I love the new busing strike at Lakota schools. Nothing infuriates me more than slow-moving vehicles clogging up the roadways, and since school has started back for the fall, all the buses hauling kids around to a communist government school in my district that eats money insatiably has been a sore subject for me. I’ve dealt with this busing issue for years; I remember when Lakota cut busing as an extortion method to push parents to pass a tax increase back when we had to fight those levies every few months. And I certainly remember how it was during Covid. Parents learned not to have busing, and as far as I’m concerned, parents can take their kids to school. They’ve done it before; they can do it again. They already get a free babysitting service in the school paid for by the taxpayers, so the least they can do is drive their kids to school. But my favorite school board member, the only one who has been really good on busing issues to make things better for parents, Darbi Boddy, is supportive of busing services and has wanted to expand coverage. See, we don’t agree on everything, just most things. Darbi ultimately is not a professional politician, but she’s in politics the way it’s supposed to be. She’s a mom, and she thinks like a parent. So, she is undoubtedly sympathetic toward school bus drivers as they voted to strike just before Labor Day 2023. And what’s unusual about this strike isn’t about money or benefits. The busing services are contracted out to a company called Petermann, which handles the needs of the drivers, who are well compensated. Instead, the problem is over surveillance, a similar tech issue as is at the core of the Hollywood strike of actors and writers. Technology has turned into a tyrant, and the drivers aren’t happy about it, so they have walked off the job.

Of course, there is more to the story, which is why this is a compelling analysis. Lakota schools want to micromanage the bus drivers in ways they would never dare do with their employees, and because of Petermann handling the union responsibilities, it has given Lakota schools a chance to try and fix their social perception problem with parents during an election year, without having to take responsibility for anything and making members of their radical leftist union upset. Lakota has been very soft on pedophilia over the last several years, following some genuinely detrimental behavior with several past employees that have damaged the public school brand. Followed by some very disappointing report cards from the state and a financial situation where the lawyers are essentially running the school, the current school board, except for Darbi Boddy, has been a complete disaster. So they need a public relations push, and this school bus driver issue has been, for them, a golden opportunity. Suddenly, they want to use technology to monitor if the bus drivers are putting both hands on the steering wheel while turning and if they are staying within the speed limit. The same policy is not present to ensure that Lakota teachers behave themselves. If a kid shoots a spitball at the back of a bus driver’s head, and the driver yells at the kid. The act will be caught on video. But if it happens in a classroom, nobody will ever know. So based on that premise, Lakota management, starting at the school board, is talking out of both sides of its mouth, which is a standard from them, not an exception.

Without question, there are school bus drivers who are cheating slugs. They don’t fill their logbooks out correctly; monitoring will help correct that problem. But the number is likely under 25%. There is no precise justification for abusing the other 75% with overmanagement while the rest of the school culture gets away with horrendous acts of defilement and social degradation. Sure, bus drivers park in places they shouldn’t be to associate with other drivers who shouldn’t be there between pickup tasks. There are many reasons to justify the increased monitoring of the bus-driving staff. But the question is, “Should they do it?” Given the government school culture, the least of the problems are the bus drivers, yet the school board and superintendent want to be harsh with them in just another phony plea to convince parents that management cares about the kids. Parents interact with school bus drivers as representatives of the school more than they do the school itself, as the bus usually comes to their homes personally, where the school is someplace the kids disappear to. This has allowed the school board to appear tough on discipline over employees they don’t even have responsibility for while Lakota’s teacher’s union members get away with everything. If Lakota wanted to be tough on employees, it would have reacted much differently to the many abuses of kids that get reported but are slowly dealt with at the school board to protect the school’s image rather than to make kids a priority. But if a school bus driver goes over the speed limit by driving 40 MPH on a road that’s only 35, even though the rest of the traffic is going 45 MPH, then the push will be to write that driver up for a safety violation. Technology has allowed for this kind of oppressive micromanagement, which is not good.

It’s hard enough to get drivers for a school bus; it’s a part-time job at best that you have to spend your whole day doing, first early in the morning, to pick the kids up. Then, mid-day pre-rush hour traffic takes them home. It’s an idea I don’t think society should have ever started. It should be the responsibility of the parents to take their kids to get an education, wherever it is. Bussing has made it way too easy for parents. In this case, it has been an all too easy target for a school board that has mismanaged its affairs to appear more diligent than they are because the introduction of expanded technology has allowed tyrants to have power over others they should never have. Mainly when the utilization is not applied evenly to all parties involved. The bus drivers are being punished for disciplines that the school board would never apply to the teachers and administrators under their management. The third-party Petermann drivers are an easy target with expendable employees. And if nobody goes to school, the teachers get a more leisurely day, which we saw they were too willing to exploit during COVID-19. Technology isn’t used to improve everything, only to control it for power over innocent people while the real trouble persists elsewhere. The hope is that parents will think Lakota is doing an excellent job with the safety of their children by monitoring speed limits and hand placement during driving while the teachers are trying to convince boys that they are girls and that everyone can use whatever bathroom they want. Meanwhile, the lawyers are using taxpayer money to settle every legal challenge that comes their way, and they are trying to do to Darbi Boddy what the school board is trying to do to the bus drivers: blame them for all the lousy mismanagement of the district, when the real trouble is in their back yard, which many parents will never otherwise see.

Rich Hoffman