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Yes. Our population densities are lower, school distances are often not walkable reasonably, and schools being public they want to ensure that their students are not impeded from getting to the classroom for any factors related to logistics, income, etc.

Often times these are part-time positions. Set block of hours twice a day. Drivers can take on additional duties or other jobs. The buses themselves are either owned by a transportation company that can also hire them out on weekends or making additional money on field trips / sports transportation.

My kids are fortunate enough to be able to walk to their school - there are sidewalks and it's only a half mile away, but many other students have a longer walk, no sidewalks, or other impediments that leads them to prefer a bus. Kids could take public transit, but typically this is not a great solution in most places, and it doesn't deliver you to a school directly. The latter factor helps with truancy, security, and a number of other things. There's a cost to it, but it is a norm.

It would be straightforward for a school district to agree to change the policy or reduce bus service for cost reasons if public transit and things like walking, biking were preferred options. These are typically the norm for private schools.

Indiana had a school district on the south side of Indianapolis that tried to stop busing students (https://www.governing.com/topics/education/gov-indiana-schoo...). It was a mess, and frankly due to the irresponsible way the state handles funding schools. Certain districts around the Indianapolis area, refuse to approve tax referendums for their schools, while others have voters that are happy to fund education. It's unsustainable long term.

Most US cities and towns have minimal public transit that wouldn't be anywhere near sufficient for getting kids to and from school, so they run school buses instead. In some places with good public transit, like Somerville MA where I live, the city doesn't run school buses and people walk or take general purpose public transit, but that's very unusual here.

It's the same deal as the tech shuttles: in places where public transit is good (NYC, Chicago, Boston) the tech companies don't run shuttles because there's no need.

> What do the US school buses and their drivers do for the rest of the day and on weekends? Just sit idle?

Yes. The drivers typically work a "split shift" with time off in the middle of the day, and the buses sit empty both then and on weekends.

My father was a school bus driver. The pickup and drop off routes were often 3 hours each, as they were mandated by local law to provide service to the whole country.

Kindergarten is just half a day in many places, so the middle of the day would be another 3 hours to shift those around.

There were also many field trips, sporting events, and other miscellaneous calls for transport throughout the day and into the evenings, as well as some weekends.

Much of all of this would vary quite a bit depending on a particular town’s location, population needs, layout, etc. but I just wanted to say that although it’s a relatively chill job and there is indeed often a lot of downtime, it’s not like bus drivers universally work 1 hr in the morning, 1 hr in the afternoon, and then just bum around all day.

All the districts in my area are begging for school bus drivers. The pay is going up and some are offering full time benefits for driving part time. I've also seen them offering to split the morning / afternoon shift and paying teachers extra to drive buses instead of coach after school sports.

Another model is combination bus driver / school custodian jobs.

Good article on long school bus rides: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2010/10/04/long-bus-ride-cook-...

In Somerville, it's hard to be more than a mile from the school. Cambridge, on the other hand, does run busses. It is true that the tech companies for the most part don't run private shuttles, MIT and Harvard do, though less for commuting than just connecting separated parts of their campuses.

> in places where public transit is good (NYC, Chicago, Boston)

The Boston one is a real giggle. At best, public transit in Boston is no better than the Bay Area, and on average is much worse.

The real reason for not running shuttles in these locations is office size. The Bay Area offices where shuttles are run have 10-100x the employees these other locations have.

I work at Google in Cambridge, in Kendall sq. Most of my coworkers take public transit, most commonly the Red Line. If you look at https://www.mapnificent.net/boston/#11/42.3729/-71.0760/2700... you can see there's a large area within reasonable public transit commuting distance.

The tech company shuttles in the Bay Area mostly run to the South Bay, where Google etc are, and the public transit options there are minimal.

Many schools have a bus service because the general public transport is that poor. In some areas you have no other public transport. So either someone drives the kid to school or they don't go because they can't walk there.

School buses pick up at trivial distances from children's homes, where they can be visually supervised between the door and the bus either by their own parents or by a trusted neighbor. The bus driver passes a background check, and no other adults are allowed. The bus drops off right on school property, not on the other side of a fast road. If a school bus does not come, takes a long detour, or quits mid-route it is national news [0].

For people who can afford alternatives, riding public transit is something you do as an adventurous young adult, and maybe get turned off of even then (sexual harassment, aggressive panhandling, long delays and breakdowns). In the culture I grew up in, sending your 7 year old to navigate that unsupervised every day is bonkers.

[0] https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Bus-Driver-Detour-Fort-L...

The school district is usually a distinct entity with direct taxpayer support. The buses typically only serve students.

Here, due to decreased enrollment and building closures, they pick up students at their front door.

The drivers are mostly paid for just the hours they are driving, the buses sit idle except for things like out of town athletic events (where they transport the participants).

Interesting - so is it "a thing" in the US that the city runs a dedicated bus service for all schools/students? Quite a surprise for me considering how poor people say public transport is in general in the US?

It's actually a thing because our public transport is so poor. Plus there are special laws for school buses to protect children. When a school bus picks up a child it is illegal to pass it on either side of the road.

However in some places students do take public transportation. For example here is the pricing for school districts to use SEPTA, which is the public transportation in and around Philadelphia

https://www.septa.org/fares/discount/students.html

Generally speaking, US school systems consist of separate elementary, middle school/junior high, and (senior) high schools with staggered start and end times for the school day to accommodate buses. For example, back in high school I think the actual school day started around 7am or maybe 7:15am or so. I'd catch the bus at around ~6:30am as I lived towards the end of my bus route; some kids would be up earlier. The buses would drop off their charges with a bit of time to spare and head out again for the next schools (in order: high school, middle school(s), and elementary school(s)). At the end of the day, the buses would line up around the school (again, for my district, maybe 15-20 minutes before the final bell and with two 'flights' of buses, IIRC), load up the kids, and head out on their route in reverse before repeating at the next schools.

It's not really an example of a functioning public transport system; it certainly works, but only in a very limited and specific context and without any flexibility. If a kid misses the bus either in the morning or after school (which can happen often), they're going to be waiting for a ride home from a family member. After-school programs required the same. And if you're in a rural community? The bus rides are longer, and you're waking up even earlier. But for a lot of suburban communities, there's no real alternative. If they have a bus system, it's probably for commuters and goes from specified stops (often from large "Park and Ride" lots) to the nearest city.

In that sense, there often isn't a public bus to put kids on in much of the US. Assuming, of course, that parents would be willing to do so. Back in 2008, a writer wrote about letting her 9-year-old ride the bus and subway to school alone.[0] There was a ton of public outcry, and she was labeled "America's worst mom" and suggested it was equivalent to child abuse. But that's a different issue altogether.

0. http://nysun.com/opinion/why-i-let-my-9-year-old-ride-subway...

How silly, I rode the city bus alone around 9, and this was before cell phones.

The school bussing (at least in my area of the States) is provided by a bus company which contracts with the school district. The bus company in turn maintains busses, and hires drivers (presumably?) part-time. They also provide bussing services for field trips, sporting events, etc. in addition to daily bussing to the school itself.

I think quite a lot of rural schools in the UK would have some sort of specialised bus service. US suburban areas are generally much less dense than UK ones and often have much worse public transport, if any, so the rural routes are probably a better comparison.

They're usually part-timers or neighborhood parents volunteering.

I have never heard of a bus driver being a volunteer position, is that something that happens near you? And, if so, is it a public school district?

This has been my experience as well. It's either retirees or stay at home moms/dads that drive the buses part time. They may not be purely volunteer (no pay), but it's definitely a part time job. Couple of hours in the morning and afternoon.

Also, it seems to be mostly in rural areas. Some drivers keep the buses at home during the school year. And, these are large, full size buses. If you live in a medium sized or large city, it's probably different.

The government benefits package has been a major selling point in the past; If you want a pension (or second one as a retiree) it can really help the ends meet. Pay in the 2000s was about $24k a year.

It was in a school district that had two high schools, and my high school had 2,000 students. There were something like 15 elementary schools at the time. Yes, it is a public school district. Is that not normal?

never heard of that. At least in California there are strict requirements and qualifications to be able to transport children on a school bus

Driving a school bus requires a CDL in every state.

If they enforced it, then it must not be that hard to get. It looks like you just need to take a test to get one.

The test is a bit more involved than a normal driving test. A normal test just involves reading street signs and how to handle things like right of way, don't pass on the right, use your blinker, basic important topics. CDL tests ask questions about maintenance (how often to inspect tires?), about how big trucks move on the road compared to little cars (which kind of truck could get stuck on a RR crossing?), and misc stuff like hazmat diamonds. It's not the hardest test in the world but it's more studying than a normal DL test.

It also carries stricter enforcement of traffic violations, and mandatory drug testing.

I got a ticket for an improper lane change and the judge asked if I had a CDL which seemed to imply it would have been revoked.

Yes it is very ingrained in society and featured in many movies.