Westbrook kids riding bus No. 44 will start their first day of school with a “hello” from the state’s best bus driver, Denise Watts.
Watts was recently named the top bus driver out of nearly 3,000 drivers in the state. She was one of two drivers from Westbrook nominated for the State Driver Excellence Award, along with David Flynn of bus No. 62. Watts went to the annual Student Transportation Safety Conference at Sugarloaf where she was chosen as one of three drivers to be interviewed for the award, and then she came out on top.
Watts, 48, started driving the No. 44 bus when she was 44, and said it’s a job that can’t be beat.
“The kids are amazing,” Watts said.
Penny Esposito, Westbrook’s director of transportation, sent a letter to the American Journal stating that Watts “is a very caring person and tries to connect in some positive way to each of the students that ride her bus.”
When judging the nominees, the Maine Association for Pupil Transportation looks for drivers who show dedication, accomplishment, and contributions to transportation and the communities they serve, according to the association’s Web site.
Watts’ regular route includes Haskell, Rochester and Union streets for Grades 1 through 5, and New Gorham Road, Longfellow Street and outer Stroudwater Street for junior high and high school students.
This summer Watts has been having a great time driving special education and tutored students around, and said the start of the new school year is going to be hard because she’ll have to give those kids up for her regular route.
But it’s a cycle she deals with. In the summer she gets to see her own kids more often – Dana, who is in 11th grade; Austin, who is in eighth grade, and Rebecca, who is 21 – but she misses the students on her school-year bus route. Then, when the school year starts, she misses her own kids.
“I always kept little jobs at the schools to be on the same schedule as the kids,” she said.
Watts is a volunteer at the Westbrook Regional Vocational High School as a truck driver instructor. There, too, she has made bonds with students, and said it was especially hard when some of the truck driving students graduated this past year.
“They would come in early to class and talk with me,” Watts said. “I took that as the ultimate compliment.”
Watts has worked in the schools since Dana’s early years as a pupil. She has been in charge of the city’s crossing guards, and has been an education technician at Canal School.
And, despite the fact that mom has been in a prime spot to embarrass her children at school, it’s a difficult thing to do.
“My kids seem to like having mom on the bus. They don’t get embarrassed,” Watts said about her involvement in the schools. But she has been working for some time on making the kids immune. Years ago she picked up her daughter at Canal School in a cow costume.
“She’s been in the school system my entire life,” Dana said. “So you get over it.”
Watts said she had a friend who was a bus driver who repeatedly told her to get her bus driver’s license. Once her children got old enough that she could leave them alon for the afternoon, she went for it.
Watts likes driving buses because the students make her feel invigorated and young.
“It’s just gives you energy to be around the kids,” she said.
The energy isn’t lost on the students, either.
‘”Bus drivers are not allowed to have as much fun with junior high students as you do,'” Watts said one student told her. Last March the students on her bus sang her Happy Birthday, and started singing “Are you 1? Are you 2?” Watts informed them that they better start counting in 10s.
A work day begins for Watts at 6 a.m. with an inspection of the entire bus. She’s out on the road by 6:30. She is the first person from the school that children see, and she believes that to be an important part of a child’s day.
“When they get on the bus, you want them to have a good start to their day. Because then they have a good day at school, and come back to you happy,” Watts said. She greets every student that gets on her bus every morning, even if the child doesn’t say anything back, “to let them know they are important to me,” Watts said.
One year a student had been especially shy and never said a word as Watts greeted her each morning. Around Christmas time the girl gave Watts a card with a photo of her and her siblings. She still never said a word, but the gesture touched Watts.
After the morning route is finished, Watts heads to the vocational school for the truck-driving course, which her son Dana will be in this year.
Watts also enjoys being able to take sports teams to their events so she can watch their games. Last weekend she got to take the girls high school soccer team to New Hampshire.
Watts said driving a bus takes more multitasking than most parents think.
“Every time you see movement your eyes are automatically drawn to check on the kids,” she said.
She has to make sure she does everything she can to keep kids from picking on each other, and meanwhile she has to be careful of the traffic ahead of her and the drivers behind her, who take every chance they get to pass the bus.
Watts has been in three accidents since becoming a bus driver, and in every one of them she was hit by another driver while she was stopped at a red light.
Watts said it’s a good job that comes with a great boss and terrific coworkers. When not driving buses, Watts spends time with her children and her husband, Jeff, as well as Luna, their golden retriever, and Moonshine, their husky. She also enjoys crafts like scrap-booking and jewelry making, and spending time kayaking and swimming at the family places in Sebago and Eustis.
Westbrook bus driver Denise Watts is Maine’s 2007
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