Open Post: Hosted By The Party Bus Used To Take High School Kids On A Field Trip

Well, y’all there’s a “shortage” of school bus drivers and some have blamed that on the low pay and the risk that comes from being around unvaccinated snot-nosed children during a pandemic. So when teens at Boston’s Brooke Charter School had a field trip and couldn’t find a school bus to drive them, so the faculty got them a party bus complete with a stripper pole and party lights. Hopefully, those high school kids wiped the poles down before swinging on them–I’m not sure teenagers know strip club procedure, though.

NBC Boston said that Jim Mayers, an 11th-grade Advanced Placement language and composition teacher, posted in a now-deleted tweet about the bus switch up. Jim explained that a bunch of systemic issues led to him having to rent a neon lights-filled strip club on wheels and hoped that the tweet would bring attention to them. He wrote:

“It is a funny story, but there actually is a real bus shortage and it speaks to major flaws in our education system… I’m worried that there is too much attention being paid to the tweet itself, or simply the fact that it went viral, instead of attending to the many systemic issues that are facing not just my students, but students all across the country… If it’s gotten people to talk about the overall infrastructure of our education system, and the different ways schools are prioritized, then that’s good too.”

Apparently, with a struggle to hire bus drivers, some states have enlisted National Guard members to drive kids around. Business Insider spoke to the owner of Deluxe Limousine, who rented the bus out to Brooke Charter School, and he explained that his drivers make between $30 and $35 an hour. The average hourly wage for a Boson school bus driver is just under $20/hr according to Indeed.

Deluxe Limousine’s site described their party bus as a 50-person Motor Coach with a “dancing pole, show lights, a bar, and a top-of-the-line sound system.” The owner said:

“We were booked one day before by the high school. I suppose they couldn’t find anything else available… maybe that’s why the party bus company was the last chance to move these kids.”

Jim urged people who were invested in the viral story to go to their local school board meetings and get involved.

Honestly, those kids are lucky. School bus seats feel like they’re made out of concrete slabs wrapped in unyieldingly taught leather with no seat belts and rounded edges which somehow still cut you. The most dangerous thing on a party bus is breaking your arm because you fell off the stripper pole mid-highway or finding a leftover baggie of coke in the seats. But seriously, if there are any parents who have a problem with this, someone should direct them to The Magic School Bus. Ms. Frizzle drove her school bus toward a throbbing butthole!

Pic: Deluxe Limousine Boston