My mom has inspired me so much

Posted Dec 10, 2017

We’re both bus drivers for Virginia Beach City Public Schools. I’ve been driving for one year and this is my mom’s 18th year driving. She said to me one time that she feels like every student is on her bus for a reason. Every passenger that she transports to and from school, she has that opportunity to have a positive effect on them in those short 15-minute sessions that they have with each other as well as the parents, the teachers, the principals and all of the different people that she meets. I feel like that really rubbed off on me. We just actually met one of the students who used to ride her bus like 10 years ago and he said, “Oh my gosh Miss K!” That’s what they call her on the bus. It’s heartwarming to me to know that we don’t necessarily have the top job in the school system but we have an effect that people don’t always think of right away. When they think of the school system, they think of the teachers that they’ve had but they might also think of cafeteria staff, custodians and bus drivers. So, it’s fun to remember and think of all the people who work to get students to graduation. That’s the ultimate goal.

My mom has inspired me so much. Every time I think, “I don’t want to do this discussion board or this test,” I think of my mom and how she’s preserved through a lot of years raising me and my three sisters, driving the bus and going to school herself. I do a lot of things to make a lot of people proud, but mostly my mom.

I’m in between my third and fourth year of college and hopefully, one day, I will finish a master’s and start teaching at a middle or high school. I went to Kempsville High School and did Virginia Teachers for Tomorrow, so I have that contract to look forward to, though I’m already in the system as a bus driver.

It’s a lot of fun. It’s a great job. I know I have that calling – I want to be a teacher – but this is something that I’ll always be able to look back on and say, “I started out on the bus.” I’m an expert at stress management and crowd control. There’s nothing in the classroom that’s going to scare me now.

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