Jacksonville ISD Bus Drivers Keep an Eye on Students' Well-being

The hiss of brakes and the swing of a red stop sign are a familiar morning scene as students file onto buses with backpacks as their parents wave goodbye. Tens of thousands of yellow school buses log millions of miles each year ferrying Texas schoolchildren to and from school and to extracurricular activities. 

Bill Avera, chief of police for Jacksonville ISD, saw that daily connectedness between driver and student as an opportunity to help boost the district’s safety and wellness efforts. 

“I just think those bus drivers are key,” said Avera. “They are the first person to see them every day and the last person to see them every afternoon. 

“They tend to make very good relationships with those students,” he said. “Not only are the bus drivers seeing the subtle changes in behavior, in attitude, in hygiene, but they are also in a position often as a trusted adult to getting outcries.” For example, Avera recounted how a student told a bus driver that he hadn’t seen his parents in two days. The driver immediately alerted the administration. 

“It began to make me think, in the age of school safety, these folks have to know that they are on the frontline.” Avera said about 60% of students ride a school bus in his small rural district in East Texas. 

A few years ago, as Avera sought ways to stay on top of school safety mandates and address the mental health needs of Jacksonville ISD students, he began to enlist the help of bus drivers to look out for student concerns. That effort continues today, and school leaders appreciate how Avera has expanded it to other district staff. 

“We in Jacksonville ISD believe that teaching and learning cannot occur if our students, staff, and stakeholders do not feel safe,” said Jacksonville ISD Superintendent Brad Stewart. “To that end, Chief Avera has long trained our bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and other auxiliary staff on what to see, say, and do if they suspect that a student may be in distress, or experiencing some type of crisis.”  

Being on the Frontlines 

Psychologist Adam Sáenz believes the frontline of student mental health intervention is the schools. 

“Kids have to go to school,” said Sáenz, who serves as supervising psychologist for Texas A&M’s College of Medicine and department of Athletics. “So, what that means is that those schools are daily collecting baskets of all of those kids struggling with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, chronic absenteeism, and dysregulated behavior with an inability to focus and learn. They all come together in our school and it’s absolutely overwhelming.” 

According to a recent report by the Texas Department of State Health Services, 246 of the 254 counties in the state are designated by the federal government as having shortages in mental health providers. Those shortages are more acute in rural counties. 

Along with a lack of providers, Sáenz has also seen the residual effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in his work in education. “In 2019, 20% of teens were struggling with a severe mental health issue -- 30% of them received treatment,” he said. “In 2023, the effects of the pandemic were not over. Now, 45% of high school students will experience some type of mental health issue before they graduate.” 

But he believes initiatives like those in Jacksonville ISD are reason to have hope. 

“You don’t have to be a thoracic surgeon to save a life with CPR,” Sáenz said. “You don’t have to be a licensed mental health provider to administer basic mental health first aid as a first wave of intervention.” 

See Something, Say Something 

Avera taps into the pool of paraprofessionals and auxiliary personnel across the district who interact with students every day. “While school safety is important for all of us in the security and safety business,” he said, “it is also important to have these other eyes that can tell us what they are seeing and what the kids are saying to them.” 

He bases his efforts on the “If you see something, say something” model of policing adopted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Sáenz agreed that adults have an intuitive sense of what normal behaviors look like in students and recognize when something is off. 

“We recognize that the school bus driver is generally the first district employee to see our students each day and well may be the last,” Stewart said. “Next are the cafeteria workers. If they know what to look for in terms of changes is appearance, attitude, demeanor, hygiene, etc., they are empowered to report this to a campus administrator, their supervisor, or a JISD police officer.” 

While they do not have a formal reporting system, Avera has included student discipline and student well-being curriculum in the training bus drivers are required to have each year. 

“We take a 30-minute block and make it work,” he said. “Otherwise, we go at the start of the year to the bus drivers’ convocation meeting and say to them, ‘Here’s the part you play in this and it’s integral. You are transportation professionals, and you are transporting our most precious commodity. Part of being safe is not only being able to handle that 40-foot–long, two-ton machine, it’s also about knowing your students.’” 

Avera began to think about other staff who interact with students daily and pinpointed the cafeteria workers as the next group to enlist. “Those ladies and gentlemen see those kids every day, twice a day. They know the ones that are hungry, they know ones who haven’t eaten, the ones who don’t eat from Friday afternoon to Monday,” he said. “That’s a huge pool of resources.” 

Greatest Impact 

He encourages other districts to think about the people who can make the greatest impact within the shortest amount of time and with the least amount of effort. 

“We are not going to be able to hire enough police officers, counselors, mental health professionals, psychologists, LPCS, MSW, or anything else in our schools,” he said, noting the budget and hiring challenges faced by districts across the state. But districts do have capable paraprofessionals. “They don’t need to have an advanced degree to have a basic understanding of what type of things would be key indicators of what students may be trafficked, abused, or neglected.” 

Avera added that he encourages staff to report something in good faith and not worry if they err on the side of caution. 

“We get beneficial reports from them every school year. This information helps counselors,” he said. 

Sáenz said districts should offer mental health training much like they do first aid training. He suggests districts invest in social emotional learning for students and staff. 

“If you just get those folks engaged and trained, maybe you get one report a year,” said Avera. “But that is one kid you may have stopped from the pathway of violence, maybe one that you save from doing self-harm. You can’t quantify a negative, but if you don’t ask you don’t know.” 

This article appeared in the November 2024 Texas Lone Star.