May 13, 2010
-
The Case of the Missing School Bus
I put a little edge on my squeaky clean PTA volunteer image at the school today. That’s what happens when the school messes with you and your afternoon routine.
The dog and I sauntered down to the bus stop as usual, and then we waited. And waited. And waited. With all the other moms and dogs. And a few little siblings. No bus. Strangely, no one had a cell phone with them today so one mom finally wandered back home to call the school.
The school reported that no bus showed up for our kids and the bus depot (or whatever they call it) claimed they had no driver. Strange, since we have no less than THREE “regular” afternoon bus drivers. No wonder the ball was dropped, so to speak.
“Oh well – no worries,” said the mom. “We’ll come get our kids.” She made it clear that she was speaking on behalf of everyone and the person on the phone seemed to think this best.
We all loaded into separate cars (you can’t just show up to pick up a hoard of neighborhood kids without proper notification, nowadays, and car/booster seats make carpooling at a moment’s notice so complicated) and drove up to the school. There’s nothing quite like a swarm of scorned moms unloading out of a caravan of minivans and SUVs.
And you know what comes next, right?
The kids were on the bus. The bus was loaded and pulling away. No kids allowed off the bus.
Although older kids can be dropped at an empty bus stop, Kindergartners require an adult with photo ID to retrieve them. I was envisioning the bus pulling up to the vacant bus stop and dropping our daughter there with no one to meet her, while keeping her younger brother on the bus because he is in Kindergarten. And where would they take him? Back to school.
This is what made me lose my cool.
I began to rant at the secretary in the front office about this very scenario. Grrrrrr. She is the person who knew we were coming up to school — couldn’t she notify the bus driver or bus loop chaperone or the bus gods or someone?!?
Lucky for everyone involved, the Kindergarten parents were able to race past the school bus during the long 0.5 mile bus ride and be there to greet our kids. It’s like a scene out of a bad sitcom!!!
Comments (2)
Madness! The school was weird when I had mine in Kindergarten 15 yrs ago. The half day kindergarten was a circus 4 times a day. There were times that I needed to pick a son up for a dentist appt or something and if he was on the bus – well too bad. Even when you sent a note to the teacher and called the attendance office! I feel your pain.
that is like a comedy of errors! I had a similar episode like that when my son was in kindergarten. The bus never showed to pick them up the first day of school so another mom and i took our kids. They tried to tell us we missed the bus. I had a kindergartner AND it was the first day of school, if anything i was about 15 minutes early just due to being nervous!!! I knew the bus just never came to our stop.