Sergio Pulido recalls sitting behind the wheel of a Maricopa Unified School District bus at age 34, dreaming he’d become a transportation boss one day.

Today, at 49, his dream is a reality.

Pulido is in charge of not just one bus, but MUSD’s fleet of 37 school buses and 45 drivers. He’s the bus boss, managing the district’s entire school transportation division.

“We move about 3,500 students every day, and we’re close to 400 special needs students,” said Pulido, who has worked for the district 15 years. “We’re rarely get any complaints on our work performance.”

MUSD’s big yellow buses drive close to a million miles a year.

Long road to the long bus

Pulido came to Maricopa from California and drove for a cement company until he was laid off in 2008.

In 2009, Pulido started with MUSD as a bus monitor-in-training while working to earn his commercial driver’s license. Monitors act as a second set of eyes for the driver and assist students.

After his apprenticeship, he became a driver and drove mostly special needs students who needed more time to get on and off the bus.

“It’s a little bit more responsibility because you’re working with students with different challenges,” he said.

After serving as a driver for three and a half years, Pulido he was hired as a bus dispatcher.
“I did that for a few years,” he said. “You learn the area and do paperwork.”

Then, he trained drivers as he gained experience in transportation routing and fleet management, mostly involving the maintenance of vehicles and keeping the MUSD fleet rolling.

After achieving mastery of the many facets of school transportation, Pulido was promoted to transportation coordinator, which was second-in-command behind then-Transportation Director Fred Laguna.

“I was able to learn more about the finances of transportation, the budgeting in transportation, all the reports that we have to share with the [Arizona] Department of Education,” he said.

Man for the job

By the time Laguna retired in 2018, Pulido was already versed in every facet of the transportation department. He had just overcome the previous year in which an understaffed maintenance shop was plagued with low safety inspection ratings from the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Through all the challenges Pulido has confronted, he said it’s all a matter of attitude and adapting to change.

“Whatever seat I have to jump into to obtain my goal, then I’m willing to do that,” Pulido said.

MUSD Superintendent Tracey Lopeman said Pulido personifies dedication, growth and exemplary service to the district.

“His expertise and longevity have been instrumental in shaping our transportation department,” Lopeman said. “We are incredibly fortunate to have someone of his caliber and character in our district, steering us forward.”

The district’s constant growth is a challenge, though, requiring frequent route adjustments for optimal efficiency and dealing with the constant and heavy demand for drivers.

Keeping up with the times

Two years ago, MUSD’s transportation department made route adjustments to accommodate students at the district’s newest school, Desert Sunrise High.

The largest buses can carry up to 84 students, three per seat, but Pulido said it is preferred students are not crowded in buses like sardines. Consequently, he said, the preferred number of student passengers is 56 to 64.

Retaining bus drivers is a challenge everywhere, he said, and Maricopa is no different.
Pulido said the biggest challenge is keeping pay competitive with other districts, so local drivers stay local and don’t venture off to bigger schools.

When Pulido was hired in 2010, he was making $11.02 an hour.

Today, the starting range of pay for an MUSD bus driver is $16.95 to $20.34, depending on experience.

Pulido said the district does its best to pay enough to attract more drivers.

More than a chauffeur

Bus drivers are encouraged to establish positive relationships with student passengers and be kind and respectful to students, Pulido said. They are also trained in first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and how to confront student fights and other hostile situations.

There’s more responsibility to a bus driver’s job than working behind the wheel.

“We’re the first person that they see,” Pulido said of students. “We can make or break their day. I know when I was a driver, I was pretty close to quite a few students, and what I mean by that is they would share their weekend with me… You have drivers that establish that relationship with their students and just to put a smile on their face when they start off their day.”

During his career “journey,” as Pulido calls it, the district gave him opportunities to take many professional courses through the Arizona Association of Business Officials.

“I was always wanting to learn,” he said. “I always had questions. I always was just poking that bear and wanting to learn more and more and more about transportation because my intentions were to move up either for this district or another district.”

And to think it all started as an assistant to a bus driver with a strong ambition to become the school district’s transportation boss.

His thinking at the time: “I don’t know how long it’s going to take me, but that’s my goal.”
Embrace the challenge, Pulido said.

“The whole importance of my job is to transport these kiddos to and from safely and assure that they get a proper education. That makes it for me.”