This bus driver uses downtime between routes to read to elementary schoolers. Now, they request time with him.

For years, school bus driver Herman Cruse would drop off Middle Township students in the morning and then find ways to pass the time until his next run to pick them up at the end of the school day.

Cruse lives in Egg Harbor City — too far to return home between routes — and he wanted to do something more meaningful than running errands, working out, or napping between shifts. Overhearing one of the kindergartners on the bus talking about troubles with a reading assignment, Cruse approached the student’s teacher at Middle Township Elementary School No. 1 in Cape May Court House to ask if he could help.

It was 2021, and Alex Bakley had Cruse meet with the student to read. The two connected and word spread at the sprawling school. Other students and teachers requested reading time with Cruse.

“It caught on quickly,” said Cruse, 56. “It took on a life of its own.”

Since he started reading to that first boy three years ago, Cruse estimates that he has read with hundreds of students, mostly kindergartners and first graders. The students have been dubbed “Mr. Herman’s Kids,” and they view Cruse as a beloved mentor, role model, and father figure. Some ride the yellow school bus Cruse drives.

A section in the kindergarten wing has been designated as “Mr. Herman’s Kids Corner.” Sitting at a round table, Cruse reads with students one-on-one for about 20 to 30 minutes during their school day three times a week. Students may select a title from a bookshelf stocked by Cruse or a book from their classroom.

On a recent morning, Cruse had about 2½ hours between shifts and reported for his reading assignments.

S“I love every minute of it,” said Cruse, who has been a driver for three decades, 12 years in Middle Township. “I like the kids.”

Cruse listened patiently as Octavia Hebron, 6, read aloud from I’m Thankful Each Day. He gently offered assistance when she stumbled over a word, encouraging her to sound it out as she followed with her finger.

“Good job! Awesome!” Cruse told her, giving her a high-five.

Cruse recruited another bus driver, Dan O’Connell, 70, to help with reading to reach more students. Both men voluntarily use their downtime for reading with students. The school has about 700 students in pre-K through second grade.

Sitting on a mini-size chair across the room from Cruse, O’Connell read to students or let them read to him. He chuckled when 5-year-old Melody Roberto-Hammond wanted to read a second book.

Some of the students are advanced readers and need little assistance. Others are beginners and are allowed to move at their own pace, listening intently to a story.

“It just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” said Kelly Cox, a guidance counselor who sends students for reading time. “The kids feel special. They feel like someone cares about them.”

Experts say reading helps with language comprehension, vocabulary building, and story structure. With Cruse, reading also acts as a relationship-building activity, particularly important with a male role model when most children are exposed to female teachers in lower grades, said Valarie G. Lee, an associate professor in the Critical Literacy, Technology, and Multilingual Education Department at Rowan University.

“I think what they’re doing is wonderful. The evidence is in kids wanting to read with him,” Lee said. “Building that foundation early on is really critical.”

Veteran teacher Linda Bakley, who shares a classroom with her niece, Alex, said Cruse has a special knack with students. Sometimes they ask to read with him instead of her, she said, laughing. Some of them refer to Cruse as “Pop Pop.”

“This man is loving and caring. The kids feel it,” Linda Bakley said. “The kids do adore him. When they say it takes a village, he is the village.”

Cruse reinforces skills that students learn in the classroom, and questions them about what they’ve read to build comprehension, Bakley said. He also asks how they are doing outside of school, which has built their trust, she said.

A grandfather and father of five adult children, Cruse said he became an avid reader at a young age. His mother purchased an encyclopedia set for the family, and he devoured the reference books, along with books, maps, and atlases, he said.

“I read pretty much everything I could put my hands on,” he recalled.

Cruse passed on that love of reading to his own children. He applies the same approach to the students at Middle Township.

“I want to nurture every gift these children are exuding in these classrooms,” he said. “Whatever they learn from me, whatever they get, I hope they just go further, do more, and be more as they grow.”

While the reading program has garnered national attention, Cruse said he feels “like a proud papa” when he sees his former students now in middle school and doing well. The students inspire him to do more, he said.

“It just spurs me to go forward and touch as many lives as I can. This is a blessing beyond blessings,” he said.