It's an impressive sight. Each morning just before sunrise, an army travels. Buses, with lights flashing but their color otherwise obscured by the darkness, pull out of the Springdale School District’s bus lot on the way to pick up and deliver hundreds of kids to school.
Springdale runs 123 routes every weekday. The Springdale district stretches from Arkansas 303 (War Eagle Mill Road) on the east to five or six miles west of Tontitown. It covers 188 square miles, which is about average for the size of a school district such as Springdale, said Dana Samples, director of transportation for Springdale Public Schools.
The cows remained asleep in nearby fields as two blurry-eyed children climbed aboard Bus No. 119 last spring. Their mother drove them each day to Spring Valley Baptist Church east of Springdale to meet the bus at 6:10 a.m. The bus traveled about 15 miles farther before dropping its passengers at Sonora Elementary and Middle schools at 7:40 a.m. The last child returned home on the route about 4:45 p.m.
This route is the longest and most rural for Springdale. The roads are mostly dirt, and several present hairpin turns up or down a hill. The driver must cross U.S. 412 twice — which is difficult each time. And on that day, the spring dew was fogging up the bus windows, so the driver opened the door to see oncoming cars.
“I’ve seen every animal out here but a bear,” said driver Tamara Bacon. “It’s a beautiful route. There’s no traffic to speak of.”
The bus picks some students up at their homes along main roads; others must travel to the end of their long driveways or more remote roads to meet the bus. A grandfather delivered his granddaughter on a four-wheeler.
“The bus can’t go where it can’t turn around,” Bacon explained as she skillfully performed one of the three-point turns in a 36-foot-long bus.
Across town, Tracy Millsap ran three routes in the time it took Baker to run one. She hauled 146 elementary school — in two trips — and 75 secondary school kids on Bus No. 1 to and from Smith Elementary School and Har-Ber High School, a process mirrored each day.
Bus No. 1 picked up kids only on 40th street — mostly at Springdale Ridge Apartments — and delivered them to Smith. At 7:07 a.m., the bus blocked traffic on 40th Street; at 7:20 a.m., the kids unloaded at school. Most kids ride Millsap’s bus for only about 10 minutes.
Millsap returned the bus to the apartments for more Smith children and took them straight to school. One more trip on 40th collected kids headed to Har-Ber High School.
The early birds on Bacon’s Bus No. 119 get a chance to take nearly an hourlong nap before arriving at school and before returning home — and if not napping, a student is almost certain to yawn several times during the ride. “That happens often,” Bacon said.
She also kind of relaxes the rules on her bus to allow eating or drinking, because the pickup time comes before breakfast and the trip home can take 1 1/2 hours for the last child. She also allows them to listen to music through headphones or play electronic games.
Bacon rode this route when she was a Springdale student and knows most of the families along the way. Her relationship with the kids was evident as she asked about ballgames, kittens and if they ate breakfast.
In Bus No. 1, the younger children twittered and giggled from seats where their feet didn’t reach the floor. After two elementary runs, the secondary bus was eerily quiet, with headphones in most students’ ears. But a soft conversation focused on piercings and diet points.
Millsap watches her kids, too. As the bus pulled up for its first pickup of the day, more than 80 children were crowded at the bus stop — with little or no adult supervision. Millsap saw kids throwing each others’ backpacks into the heavy morning traffic on 40th Street. Older kids reported the incident, and the offenders were referred to the assistant principal for a discussion about safety, punishment and calls home to parents.
The job is one more way the schools fulfill a duty to care for their charges. Each bus driver starts his daily route by pulling open the hood and checking the oil and fluid levels of his bus. Further checks confirm the presence and operation of tires, mirrors, doors and emergency equipment.
Back at the bus lot at the end of the day, each driver is careful to focus on the most important detail — the smallest passengers. He walks to the back of the bus to double-check for the sometimes rowdy students-turned-angels, exhausted and asleep before reaching home — even if it’s only 10 minutes away.
LAURINDA JOENKS IS A FEATURES REPORTER AT THE MORNING NEWS AND HAS LIVED IN SPRINGDALE SINCE 1990.