When most people think about school transportation, they picture a bus driver behind the wheel and a mechanic in the garage.
What they probably don’t picture is the transportation director, the office manager and the mechanics all climbing behind the wheel themselves – every single morning and every single afternoon.
That’s exactly what happens at Polk County Schools, where a six-person transportation team helps run daily bus routes, manage activity trips, maintain an entire fleet and do whatever it takes to make sure students get to school safely every day, without exception.
“All of us drive a bus in the morning and evening,” said Jackie Crump, Polk County Schools Transportation Director. “We fill in wherever needed. I get a call at four o’clock in the morning, ‘I’m sick,’ and I’m up, calling Brian (Rudi). If he’s driving, I come in and drive.”
It’s a reality born out of necessity. Like districts across North Carolina, Polk County faces a persistent shortage of bus drivers. Rather than leave routes uncovered, every member of the transportation team, including office staff and mechanics, holds a bus driver certification and steps in when needed.
“If Tina (Muse), Jamie (Reeves) and Darryl (Bollinger) quit driving, you’ve got four or five buses sitting there,” Crump said. “It makes it tough. When we’re all driving and we’re here 10, 12 hours a day, people get tired.”
Muse, who manages the day-to-day operations of the transportation office, knows the commitment firsthand.
“If you get a consistent route, you get the same route every day,” Muse said. “You know those kids, they know what to expect from you and you know what to expect from them. You hear about bus drivers having it so bad, but if you run your bus the right way, they know what is expected of them. It’s not as scary and bad as it’s made out to be.”
That personal connection to students is something Crump considers central to what makes the team’s work meaningful.
“Your drivers are really important,” he said. “They speak to that kid every morning, they speak to that kid every evening. If they’re doing this job, it’s not for the money. They love what they do. Kathy Ashley is going on 39 years. She’s a trooper. She’s here every day.”
When the weather turns bad
Perhaps nowhere is the team’s dedication more visible than during winter weather. When most of the community is still asleep, the transportation team is already out on the roads making the calls that determine whether school opens or closes.
“A lot of people don’t realize how big a role we play in the weather cancellation decision,” Crump said. “It’s not just (Superintendent Todd) Murphy. You can’t make the right call without us.”
When winter weather threatens, the team divides and spreads out across the county. Crump takes one area, Rudi another, and the mechanics head to different zones, each documenting what they find.
“The public rides through town where the streets are clear and dry,” Crump said. “You go out to Green Creek and it’s a completely different picture. Nobody sees that part. That’s why we take pictures and send them in. If you want to see what we’re seeing, here it is.”
The work doesn’t stop when school is out for the holidays, either. When the district returns from Christmas break, the transportation team has already been busy.
“We’re off for the week of Christmas, and you come back on Monday morning,” Crump said. “We have to come in on Saturday or Sunday, start all the buses, let them run, check them out, make sure they’re good before Monday morning. There’s more to it than just Monday through Friday.”
A record that speaks for itself
The dedication of the Polk County transportation team is reflected in a remarkable record of improvement in the state’s annual bus inspection program. Each year, Department of Public Instruction field consultants inspect approximately 10 percent of a district’s fleet, checking everything from brake systems and tires to maintenance records, parts inventory and office procedures. Districts in the western region are ranked against one another based on their inspection results.
Six years ago, Polk County ranked 29th out of 32 counties in the western region. This past school year, the district ranked third, a climb that the DPI consultant who oversees Polk County noticed and documented.
“Polk County has shown continuous improvement meeting state standards required for transportation departments,” the consultant wrote in a letter to the district. “Polk County has been one of my counties that I have no worries about, as reliability is very high. If an issue is found, the department quickly fixes it with no hesitation. When asked to help their neighboring counties out in a time of need, they have always done so with no issues.”
The rankings tell the story year by year:
- 2018-19: 29th
- 2020-21: 24th
- 2021-22: 21st
- 2022-23: 3rd
- 2023-24: 4th
- 2024-25: 3rd
Crump is quick to credit his team.
“It’s a group effort,” he said. “We all work together. We spend more time here than we do at home with our families. They’re all doing their job, they care about what they’re doing. At the end of the day, it’s about the kids – keeping them safe and keeping our drivers safe.”
Muse echoed that sentiment.
“Every one of us is driving a bus route,” she said. “And you have to realize that the bus driver themselves has to know those children. If you have an elementary kid, you’re not going to just drop them off. They have to know the families so that they drop them off to the correct people and know who they cannot drop off to.”
A team that never really clocks out
The work of the transportation department stretches well beyond the school day. Activity buses regularly travel throughout the region, anywhere from Charlotte to Franklin to Newland, sometimes not returning until late at night. If a bus breaks down on the road, someone from the team responds. And while summer brings a break from driving routes, it doesn’t bring a break from the work.
“In the summer we come in, take each bus, go through it,” Crump said. “Repair seats, clean all the air filters, do any service that needs to be done. We try to get all of that done during the summer.”
After four years in Polk County – and 12 before that at Burke County, where the department ran 110 buses a day – Crump says the difference in culture here is something he doesn’t take lightly.
“It’s just a great place to work,” he said. “Don’t take it for granted. If you’ve worked in other places, this is heaven on earth. Here we have an open door. We walk in, Todd’s here.”
That culture, Crump says, is what keeps a small team running at a high level day after day.
“We may go a week and not have a whole lot to do, but then all of a sudden we’re slammed,” Crump said. “But everybody jumps in and does what needs to be done.”
