National School Bus Safety Week is held during the third week of October each year. The annual campaign is a public education program to address the importance of school bus safety. This year the theme was “#STOPONRED!” celebrated Oct. 16 to 20.

School bus safety week is also a time to show gratitude to the bus drivers and staff for their hard work and professionalism.

Such is the case with the bus transportation company for Salisbury Township School District – Paragon Transit, Inc. and its President Russ A. Leibensperger.

“Two individuals have been responsible for training all of my school bus drivers since I started with Salisbury School District back in 2005,” Leibensperger said.

These two individuals are Phil Merenda and Cat Takacs who have trained and retrained over 100 drivers each. Each took a 30-hour course on how to teach and are state certified. They renew and update their credentials every year for the state.

Operations Manager Nancy Kern is responsible for the hiring of new part-time drivers – going through credentialing with the Federal Motor Carriers Association, obtaining clearances, monitoring the Commercial Driver’s License permit and asking questions of new drivers such as why they want to become part-time drivers.

Kern then turns the new hires over to Merenda or Takacs for approximately 14 hours of training with a book, six hours behind the wheel and 12 to 15 hours or more practical experience before testing.

After training, Kern says drivers sign a one year contract as Paragon Transit pays for all testing for the new driver.

A bus driver than has to be recertified every four years which includes seven hours of training, refresher of the driver’s manual, a computer test set up by the state and three hours behind the wheel.

Every driver is required to have an annual physical and undergo random drug testing.

Trainers are responsible for determining changes in the manual from the state each year.

After retiring from Mack Trucks and being home for two years, Merenda’s wife said, “Why don’t you get dressed and get a job?”

“I was getting in the way and wanted a part-time job,” Merenda joked. “Did I know what I was getting into? Probably not.”

Merenda said the most rewarding part of his job is driving special needs children.

“They are totally different. You have to drive them for a month before you realize how special they are,” Merenda said.

“They always have a smile on their faces. What they go through doesn’t seem like a bother to them. Why do my aches and pains make me grouse? Theirs don’t – they always have a smile on their faces.”

Now in his 20th year, Merenda said his wife has voiced the question, “How much longer are you going to do this?” He said he is not looking to retire anytime soon. He has summers off and that’s when he and his wife spend time together.

Takacs was a part-time pharmacist technician and wanted something else part time temporarily until she found her niche.

“My husband, Dennis, said, ‘Do you think you can drive a school bus?’ and that’s all I needed to give it a try,” Takacs said. That was 23 years ago.

In her early years of driving, Takacs was named driver of the year for her bus terminal. She remembers a time when she drove a number of senior citizens to Vanity Fair in Reading. “A guy came on the bus behind his wife commenting on his driver being a woman. Later, he said, ‘You know you handled this bus better than my wife handles her Volkswagen Beetle.”

Takacs realized by driving for the district, she would only work 180 days and would be home with her kids during the summer.

For Leibensperger, he is proud to say Paragon Transit has traveled 5 million safe miles on buses with Salisbury. The drivers have made 3 million safe stops.

“We have the best buses,” Leibensperger said. “We were the first in the area with a video camera on every bus with sound. Last year, we installed strobe lights on the stop signs on the buses. And all buses have vandal locks to sit securely while students are off site at away games or field trips.”

Both Merenda and Takacs say discharging the students is more dangerous than picking up the children due to the motorists on the road.

The frustration for all bus drivers is the motorist who doesn’t know the laws or those who disregard them.

“It seems everyone is in a hurry today,” Kern said.

The Salisbury Police Department participates in a program called “Safe Stop” were police follow school buses on their routes to make sure motorists stop for students.

The Paragon Transit fleet includes 30 big buses, 12 small buses and 12 vans.

“In my second year of driving, I drove a van for two months with four special needs children. One student was autistic. She would often scream while I was driving and I was told she could speak. After about three weeks, I stopped at her house and her mother brought her out. I smiled and said, ‘Good Morning.’ She looked at me and smiled and said ‘hello.’ That sums up the satisfaction to a ‘T’ of driving children. You can’t get anything better than that,” Merenda said.