The 2020-2021 school year is unlike any in GCHS history. This is just as true for students as it is for teachers and staff, who not only are working within the context of this strange year, but also for the school’s many non-teaching staff members such as bus drivers and security. With hybrid learning in full swing, these essential workers are finally able to get back to doing what they love. 

“I love my job. I always say that I’m paid to play, because I get to go into charters… and I love the kids and getting to hear about their days and stuff like that. Typically, in a normal year, we usually start at six o’clock and start runs around 7:30. Then come in after we do our AM runs, and in that time we do, you know, pre trips, child checks and all that to make sure our buses are efficiently running post trip. And we go home, and then depending on your schedule, if you have middays or, you know, tech runs or whatever. You come back and do the PM run, and then you do your post trip at the end of the day,” said Sandra Robin, a driver for Durham School Services, which oversees transportation for GCHS.

Robin has an assortment of other responsibilities when driving students, most of which revolve around safety especially now during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We still have the same responsibilities, but students and just people everywhere are wearing masks and sanitizing, all that stuff, and making sure students are wearing their masks. Besides the fact of driving the bus, we make sure they stay in their seats. So they have some hand sanitizer on their hands every day, you know, stuff like that so it makes things a little safer, there’s more to it,” Robin said.

Serafin Johnson also drives for Durham School Services. Johnson, like Robin, has also experienced a change to her day-to-day life. 

“Last year, we were… still coming in and started to run our buses, even though school wasn’t going on.[…] Any vehicle, if you let it sit for too long, you’re going to have problems with it. So… we were coming on site and driving buses around, keeping them running and making sure that everything was maintained,” said Johnson.

Even with these extra opportunities, Durham School services still lost some of its employees.

So, not all of us, but some of us, some people were still laid off.. Some of us are here and if we were doing District 46 service. So, in the summertime, I believe it was two days a week. And then, we’re still continuing to deliver food, two days a week, once they go back to school,” said Johnson.

Another key role in our school is security. Jim Mazzetta is the security director at GCHS. Like Durham’s drivers, he had to find innovative ways to keep the school running, even during full-remote learning.

“I wanted [security guards] to work because they need money to support their families, so they actually painted just about the entire school. Eight months were gone or nine months. So they were all painting Like the classrooms and the hallways , painted the arena and painted the dance room just about, you know, trim around all the doors, and stuff like that,” said Mazzetta. 

While security guards and bus drivers may fill a different niche in keeping our school going, they both share one major similarity, a genuine caring for the students they work with on a daily basis. 

“We have a lot of drivers, who are here for many years, they’ve watched these kids grow up. If you ask a bus driver if they have kids, some will be like, ‘Yeah, I have 60,’ because every kid they bus is like their own child. And they look out for them, and they’re saying he’s just like they were their own children. It’s one of the amazing things with being a bus driver. You form that relationship with your bus because you pick them up in the morning. You’re one of the first adults they see, except  for parents. At the end of the day, you know, you’re one of the last. And some students… they really formed a bond with a driver, by talking about what’s going in their lives. You know, it’s, it’s really fulfilling,” said Robin.