2 teachers transformed an old bus into a 1970s-inspired classroom-on-wheels for under $10,000

Melo told Insider that before the coronavirus pandemic, she taught a class of 24 preschool students in Santa Clarita, California, with the help of an assistant.

As pandemic lockdowns started and she moved away from teaching in a brick-and-mortar classroom setting, some of the families of her former students reached out to her. They told her that their kids missed being in school and asked if she could tutor them.

"So, I was tutoring three families on separate days, but my car just eventually became a storage unit," Melo said. "I was bringing all my materials with me."

Her car was overflowing with "worksheets, crayons, markers, and puzzles" for her lessons to the point that, Melo said, it just made sense to buy a bus. It afforded her a bigger space that could comfortably hold all her teaching materials — and would eventually become her classroom.

Melo, who had been driving her Nissan Cube around for her tutoring job up until that point, saw the bus online and thought it looked kind of like her car, "but on a much bigger scale."

She bought the bus for $5,500 and paid a local carpenter another $2,000 to install some wooden benches for her students to sit on during lessons.

But, aside from the benches, the bus was still pretty bare-bones.

Six months into using the bus as her classroom, Melo reached out to the Ohio-based Jeltema for help with decorating it.

"She's done some amazing class flips and makeovers in the past," Melo told Insider, referencing some of Jeltema's past classroom projects.

Jeltema, in turn, told Insider that Melo's unique setup convinced her to make the cross-country trip from Ohio to California with her crew to do the flip.

"She wanted to turn her preschool space into a mobile classroom and I was like, 'this is an incredible opportunity to try something completely new and out of the typical classroom space,'" she said.

Jeltema said she had help from about four friends and family members, including her wife and her mom, to help her renovate the bus.

They worked long hours, usually starting at around 6 a.m, and stayed inside the bus working on renovations until it was dark outside. At night, they would usually put the furniture for the classroom together at their Airbnb or fine-tune the design and layout.

While she's not comfortable with publicly sharing exactly how much the renovations for the bus cost, Jeltema says it was less than $10,000 and all "volunteer work."

While the finished product, the renovated classroom on-the-go, was a surprise for Melo, she let Jeltema know early on that she wanted the decor of the bus to feel like "a '70s road trip through California."

To fit the theme, Jeltema hired Hanna Daly, a Los Angeles-based mural artist, to add bold, bright colors and floral patterns on the outside of the bus. The same aesthetic is replicated inside with colorful throw pillows, wallpaper, and seat cushions.

In addition to giving the bus the kind of decor Melo wanted, Jeltema also wanted to add elements that would make Melo's job easier and the classroom safer, including childproof locks on the storage containers.

The area has little cubbies and containers for toys, markers, and art supplies.

Jeltema told Insider this storage bench was one of her favorite additions to the bus.

While Jeltema and her team didn't make the white cabinets from scratch, they had to do some additional carpentry to properly anchor the cabinets to the curved roof of the bus.

"We had to use a jigsaw to cut the top of the shelf into a curve," Jeltema told Insider. "And then, of course, there's not like any wood on the bus that you can drill into."

"So then we had to use a whole bunch of different strips and that kind of thing to make sure that it's secure and won't fall," she continued.

Jeltema added that this particular addition took "a lot of patience."

The wallpaper is bright and floral, much like the mural on the outside of the bus.

The main purpose of this wall, which doubles as a dry erase board, is to make sure the kids don't go to the driver's area and touch any buttons they're not supposed to.

They also added brightly-colored cushions to the chairs and a table with plexiglass so the students can display their art projects.

There's a bungee cord for the kitchen and the table to keep them secure when Melo is driving the bus.

The groups meet at a previously agreed-upon spot that Melo drives to and parks at for the duration of the lesson. The bus is never on-the-move when the kids are on board.

After she's done tutoring for the day, Melo parks the mobile classroom overnight in a storage unit.

Melo told Insider that it is not unusual for teachers to spend time and their own money to create the best classroom environment possible for their students.

"Mine just happens to be on a set of wheels," she added.

You can follow along with Melo's mobile-teaching adventures over at @theclassroomtogo on Instagram.