he gets restless the longer you’re going.”

In Pennsylvania, there is no time limit for the length of a school bus ride, according to Education Law Center, a legal advocacy organization.

MASD serves about 3,100 students.  The district could add more routes, and decrease average time per ride, but transportation costs would increase, Matta said.

Last year, the district allocated more than $4 million (a little less than 5% of its 2024-2025 budget) to transportation.

“There's no price on safety in my opinion,” Holtzman said. “No price on safety.”

As school directors chatted about costs, bus routes and familiar difficulties, Walker and Pollock reminded listeners about immediate needs.

“We need monitors,” Walker said. “We need somebody to help us. And I'm saying this before an accident happens, and it's gonna happen.”

“Like Sidney said, we need the monitors. We need these people to help us with these kids so that we can put our eyes back on the road and, God forbid, we don't have a school bus accident that kills or injures our students,” Pollock said. “We love our kids as our own. All of these kids on these buses become our babies. We're with them multiple years. We just want what's safe for them and us, because in the long run, if we crash a school bus with 72 kids on it, it's going to end up costing the district a whole lot more money than paying for monitors.”

Adam Reinherz is a Pittsburgh-based journalist. He can be reached at adam.reinherz@gmail.com.

Originally published March 16, 2025.

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