{"id":1171,"date":"2025-10-07T08:24:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T15:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/2025\/10\/07\/staff-spotlight-heidi-van-loo-is-driving-smiles\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T15:25:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T15:25:13","slug":"staff-spotlight-heidi-van-loo-is-driving-smiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/2025\/10\/07\/staff-spotlight-heidi-van-loo-is-driving-smiles\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff Spotlight: Heidi Van Loo is Driving Smiles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>This post is part of the Lynden Schools Staff Spotlight series<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Heidi Van Loo loves the smiles she gives and receives every day as a Lynden Schools bus driver. And it happens twice a day.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Role<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI appreciate that I get to be the first and last smile,\u201d Van Loo says, \u201cfist bump or hug that the kids see and get each school day. I absolutely love the connections I make not only with the kids but with their families.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Loo has served in the district for eight years as a bus driver\u2014she also spent some time as a para educator\u2014and knows her role, first and foremost, is about ensuring the students get to and from school safely. She also wants the students to feel loved, safe and respected when in her care.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Getting to Know Heidi<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When not ferrying Lynden students around town on buses, she\u2019s busy with her family. Van Loo is married to Greg and the mother of three adult sons, a stepmom to an adult daughter\u2014she says that all the children have \u201camazing spouses\u201d\u2014and she has six grandkids. \u201cMy time spent with my family and friends is priceless,\u201d she says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Van Loo stays connected to the community by keeping in touch with what\u2019s going on around her and attending sporting events and town celebrations, festivals and parades.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each school morning and afternoon is the same, though, time safely spent handing out smiles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post is part of the Lynden Schools Staff Spotlight series Heidi Van Loo loves the smiles she gives and receives every day as a Lynden Schools bus driver. And&nbsp;&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/2025\/10\/07\/staff-spotlight-heidi-van-loo-is-driving-smiles\/\">Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":1174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Lynden Middle School","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1173,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions\/1173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lynden.wednet.edu\/lynden-middle-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}