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Seven daily routes plus a midday route covering roughly 380 square miles. The job is the same every morning and every afternoon: every kid gets to school, and every kid gets home safe.
Departments / Transportation
Seven daily routes plus a midday route covering roughly 380 square miles. The job is the same every morning and every afternoon: every kid gets to school, and every kid gets home safe.
Washington state law says any student living more than one mile from their school is eligible for the bus, measured along the shortest reasonable walking route. Inside that one-mile walk area, kids are expected to walk or be dropped off — unless the route to school crosses a hazard the district has documented. Hazardous-condition exceptions are reviewed case by case; if you're not sure whether your stretch qualifies, call us and we'll walk through it together.
For students with an IEP or 504 plan that includes specialized transportation, distance rules don't apply — service is built around the plan. The same is true for students protected under McKinney-Vento (homeless education) and students in foster care, who keep their bus assignment even if their living situation changes mid-year. If any of those apply to your family, contact Student Services and we'll coordinate with Transportation.
Every enrolled student is assigned to a route based on their home address. Route assignments and stop information are visible in Skyward Family Access under the Busing tab. If you're new to the district, your route is set up after enrollment is finalized; we'll send the stop and pick-up time before the first day.
We currently run Routes 1 through 7 in the morning and afternoon, plus a Midday Route for half-day Beacon Elementary preschoolers. If you can't see your assignment in Skyward, look on the district website under Department/Transportation/Bus route information, all stops are posted and updated regularly.
When weather forces a change — full closure, two-hour late start, early release — we push the decision out the same way every time. The fastest way to hear it is FlashAlert by email or text (sign up at https://flashalert.net/id/MontesanoSD). The home page of the district website shows the same banner, and the district phone line at (360) 249-3942 plays the recorded version. Local TV (KOMO 4, KING 5, KIRO 7, FOX Q13) carries the same information between roughly 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. on weather mornings.
Two practical notes for parents on a delay:
We don't run separate snow routes — when conditions are bad enough that a road can't be driven, that becomes a closure decision, not a re-route. If the day is borderline, expect a FlashAlert by 5:30 a.m.
We can review a stop change for safety reasons (a crossing that's become unsafe, a stop with no sightline) or for a regular childcare arrangement at a different address — for example, a grandparent who watches your child every Tuesday. Send the request in writing to Samantha Green with the dates, addresses, and which days of the week.
We can't accommodate one-off changes by phone the same morning. If your plan for the day changes after the bus has already run, the school office handles it from there.
Bus expectations are simple: stay seated, voice down, hands and feet to yourself, listen to the driver, no food or drinks. Drivers handle small things in the moment; a written referral goes to the building principal for anything that interferes with safety. Repeat issues can mean a suspension from the bus — but we always try to talk it through with the family first.
For elementary students, please make sure your child knows their stop number, their bus number, and one trusted adult's phone number. Drivers know their kids by face and by name, but on the first few weeks of school those three things are how we sort out a confused kindergartner in about thirty seconds.
We're hiring drivers — and we'll train you for the CDL if you don't already have one. Driving for the district means split shifts (morning and afternoon), real benefits (SEBB health, Washington state retirement, paid sick and personal days), and an easy commute home to dinner. Most drivers also pick up extra hours on field trips and athletic runs.
Open driver positions are posted with the rest of our jobs on the careers page. Questions? Call HR at (360) 249-3942 or call Samantha directly — drivers love giving the "is this for you?" tour.
Buses are the first contact our youngest kids have with the district every day, and the last one. We try to make that thirty-minute window something parents don't have to think about — and when something does come up, we'd rather hear from you twice than not at all.
Samantha Green, Supervisor 411 East Wynooche Avenue Montesano, WA 98563 (360) 249-5454
Sign up once for FlashAlert and you'll get closure, late-start, and early-release texts or emails before the morning rush.