This summer has gone by VERY quickly it seems! You don’t get much of a break when you jump from the regular school year, into summer school and summer programing into yet another school year, LOL., we cannot complain as it is much different than where we were last year! When we reach this point of the summer, we are VERY much gearing up for the upcoming school year. Routes are being typed, parents called, school registrations taking place and new drivers and monitors hired. We are hiring at all three locations: Aledo, Peru, and Rock Island. Please consider filling out an application online, click the “Apply Here” yellow button!
This year we have acquired several new contracts in the Illinois River Valley Area, and we are thrilled to transport all our new students this upcoming school year. Our Branch Managers will be taking care of their prospective registrations and routes. Our local numbers are below:
Aledo, Illinois 309.582.2922
Peru, Illinois 888.712.3506
Rock Island, Illinois 309.788.7932
The Pandemic is not yet behind us, but we are hopeful that the worst is behind us. 2020 was quite an interesting year. Finishing up the worst flu season ever over the winter of 2019-2020 we worked our way into a much-needed Spring Break in 2020. While most were taking their break or vacations, the world and the country shut down one by one. Our Illinois Schools closed by mid-March 2020, thinking we would be taking a break, we were faced with shutting our doors as schools hustled to go online for the remainder of the year. All group programing and summer programs were mostly closed as well in the Summer of 2020, and many were furloughed awaiting the word from our Governor on what the fate of schools would be for the 2020-2021 School Year. Looking back, The Year 2020 scarcely seems like it existed. After a very long school year with remote learners and in person learners and part time bus riders, we are hopeful that things will become a little bit more normal with a new school year.
Mask Mandates and School Settings and Bus Riders are still in flux with things changing with the NEW Delta Variant of Covid-19 coming at us quickly as I write this new update. Currently, our school buses are under a mask mandate, and we will most likely need to continue those mandates as we navigate the upcoming school year. Our offices are open, but to our employees only. Please email or call your area office to get information on employment, student bus times or charter bus information.
We’d like to say thank you to all who have weathered The Pandemic with us it certainly has been a test of patience and loyalty to your craft and our family business. Our deepest condolences to those who have lost their lives during the last 18 months of The Pandemic, employees, their families, our students, their families, and anyone touched by loss due to Covid-19; we are truly sorry for your loss.
We wish everyone a restful remainder of their summer and a safe upcoming school year.
Finally! Winter is becoming a distant memory and our giant ice piles are finally melting! This past winter is one for the record books in more ways than one. We had record snow falls, with several BIG snow storms. The first came over Thanksgiving Weekend, giving us all a good taste of what was to come the rest of the winter.
Somewhere around 60 inches of snow fell over the course of this EPIC winter of 2018-19. We had record BELOW freezing temps at the tail end of January and some of our district cancelled school anywhere from 5 to 12 days of school! The kids were loving it, the parents, not so much!
We are grateful we made the BIG move to our current location at: 7909 – 42nd Street West, Rock Island. Despite the terrible weather this winter, we were able to be much more comfortable in our new surroundings. Our drivers and monitors have much more room to walk around and stretch their legs in between routes. We have developed a bit more family/community/togetherness time with our potlucks and surprise pop up lunches. We are blessed to have several ladies who are very generous with their off duty time and do a lot of cooking for our family of employees. No one goes hungry here!
Our winter kicks off with our Christmas Party in December, we get to celebrate together with a catered meal and visit before the crazy holiday season comes to a close. Once we come back to school from break we start planning soup lunches and potlucks to get us through the yucky winter months. We had our 1st Annual Black History Month Potluck, which was a BIG HIT! So, many dishes to share with everyone, comfort soul food at it’s finest! Shortly after that celebration we planned our 1st Annual Mardi Gras lunch! WOW! King Cakes, Red Beans and Rice, Gumbo and much more.
We have found that our new place although much much bigger than what we had before in square footage, has brought us all closer together. We are able to have fun events that bring us closer together as a family as a community. We are all about the food here folks! Nothing says family like a shared meal.
Yes, the wheels of the bus are still going round and round, but we need to have some down time too. Our employees are hard workers and we love to reward our staff with surprise donuts, coffee and treats!
Our December Safety Meeting was a TEAM WORK workshop and they broke up into teams and constructed Gingerbread Houses! Over the Holidays, we had our Facebook Fans, employees and family vote on the FAVE and the winners won a MOVIE certificate!
We are gearing up for the BUSY SPRING ahead! If you find yourself reading about our winter and are realizing that you missed out and want to join the FUN! Then come on in and see us, we always have an empty chair at the table. You can always call with questions about how to become a professional school bus driver or school bus monitor. We could always use an extra hand and the kids could always use another caring face to say “Good Morning’ too.
