Durham School Services Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Durham School Services

Pros – If you are willing to take extra routes there is always extra work available. The schedule is flexible for a part-time college student, retired person, or a stay at home mom with extra time to spare. You can choose to work during the summer months or take a break. The work schedule allows for flexibility around holidays following the local school district schedule. There are usually additional shifts during the holidays, weekends, and summer available for those who are interested in additional hours when other private groups charter a bus.

Cons – Most of the buses are not air-conditioned, so it is very hot during the warm months. During the winter it is very cold until the bus warms up after driving for quite a while. Some of the buses are not maintained well. It is at times a high stress high pressure job. Student behavior can prove problematic at times. There are only bus monitors on the special needs buses to help with behavioral issues.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Durham School Services full-time for more than a year

Pros – Able to work outside. OT available. Passengers are best part of your day. Non-office job where bosses are not hovering over your shoulder. Pay is OK and will pay your bills. Fleet is well maintained.

Cons – High Stress, High turnover, High union dues. Mgmt does not communicate with employees. General Manager is almost never seen by drivers. Drivers not given feedback on ideas or concerns. Dispatch treats drivers like dogs. No inter-dept communication. Written up at the drop of a hat. Very low morale among all departments. Extremely low morale among drivers.

Advice to Senior Management – Communication is key and would be nice. Employees are people, not machines! Proactivity, Respect, Fairness would be a nice start.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Durham School Services part-time for more than 7 years

Pros – hours working with schools and children

Cons – low morale poor management low pay no benefits

Advice to Senior Management – treat employees with respect

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Durham School Services full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Durham was a great place to work until multiple management changes with no real direction.

Cons – greedy execs, bad management, theives of time. Current Sr management does not promote unity and if eating their own young increased the bottome line...they would.

Advice to Senior Management – Durham has lost some great employees due to failure to listen to employees. Favoritism towards certain very key employees (who are liars) in the company has lead to exit or many talented individuals. Sr Management should be asking better questions as to why certain CSC facilites and departments have the same issues and before flying off and firing employees, ask the employees for the truth and listen. You may find that those you trust are the ones stealing from the company...I would reccomend reaching out to a few people and start asking questions - a few fired individuals may be able to shed light on Process Improvement and CSC betterment. Wake up, D!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Durham School Services part-time

Pros – Experience, hard to get fired

Cons – They penny pinch, keep on drivers that need to go and fire good rivers for nonsense

Advice to Senior Management – Pay your drivers competitively and and your turnaround will be less and your drivers will be more professional

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Durham School Services part-time for more than a year

Pros – Weekends off, there is nothing left

Cons – Low pay, boss is never available, fires good hard working people, listens to lies, play favorites

Advice to Senior Management – Stop firing the wrong people. I have more to say but I dont think it would be right.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Durham School Services part-time for less than a year

Pros – Part time work; Good job experience to work for another company down the road, where you might be treated more humanely.

Cons – Unusually bad treatment of people; Office workers behave like they hate their jobs - they are obviously depressed and miserable; Morale is extremely low. I've been in the workforce for 40 years, and so have a strong consensus to draw from.

I trained for free, for 2 1/2 months, passed all my tests just fine (DMV, CHP), and was well on my way with behind-the-wheel training. The budgeting was obviously overstretched, as we were being trained by others who drove routes themselves. Twice, we had an entire week off, waiting for our training to continue.

Typically, during the pre-trip training, we'd come in for 45 minutes - to an hour, then be sent home to come in the next day for another 45 min - hour of training. Often the training was offered in a begrudging fashion. Yet we hung on to our good attitudes, after all the dedicated training and considerable expense out of our own pockets, with the hope of finally being hired.

One day, after another week wait, I was called and told that I was being dropped from the program. The reason given smacked of dishonesty, a weakly contrived, paltry excuse. So, I asked, "Can you give me any specifics on what "I did wrong?"

Answer: "No."

Then I asked, "Well then, if I was not performing to your expectation, they why didn't someone ever sit down and tell me??"

Answer: "I don't know".

They'd often say in class things like, "Half of you will be gone by the time this training is over", or, "After 6 months, many people will quit and move on." In our class, almost no one dropped out, so they were left with too many trainees on hand (for their current contract needs.)

Also, this may be just a coincidence, but I was the *only* white in the class. And all the office personnel was non-white., as well as the vast majority of bus drivers.

Naturally, I was shocked, like a huge injustice was being done, in allowing folks like me to apply ourselves diligently, for 2+ months in unpaid training, and paying out over $150 in fees, and our hearts and souls, in the hope of landing even a part time job in this long, horrible recession.
Does anyone care???

Advice to Senior Management – Get some conception of human value, as opposed to purely mercenary greed, in running an operation. Acquire these values, (or hire someone who has them), practice these and seek to instill such things like principle and conscience in others. Your operation would run much better. Senior management alone has the authority to implement such value throughout a corporation. If you don't do it, or if you don't care, no one else will. You are the pacesetters, the leaders. It behooves you to demonstrate insightful leadership and some character quality. Show a little love, and they will love you back, with years of loyalty, conscientious effort and sincere care for the good of the company. Good service is not just required. It's inspired!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Durham School Services part-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Get to have summers off.Can bring my kiddos some of the time. The kiddos are the best !!!

Cons – Management is poorly running the csc,Letting other employee your stuff you tell them behind close doors.If you miss days or half days because your kiddos get the flu or sick they want to right you up and tell you if you get to 9 miss days then ur fired. And mgn tells you that ur nothing but seasonal workers.

Advice to Senior Management – Learn how to run ur csc and act like you care

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Durham School Services part-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Not to many Pro's ... but the annual cook out at the end of the year is good, but could give out some nice year end gifts to say thanks ...

Cons – Both drivers and aids wortk very hard, and only get a very small salery increase. Some of the policies on saftey are way to extreame, tap your mirror on a post get written up. Way to hard.

Advice to Senior Management – Need to look at the tpye of management the run the CSC's need to be more education, not one who grew up in the center as a kid and now runs the place.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Durham School Services part-time

Pros – The kids were great and many of the parents were as well.

Cons – Management is dishonest and disorganized. They are all related as well. The best drivers often left.

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of the Indianapolis staff and start over.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend