(Photo Courtesy of Commonwealth Media Services)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Duncannon, PA) Pennsylvania Department of Education Acting Secretary Dr. Carrie Rowe and the Pennsylvania School Bus Association visited Duncannon, Pennsylvania yesterday to present the role that bus drivers play across Pennsylvania and in their communities in which they are needed, to let drivers know about school bus safety, and that bus drivers need resources to make their jobs easier, along with touring the Rohrer bus facility. Rowe made remarks after this event yesterday and said that the bus drivers are the“first link in the education process” and are very important in their roles. Rowe also told a story to highlight how simple interactions and “hellos” from bus drivers can transform the whole experience of riding the bus to school for any student. Rowe was speaking with a female bus driver earlier this year in between an event that she was doing and this bus driver brought a stuffed animal puppy to a female kindergarten student one day on the bus that cried every day at the start of the school year. According to Rowe, this female bus driver she spoke to told that female kindergarten student that the stuffed animal puppy she brought for her “needed to go to school with the student so that the puppy can learn its ABCs.” Rowe confirmed that this female kindergarten student stopped crying immediately since that moment and interaction from this female bus driver and she has not cried heading to school ever since that kind gesture from this female bus driver.