School Bus Driver Appreciation day lands on February 22nd, and it’s a day we can take to appreciate all our local bus drivers. Bus drivers are often overlooked in our everyday lives, so having an appreciation day is very important. A lot of people don’t realize how important they are and how vastly different people’s lives would be without them. Not all parents can take their kids to school. Some of them have to get to work early and no kid wants to wake up earlier than 4 am to get ready and head to school only to get there really early without any of your friends there. Kids and teens like and also need their sleep since they are still growing. Other teens/kids would need to walk to school and back in difficult weather and long distances. No kid should have to walk that much in such weather or in general. If their home is near then walking a short distance is understandable, but a long walk is too much for a small kid. Teenagers can walk such distances, but they shouldn’t have to. Even if they could walk, they would need to wake up much earlier if they live far away and want to get to school on time. Bus drivers ensure that kids in the area can get to school on time and without over-exerting themselves. Like Mr. Joshua Hall says, bus drivers are like our unsung heroes. “Bus drivers are pretty awesome people and I really appreciate what they do,” Hall said. “Transporting our kids safely, it’s a big deal.” He’s so right; transporting kids and keeping them safe from any person with ill intentions is a really important job. Regular buses ensure you get from one destination to another in a normal time frame and are a lot safer than walking in most cities. School buses ensure that the same thing happens with kids. Experiences relating to bus drivers vary from person to person. “I’ve usually had good experiences with bus drivers,” Sam Mcdonalds said. “They’ve been really nice people.” Mr. Hall says that he’s had pretty good experiences with bus drivers as well. “I actually had really cool bus drivers. I remember me and my friends would sit behind the bus driver and chat with her,” Hall said. Almost every bus driver around goes underappreciated and sometimes even underpaid, but they still go and take kids to and from school. Let’s appreciate our bus drivers and thank them for all the work they do. Give them a card or a piece of candy, and I’m sure it’ll make their day so much more bearable with all the screaming children they have to drive constantly.