First Student reviews

You're out in the snow, the busses are kept outside. The kids don't respect you alot of the time and some do. You're responsible for between 4 to 70 kids at a time and while you're driving. The parents can be rude at times.

The management at my location was abysmal. The top manager was hated by all the monitors because he regularly told people they were a dime a dozen and basically worthless. They constantly tried to bully employees and force them to come in sick and even tried to force people to come in and drive during the COVID pandemic despite our schools being closed. They fostered a culture that was extremely toxic and drove people off. They also would not address any problems between coworkers and would just come out to tell people to shut up or go home and if you went home they'd write you up for a no call no show. The buses were falling apart and the on-site maintenance did the bare minimum to get them back on the road every time which meant if your bus went down once it was going to keep going down until you threw enough of a fit to make the managers actually do something. There were buses that needed jumped daily just to get rolling for multiple school years in a row that never got fixed. Even new buses would rapidly fall into disrepair as preventative maintenance was ignored. If you had an AC unit, you wouldn't have it long because they considered them non-essential and wouldn't repair non-working ones. I reported open harassment in my first few years there but nothing ever got done about it. I was regularly targeted with slurs and comments that were truly awful. I quit even reporting it after a while because it was clear it was never going to be addressed. The pay is awful for the job you have to do. Sure you work only 4-6 hours a day and I was making over $18 an hour but if you look at the times it was far less. I'd get to work at 6:30 am and not be done until after 5 pm some days but only got payed for a small portion of that time. Sure you could leave and go home in the downtime or do errands but it felt like you were always in work mode. Plus dealing with a bus full of kids while trying to keep a massive vehicle safe while everyone around you drove crazy trying to get around or past you so they didn't get caught if you stopped for that little money was a joke. They constantly demanded you do extra runs on top of yours because they never had enough drivers. Sometimes they'd make you pick up two whole buses routes at the same time and you'd be an hour late to the school or dropping kids off. Imagine the parents reacting to that when it happened. Usually you didn't get told this until you came in for your route and they'd guilt trip you if you tried to refuse. Half the time they'd not pay you for the extra and you'd have to somehow prove you did it when they already knew you did. The payroll lady at my location literally knew nothing about doing payroll. She was a driver that just suddenly became the payroll person and, let me tell you, that was a mistake and a half. She went on a serious power trip and would illegally withhold wages and force you to fight to get your pay and once you did she would treat you like trash from then on and threaten you with losing holiday pay and such at every opportunity.