FAQ

• A positive attitude, a desire and interest in working with kids, and a willingness to be a part of a team.
• A Commercial Drivers License (CDL), with passenger and school bus endorsements. (We will train.)
• A clean driving record: no more than 2 moving violations in the past 5 years, and no alcohol-related convictions.
• Ability to pass a criminal background check, including no felony convictions.

Voyageur Bus Company offers wages that are competitive with other transportation positions in our region. Contact the training department for further details.

Driving a school bus is a split-shift sort of job. Morning shifts generally run from approximately 6:00 AM until about 9:00 AM, while afternoon shifts go from roughly 2:00 PM until 5:00 PM. Start and end times for individual routes vary within those approximate time frames.

We have varieties of routes available. You might drive for the Duluth public schools, or for the Edison charter schools. You could drive elementary-aged children, middle school students, or high school students, or any combination of the three. There are regular education routes or special education routes. You might be assigned to a full-sized, 77-passenger vehicle or to a wheelchair lift-equipped special education van. All sorts of options exist, and we will work with you as much as possible within the framework of our needs to assign you to a route that fits your interests, skills, and schedule.

We provide a whole range of charter bus services beyond daily school bus routes. While there are never any guarantees of additional hours, if you are interested in driving for these charter services the chances are good that you will be able to pick up some extra time. The longer you are with the company and the more you prove your abilities, the greater your chances will be for additional work.

Our motorcoach drivers are almost always hired from within our school bus driver pool of employees. Generally speaking, you need at least a year of proven school bus experience with our company in order to be hired as a motorcoach driver. If you have previous experience as a motorcoach driver, however, you can contact that department concerning the feasibility of moving directly into that position.

While we work hard to ensure that you receive good information about when to expect the bus at your child's designated stop, and to make sure our buses are always running on time, all sorts of variables can naturally disrupt our best-laid plans. Snow storms, closed roads, children who are not riding the bus that day, or occasional bus breakdowns can all throw our timing off a bit, while the ordinary transformations that a route undergoes as children are added and dropped can alter a schedule at any given time. Some routes - particularly those designated for special education students - are more susceptible to these variations than others.

As a rule, however, you can expect that our buses will be on time within a 1-2 minute window of time, and that we will not leave a bus stop early without certainty that a child is not going to be there. What we ask from you is that you ensure your child is at the bus stop at least 5 minutes prior to the scheduled pickup time - and 10-15 minutes early for the first week or two of school as schedules firm up and stabilize.

If you have questions about your bus stop time, feel free as always to call us and we will work to answer your question or resolve your issue for you.

If you feel that your child is assigned to the incorrect bus stop, or that there are safety or other issues related to the stop's location, it may be possible to make changes that will better meet your needs.

If your need is related to any Duluth ISD #709 route, whether regular or special education, you will need to contact the ISD #709 transportation department to address your concern. Voyageur Bus Company is not authorized to make changes to any routes contracted from ISD #709. However, if your concern is related either to an Edison or a Udac route, we would be happy to discuss it with you. Give us a call or use the Contact form on the web site to get in touch with us.

We ask that you please understand that we cannot meet every such request.

The ISD #709 Transportation Department can be reached at 218-336-8970.

If your child is not going to ride the bus on a given day and is generally the only student at that stop, we really appreciate a call to that effect. We can notify the driver, which often can save both time and miles.

We all know that children lose stuff. Hats, mittens, gloves, books, toys, shoes, coats, notebooks, iPods, lunch containers, violins and trombones - all of it and then some gets left on our buses during the course of a school year.

Generally speaking, if the item is something of particularly significant value, such as an instrument or electronic device, drivers will bring it into the office immediately when they find it. If your child has lost something of this nature, give us a call as soon as you know and we will try to track it down for you.

Everyday, not-so-valuable items are generally kept on the bus for a week or two, so the best route to recovery is to have your child check with the driver the next time he or she rides the bus. After that time period, drivers will bring items into the office and place them in our lost and found bin. If you suspect something was left on the bus and your child is unable to find it by asking the driver, you are welcome to come to our office at any time to check through the bin to see if what you're looking for is there.