"The school bus principal.”
That’s what some elementary school students call Rashad Roland, but he’s so much more than that. Roland is the transportation supervisor for the south Aiken area, a position he has held for the past few years. But his involvement in the school district began years before.
“I was an inclusion aide at Leavelle McCampbell Middle School and also a bus driver,” Roland said. “Then from there ... I transitioned to Schofield Middle School as the parenting involvement aide and attendance, plus a bus driver. Then in ... January of 2016 in the middle of the school year, I transitioned to transportation supervisor. I started in Area 4 and then moved to Area 1.”
Roland originally became a bus driver because it was part of his job, but he’s always had a passion for the big, yellow bus.
“I was fascinated with school buses since I started kindergarten,” Roland said, noting that the 1995 transit bus was exciting to him while he was in kindergarten. ”...That bus just excited me, how long it was, how flat it was in the front, the big steering wheel. It just got me fascinated with buses. That’s kind of how it works out. I still get excited about new buses and stuff like that.”
For Roland, what he enjoys most about driving buses is the daily interaction with the students, especially because he’s one of the first faces they see in the mornings.
“When you build that rapport with your students and they know that you genuinely love them and care for them, it’s like you’re another relative to them. It’s like you’re a role model,” Roland said. “Kids ... gravitate toward you, and you become part of their lives. Some of them, if they stay in the same household, you drive them and you stay on the same route, you ... watch them grow up. So you know who they are. It’s those moments that you realize that you’re making a difference.”
Due to the driver shortage, Roland has been on different routes, so he hasn’t been seeing his regular students, who have missed him.
“When I do go back to it, it’s like they give me a big old hug and just like ‘where you been, miss you’ and are like ‘he is the bus principal,’ that’s what my elementary kids call it,” Roland said. “You leave a lasting impact when a kid knows you genuinely care for them.”