Time Machine

School bus monitors

Name: School Bus Monitors: employment and wages since 1990
Creator: Future History
License: https://futurehistory.earth/terms

Also called Bus monitor, Bus aide, School bus aide, Transportation aide, Special education bus monitor

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 78,420 US school bus monitors, with median pay of $35,100 a year. Of the BLS counts since 2021, the May 2025 count is the highest. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 25,000 from 1990, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for school bus monitors: Onboard DVR cameras and GPS routing software, 2000 to 2018.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to decline 1.9% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

AI exposure studies

19.4% of this job's tasks are exposed to large language models. Not a forecast of job losses. Eloundou and others, 2023

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend.

Last updated 11 October 2026.

Cite this page

APA

Future History. (2026, October 11). School bus monitors: jobs and pay since 1990 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/33-9094

Chicago

Future History. "School bus monitors: jobs and pay since 1990." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 11, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/33-9094.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_33_9094, author = {{Future History}}, title = {School bus monitors: jobs and pay since 1990}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/33-9094}}, note = {Last updated 2026-10-11. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

The access date is today's date on your device.

drag to travel through time

195019752000now

US Employment

78K

Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic

Report an error

Median Annual Wage

$35,100

Est.

≈ $34,200 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic

Report an error

Beat · 1957

A California school district commissions what is likely the first purpose-built special education school bus in the United States: a vehicle fitted with floor attachments for wheelchair anchoring and individual seat belts for each rider. The project demonstrates for the first time that bus design and staffing can be adapted specifically to serve students with physical disabilities, rather than forcing those children into standard buses designed for ambulatory students. This Californian experiment precedes the federal mandate by 18 years and shows the concept was technically feasible before the law required it.

Beat · 1975

November 29, 1975: President Ford signs Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. The law guarantees a free and appropriate public education to every child with a disability aged 3-21 and defines "transportation" as a mandatory related service. For the first time, an IEP team can formally require a school bus monitor or aide as part of a child's educational plan, and a district that refuses is in violation of federal law. PL 94-142 is the founding statute of the school bus monitor role as a formal occupation. Approximately 4 million children with disabilities were enrolled in public schools in 1975; fewer than half were receiving all the educational services to which they were entitled. The new law was intended to reach all of them.

Beat · 1981

Nashville Metro Schools collaborates with Blue Bird Body Company to develop a specialized school bus for autistic students, featuring padded individual compartments, footboard restraints, and an isolated driver's cab. The design explicitly includes a role for a driver's aide in the passenger section, separate from the driver. This is among the earliest purpose-designed school buses to acknowledge that the monitor and the driver are separate roles with distinct physical locations in the vehicle, a design philosophy that would become standard for special education transport.

Beat · 1990

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act is reauthorized and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The reauthorization strengthens procedural safeguards for IEP compliance and adds transition planning requirements for older students. For school transportation, IDEA 1990 reinforces that monitors and aides required under IEP transportation provisions are a legal entitlement, not a district option. The law also broadens the definition of eligible conditions, increasing the special education student population and correspondingly the demand for transportation support personnel.

Beat · 2009

The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs issues formal guidance clarifying that IEP teams have the authority to require a bus monitor or aide as a transportation-related service and that districts must provide one when the IEP so specifies. The guidance addresses widespread ambiguity about whether monitors fall under "transportation" (a required service) or "personnel" (a discretionary budget item). The clarification effectively eliminates one common mechanism by which districts had been avoiding monitor costs.

Beat · 2018

The 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) revision by BLS creates a dedicated code, 33-9094, for School Bus Monitors, separating them from the prior catch-all code 33-9098 (School Bus Monitors and Protective Service Workers, All Other). This reclassification reflects the scale and distinctiveness the occupation had achieved: by 2018, school bus monitors were a recognizable, structured workforce. The first dedicated OEWS count under 33-9094 recorded approximately 10,637 workers, but this figure dramatically undercounts the true workforce because many monitors employed by private transportation contractors were not yet captured under the new code in the first survey year.

Beat · 2020

COVID-19 closes K-12 schools across the United States in March 2020, eliminating the school bus monitor role almost entirely for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year. Remote learning means no buses, no routes, and no monitors needed. The May 2020 OEWS survey captures this collapse: employment in the combined protective-service code that included monitors falls sharply relative to 2019. When schools reopen in fall 2020 and 2021 under hybrid models, transportation demand is lower than pre-pandemic levels, and a widespread school bus driver shortage makes it difficult for many districts to run full route schedules even when they have monitors available. The post-COVID recovery is slower for school transportation staff than for many other K-12 support roles because the driver shortage constrains how many routes can run regardless of monitor availability.

Beat · 2022

A school bus driver shortage, which peaked in the 2021-22 school year, directly suppresses monitor employment. Approximately 192,400 bus drivers were working in K-12 schools in September 2023, down 15% from September 2019. Without drivers, routes do not run; without routes, monitors have no buses to board. Districts facing severe driver shortages sometimes collapse two routes into one oversized bus, reducing the number of monitor positions needed. The driver shortage is driven by low hourly wages (averaging $20/hour in 2022, roughly 17% below the all-worker median) and the part-time nature of the work, factors that also affect monitor recruitment. The workforce constraints on the driver side and the monitor side are structurally linked.

How to read this number

OEWS is a point-in-time survey snapshot, not a continuous time series; BLS advises against using it for year-over-year trend comparison.

Each dot is a cited figure over time; the dotted line only links them (values between aren't measured). Hollow dots are estimates.

Official statistic: Copied by a script from a statistics agency table or a published study's table, not retyped by hand. BLS figures and the forecast and exposure tables are also re-checked against that table on every data run. Researched context: Researched from the cited source rather than copied from it by a script, so it is not machine-checked yet. Spot a mistake? Each figure has a “Report an error” link.

How it began · 1930

Long before federal law required them, a handful of large American cities employed women called "matrons" on school buses and street-railway vehicles to supervise children during the journey to school. New York City is the clearest documented case: by the 1930s, the city's massive public school system was routing tens of thousands of children through a mix of city buses and contracted school transportation, and matrons were assigned to supervise younger and more vulnerable riders. The role was informal, poorly paid, and essentially invisible to national labor statistics. It existed not because any law required it, but because drivers of large vehicles full of children could not simultaneously watch the road and manage 40 students. The turning point came on November 29, 1975, when President Ford signed Public Law 94-142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. The law guaranteed a free and appropriate public education to every child with a disability, and it defined "transportation" as a required related service. For the first time, an IEP team could formally write a bus aide into a child's educational plan, and a district that refused to provide one was violating federal law. Within a decade, the monitor role moved from informal urban practice to a structured position in school districts nationwide. By the mid-1980s, purpose-built special education buses were appearing with floor attachments for wheelchair tie-downs and specific staffing provisions for an attendant. The 1990 reauthorization as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) further codified the role, and IDEA 1997 and IDEA 2004 tightened both the right to transportation services and the requirements for trained personnel to provide them. What began as a matron supervising general-education children on city buses had become, by the early 2000s, a distinct occupation with a recognizable job description, training requirements, and national employment of tens of thousands.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace school bus monitors? What the research says

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than an average.

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, the spread is the honest signal.

What published forecasts say

Forecast change in the number of people doing this work, as published by each named source. Bars share one scale on every role, centred on zero and reaching the end at ±30%. Grey marks a small change, 3% or less either way.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

→ 2035

-1.9%

BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 33-9094 (School bus monitors): 76.7 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 75.3 thousand in 2035, a change of -1.4 thousand (-1.9%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers. The average for all occupations in this cycle is +3.5%.

Official statisticReport an error

How exposed is this work to AI (research measures)

Scores as published by each study. Each row says what it measures. These measure what AI could technically do, not forecasts of jobs lost.

Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"

2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)

19.4%

of tasks

What this measures

Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 33-9094.00 School Bus Monitors. Shown: human-rated β = 0.194, the share of the occupation's tasks an LLM could do in at least half the time at equal quality, counting tasks that need LLM-powered software at half weight (β = E1 + 0.5 × E2). Other published measures for this occupation: human-rated α (LLM alone) 0 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0.389; GPT-4-rated β 0.167. This measures how much of the work an LLM could touch, not how many jobs disappear.

Official statisticReport an error

Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for school bus monitors

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

AI is sitting alongside you hereDocument safety incidents during transit, recording what happened, which students were involved, time and location, and actions taken, then submitting written reports to school administration for follow-up with parents or counselors.

Document safety incidents during transit, recording what happened, which students were involved, time and location, and actions taken, then submitting written reports to school administration for follow-up with parents or counselors.^[6],[7]

Tools picking this up

Coram AI ↗

Where your edge is

Use AI-camera incident tagging to anchor written reports to timestamped video clips, cutting documentation time and making reports more defensible for parent or legal review.

AI is sitting alongside you hereTrack student boarding and alighting at each stop, confirming every assigned rider is on board and flagging no-shows or unexpected departures to dispatchers and school administrators via two-way radio or transportation software.

Track student boarding and alighting at each stop, confirming every assigned rider is on board and flagging no-shows or unexpected departures to dispatchers and school administrators via two-way radio or transportation software.^[5],[6]

Tools picking this up

Coram AI ↗Verkada ↗

Where your edge is

Operate RFID student-check-in systems and review automated boarding reports to catch discrepancies before the route ends rather than after-the-fact.

AI is sitting alongside you hereGuide the driver during low-speed reversing maneuvers and at railroad crossings, scanning for approaching trains, pedestrians, and cyclists that fall outside the driver's sightlines.

Guide the driver during low-speed reversing maneuvers and at railroad crossings, scanning for approaching trains, pedestrians, and cyclists that fall outside the driver's sightlines.^[1],[8]

Tools picking this up

Safe Fleet Predictive Stop Arm (PSA) ↗

Where your edge is

Treat AI-assisted blind-spot alerts as a redundancy layer, not a replacement for the scan; maintain the habit of active physical observation so failures in the sensor system do not go unnoticed.

Where school bus monitors go next

Natural next steps for someone with your foundation: not exits, evolutions.

Child, Family, and School Social Workers
US median pay
$59,550 (May 2025)
BLS outlook 2025-35
+4.4%
Teaching Assistants, Special EducationNo timeline for this role yet
Childcare Workers
US median pay
$34,980 (May 2025)
BLS outlook 2025-35
-2%

What each move takes

A direction you could grow

Child, Family, and School Social Workers

Monitors who develop strong communication with families and community knowledge are natural fits for community outreach roles. Child and family social workers address many of the same populations and stressors, but the path requires a bachelor's degree in social work or a related field, making this a multi-year commitment.

What you'd add

· Bachelor's degree in social work (BSW) or human services
· Case management and resource navigation skills
· Mandated reporter training beyond school-transport basics
· Motivational interviewing and family counseling fundamentals

What it takesA real upskill, but a natural one

Tools of the era

How has the work of school bus monitors changed since 1930?

The tools that defined the work, one line per era. Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.

No tools: the unaided observer era
The school bus monitor of the pre-federal-mandate era worked entirely without technological support. The job was the same as it had always been: board the bus, watch the children, enforce order, help anyone who needed physical assistance. No radio, no camera, no logbook requirement. The driver and the matron communicated by voice or hand signal. Incident documentation was at most a verbal report to a school secretary after the route. The absence of technology was not a gap anyone noticed because the role itself was barely formalized.
Two-way radio (driver-to-dispatcher communication)
Two-way radios became standard on school bus fleets through the late 1970s and 1980s, and while the radio was the driver's tool rather than the monitor's, it changed the monitor's job by making emergency communication possible. Before radio, a driver who had a medical emergency or accident on a rural route had no way to summon help except stopping and sending the monitor to a house. The radio gave the driver a direct line to the transportation dispatcher, and monitors were trained to use it if the driver was incapacitated. This was the first technology that formally touched the monitor's role, even if obliquely.
Specialized wheelchair restraint systems and adaptive equipment
The 1985 National Congress on School Transportation updated standards for special education bus bodies and operations, formalizing what California and Nashville had been piloting since the late 1970s: floor-mounted wheelchair tie-downs, occupant restraint systems, and adaptive seating. For monitors, this equipment shift was transformative. A job that had been primarily behavioral supervision now required hands-on technical competence: operating hydraulic wheelchair lifts, securing tie-down straps to manufacturer specifications, and fastening adaptive seatbelts for riders who could not do it themselves. Missouri's 1987 guidelines requiring face-forward wheelchair positioning and lap-and-shoulder belt restraints became a model for other states. The monitor went from an observer to a trained equipment operator.
Onboard DVR cameras and GPS routing software
Digital video recorders became affordable for school fleets through the early 2000s and GPS routing software (Transfinder, Versatrans, Tyler Technologies' SchoolDude) followed. Cameras changed the monitor's accountability landscape: incidents that had previously resolved as disputes between student and adult accounts now had video records. For well-behaved monitors, the camera was a protection; for those who had used informal or inappropriate discipline, it was an exposure risk. GPS systems made student tracking more precise and allowed dispatchers to see in real time whether a bus was on schedule. These were background tools, not monitor-facing workflows, but they reshaped the culture of documentation that monitors were expected to contribute to.
AI-powered onboard cameras and RFID student check-in (Coram AI, EdgeTensor, Verkada, Safe Fleet PSA)
A new generation of AI video analytics tools entered the school bus market from approximately 2018 onward, maturing rapidly between 2022 and 2026. Coram AI, EdgeTensor, Verkada, and Safe Fleet's Predictive Stop Arm use computer vision and machine learning to detect fights, bullying, seat-belt non-compliance, and inattentive behavior; log incidents with GPS timestamps; and alert the driver and dispatcher before situations escalate. RFID student check-in systems automate the boarding count that monitors have historically done by hand. End-of-route child-detection systems (a direct response to the documented tragedies of children left on buses) alert drivers and monitors automatically when the bus closes with a child still on board. These tools do not replace the monitor: they extend the monitor's awareness beyond what unaided observation can cover and generate the timestamped documentation that increasingly protects monitors and districts in parent disputes. The monitor's core tasks (wheelchair securement, physical de-escalation, hands-on disability accommodation, emergency evacuation leadership) remain entirely human because no robotic system in the current market operates in an unsecured vehicle with children.
Effect on the work
The AI camera tier has not reduced monitor headcount in any documented district as of 2026. Districts that have adopted the technology have typically maintained the same staffing levels, using the tools for improved oversight and faster incident resolution rather than position elimination.

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School Bus Monitors employment and pay by year

On record since1930

Latest US employment78,420 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error

Latest US median pay$35,100 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error

Outlook-1.9% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

View all 7 years of cited US data, each linked to its source

Year	US employment	Annual pay (median unless marked)	Source	Report
1990	25,000	n/a	Est., CSBA Governance Brief Researched context	Report
2000	45,000	$14,500	Est., U.S. Department of Education IDEA Q&A Researched context	Report
2021	55,310	$29,100	BLS OEWS May 2021 Official statistic	Report
2022	64,100	$29,880	BLS OEWS May 2022 Official statistic	Report
2023	72,320	$33,130	BLS OEWS May 2023 Official statistic	Report
2024	72,140	$34,980	BLS OEWS May 2024 Official statistic	Report
2025	78,420	$35,100	BLS OEWS May 2025 Official statistic	Report

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Where school bus monitors go next

Child, Family, and School Social Workers

No tools: the unaided observer eraNo tools1930–1975

Two-way radio (driver-to-dispatcher communication)Two-way radio1975–1990

Specialized wheelchair restraint systems and adaptive equipmentSpecialized wheelchair restraint systems1985–2005

Onboard DVR cameras and GPS routing softwareOnboard DVR cameras2000–2018

AI-powered onboard cameras and RFID student check-in (Coram AI, EdgeTensor, Verkada, Safe Fleet PSA)AI-powered onboard cameras2018–present

School Bus Monitors employment and pay by year

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