It’s understood by pretty much everyone nowadays that when somebody mentions the short bus in regard to someone, they are saying that person is not very bright. This presumably comes from the notion that a school district typically uses its shortest buses to ferry the handicapped kids around. Maybe it’s always been that way, but I’m pretty sure that when I was in public school (graduated HS 1975) I never heard that. If you saw a short bus you just thought, “That’s certainly a short bus”, and you thought it was just short because not many kids lived on that route.
We did prefer the long, coach-type buses, for example Crown Coach, but that was mainly because they seemed to ride better for the most part.
I first heard the term in 1994. I know that because I remember the party and college year when I thought it was funny. Short buses have been around for quite a while though and their purpose is clear in most places. I have reference points in a few states.
Gosh, I knew about the short busses back as a third grader. That’d be '80-'81. All of the busses were normal, large, “Bluebird” type of school busses, except for the ones that picked up the special needs kids. Of course “special needs” also included the physically handicapped in addition to the 'tards.
Where I grew up, it was associated with special-education students who had to be bussed to special centers outside of their normal school district. Since the rides were longer and they usually went to individual houses, they would have to have fewer students on a bus route and thus a smaller bus. They could either mentally handicapped, “emotionally disturbed,” or sometimes physically handicapped. A lot of the buses with wheelchair lifts were short, though there were also long buses with lifts. So, riding the short bus usually meant you were either retarded, crazy or delinquent. You weren’t quite right.
Or were in the gifted program. I caught a* lot* of shit for it!!! I second the going to each person’s house thing, though, because none of my other buses ever drove down my road, except the short bus.
Pretty much what riker wrote. When I was a student (all those years ago) the special ed students were driven to their program in a minivan which was in fact “shorter” than a regular schoolbus. I’ll admit I don’t know the specifics, but I assume that several rural school districts, including my own, had joined together and consolidated their special ed students into one central program.
I’ve never heard it in Australia, only on the SDMB. However, when I first saw it, I knew exactly what was meant, and if I’d first heard it in 1980, my reaction would have been the same.
Here, these buses were delightfully called “spaz buses”. There is a local comedian called Steady Eddy who has cerebral palsy. He rode these buses as a kid, and used to do a gag about them in his shows: “The teachers always told us we were normal and we didn’t stand out. Then they’d herd us onto a minibus with SPASTIC CENTRE OF NEW SOUTH WALES in two-foot high letters right down the side!”
It’s weird how gifted and special needs students were conflated at my school too. Not about buses; I suppose it might have been because both programs were housed in the same wing of the school.
Amongst other thing. Same wing of the school, it was obvious we were “different” than the rest of the students, I left class during math and science lectures. To an outside observer who’s 10 and only knows that a peer is in “Special Education”, I can see how they would think that way.
It was the most surreal thing, though, when we stopped one day to pick up a gal who needed a wheelchair, and her mom came out to the bus stop crying to tell us that her daughter had passed away over the weekend, so we didn’t need to stop there any more. I never saw one of my bus drivers cry, it was a very odd situation.
I don’t want to be the one to have the Recreation Outrage post of the week here, but “tard”? Are people on this message board actually using this epithet non-ironically? What’s the matter with you people?! Especially someone that actually works with these children! Do you call them that to their faces?
I first heard of the term short bus in 2007 when someone was talking about a movie. Somehow it was mentioned that short bus was a term for the transportation for mentally handicapped people. Imagine my surprise when I saw the film Shortbus. I’m usually pretty savvy about movies, but this one wasn’t quite what I expected.
In our school district there was one short bus. We called it the mini-bus and it’s passengers were students with physical limitations. There was one girl with a wheel chair who rode the mini-bus for all of our school years. Students with injuries would ride it to. If you got a cast or crutches Mr. R would pick you up at your door in the mini-bus.
Some years ago a friend of mine would talk about “riding the short bus in a hockey helmet”. He’d say things like “if you don’t wear a mask when you spray this suff your kids’ll end up going to school on the short bus wearing hockey helmets.”
Shortly after that it started to seem as if “short bus” was in pretty common usage.
I graduated in 1979 in suburban South Jersey. I think at the time we actually called it “the retard bus” rather than the short bus. That short style bus was well-known as carrying handicapped kids.
I remember hearing a story that the cheerleaders got dressed down once for complaining when they had to ride the retard bus to and from a football game.
I’ve known of the term since at least 1970 when I actually met my friends retarded brother. The phrase was a common joke even before then I’m sure, probably from as far back as the 50’s even.
What's really stuck with me over the years was the name of the school the retarded kids went to in my hometown, Antony Wayne Local. Whenever I hear his name I automatically think retard. Now Antony Wayne was a Revolutionary War general/hero and a master of Indian fighting who single handedly fought and won the Indian Wars in Ohio a very smart, tough and brave guy. Our town honored him by naming the Special Ed school after him, forever associating our local hero retarded children in our impressionable young minds. Now that was retarded.
