Profile For Ms. Veronica

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum; just joined today. I'm currently a school bus driver but I hold a class A CDL; and I'm looking into returning to truck driving.

Before starting this topic thread, I tried searching through past posts by topic trying to see if I could find anything that might apply to my current situation. But nothing that I've found so far quite fits, so I decided to make my own (first) post.

Okay, I got my CDL 10 years ago through a truck driving school, but I was in the middle of a work contract at the time I passed my CDL tests. I was 6 months out of driver training when I was ready to go on the road; that's when I discovered that no one would hire me. So, I ended up never actually getting any class A road experience. I did run OTR for 9 months driving a tiny cargo van through Panther Expedited. That was in hopes that it could be a foot-in-the-door to get into trucking, but I gave up because I couldn't make ends meet with that little cargo van.

I was out of driving for 5 years until I decided to give school bus driving a try. I've got 4 years of class B experience with the school bus and I enjoy my job, but it's practically the lowest paying driving job in the commercial transportation industry. So, I've decided to go back to trucking instead, but it's been 10 years since I've driven a combination vehicle and that driving was when I trained for my license.

So, the options I'm considering are either finding a company with an in-house refresher course, or take the 40 hour refresher course from my local community college. I know that any company that might hire me would still send me out with a trainer to bank experience hours and I'm fine with that. I'm just not sure which refresher option would be best for me.