Diversity Bus
Timeline and Suggestions for Organization
By Robin Dauma, Madison City, Alabama
T minus 2 months+
 | Make major implementation decisions (who will paint . . . where? . . .how?. . .) |
| Discuss project with school administration and needed support personnel such as art teacher, custodian, language arts department chair (a 30-minute meeting with everyone at once is best) |
T minus 6 weeks+
| Conduct some sort of orientation session with the students who will be most directly involved with designing and painting, as well as all the students who will be assisting other tasks like making the archive box, writing the lesson plan, producing the video, looking for sponsors, etc. Keep in mind that these do not have to be the same students! |
| Get the word out to faculty and staff! Give out the web site address and make up a simple flyer explaining how this will affect THEM and their students. Making copies of the multi-page packet from Connecticut is nice if you have the copying capability. |
| Recruit a parent support committee (probably parents of the kids mentioned above). This will be crucial for phone-calling, errand-running, etc. If parent support is hard to come by, try your best to arrange for a substitute for a couple of half-days, at least, so you can run errands, etc. Students can do a lot, but they can’t do it all! |
| Contact a "partner" school to work with, if that is something you can work out. Pairing students with students from a school with different demographics is one of the neatest ways to make this experience "real." |
T minus 1 month+
| Begin necessary logistical tasks (finding paint and supplies, monetary sponsors, host families for Jay and Harris, begin the process of designing your art work. This may stem from metaphor lessons in your language arts classes, so giving some faculty guidance on how to do that might be necessary. For example, in a large school, each language arts teacher might submit to you their best 10 metaphors for consideration to be painted on the bus. You, or the person coordinating the artistic design if that is someone else, might then give those metaphors to the students as inspiration for their design. |
| Begin "optional" logistical tasks (media contacts, finding "hospitality items" for driver and artist in riding like movie passes, sports tickets, gift certificates to local restaurants, etc.). |
| Consider arranging for a choral group to perform "The Bus Song." Even if your school doesn’t have a choral program, perhaps recruiting a talented faculty member to gather even a small group to sing the song at a school assembly or something would show the spirit of this project in a major way! Sit in for their class a couple of times if you can while they rehearse with the students, or arrange for a couple of after-school sessions. We had 12 students perform beautifully with only 8 days to practice – total rehearsal time was less than 3 hours!! |
T minus 2 weeks+
| If possible, direct some students in groups to take care of separate tasks. Some "committee" ideas are: Video Production, Archive Box, Publicity (inside AND outside school), Steering (handles donations, etc.). Students rise to the challenge of being given a "task list" that allows them to take charge of a particular area to get ready for this event. Try to give them as much responsibility as you can! If your time working with these students is limited, perhaps a Saturday morning planning session with other teachers or parents helping to facilitate the student groups would work. |
| Begin organizing your calendar of events for the bus visit and prepare to distribute it to all who will be affected, including custodians, cafeteria workers, parents, community leaders, etc. Make sure as many decisions are made about location, who is doing what tasks on what day, etc. are decided by this time. If you have more than 30 students who will be helping to paint, dividing them into "teams" might work and will limit the amount of time students are missing class. As long as the "master artists" can get out to paint on the first day and outline the design, most students can handle the "filling in" part! |
| Contact your bus garage to discuss bringing the bus in for a maintenance check before the bus departs your town. You should probably set aside one full day for this toward the end of the visit. Even though an oil change doesn’t take that long, you never know what problems might arise! |
| Make sure the word is getting out! Try to arrange for someone (a student, preferably) to get put on your local school board meeting’s agenda with a 1-2 minute "commercial" about the bus visit. Fax your press releases and contact television/radio stations. They may not give you any definite word, but get them the details they need, including your calendar of events and contact information. |
T minus 1 week+
| Confirm all logistical details!! |
| Call the school on the schedule immediately prior to yours to touch base with the driver and artist in riding to find out when to expect their arrival. They will possibly need detailed directions from you. Have students email them if you can – it makes them start to connect even before the bus arrives! |
| Put up welcome signs, bulletin boards, etc. (if you have a publicity committee, this is their job!) |
| Touch base with media about when they will be coming to your site. |
T minus 1 day+
| Organize supplies and get them as close to the painting area as possible |
| Make sure artistic design is ready (a draft on newsprint is helpful) |
| Get ready for an incredible "ride" with the Town-to-Town C.A.R.E.-a-Van!! |
What would I have done differently?
| Parked the bus near an outdoor water faucet for ease in washing paintbrushes, etc. |
| Not started painting on the day the bus arrived – allowed students a little time to appreciate what the previous school had done. |
| Not scheduled the bus to visit to another school on the afternoon of our maintenance stop – I had to cancel because they were behind on some repairs on some of our district busses |
| Made students who were painting bring extra shoes! |
What made the entire experience work well?
(in my opinion . . . )
| Communication with administration and ENTIRE faculty about the project, its goals, and how it would impact our school, both practically and philosophically – this is crucial! |
| Giving students ownership of almost all tasks! |
| Having a calendar of events (to aim for, even if things get adjusted a bit in reality!) |
| Making Jay and Harris feel a part of things (ask your faculty members to have them in their home for dinner in the evenings – the host family should not have to feed them every meal, plus they get to know more people and more about your community! |
| Finding a vehicle for the artist in riding to drive around town – they do have insurance! This allowed them some freedom and kept me or someone else from having to taxi them everywhere. Otherwise, they’d have to drive the bus around everywhere, which is unnecessary wear-and-tear and mileage on the bus. |
| Getting diverse groups of students to work together to prepare (isn’t that the point, after all!?!). Our "at risk" classes helped my students (gifted and talented) design and create 4 bulletin boards that were put up about 2 weeks before the bus arrived – they had a blast and worked very well together! |
| Make lots of pictures to add to your archive box – another cooperative project! |
| Make sure all the students know WHY the bus is coming. Having an orientation session in January allowed me to tell about the project, but I also guided them in a brief activity that helped them to understand the meaning behind the bus. You don’t want kids participating that think the idea stinks! Now, they may be hesitant and not ecstatic – that’s okay and hopefully the project will help, but if students are downright hostile about the whole idea, you probably won’t change their mind. That doesn’t mean they can’t write a metaphor, or even eventually work on the bus, but you may not need them to work with you in the planning stages. (I think this one is a tricky issue that each school will have to deal with individually, though.) |
| Logistical items: Paint rollers for the "white" layer; sponge brushes; large plastic cups to pour paint into; 3-4 stepladders; disposable medical scrubs and plastic gloves for painters; multi-colored sharpie markers for writing metaphors; paint scrapers for removing paint from the windows; stick-on name tags for the painting team members from host school as well as visiting students; newspaper and masking tape; |
| Maintaining a positive attitude, even when my faculty members were so sick of hearing about the bus that I think they would have liked it to run right over me! Some of them will NEVER buy into the idea, so just do what you can to be excited and get the kids excited and most of them will catch on! |
