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Saturday, September 05, 2009

The Schoolbus Nightmare

This week my older son (OS) started kindergarten. In our town, all the kindergartners attend one big kindergarten only school meaning that all the school buses only have kindergartners on them. I have been surprised this summer to find that parents have such strong reactions to school buses both for and against. As I wrote over at the New England Mamas, it reminds me of the whole formula feeding debate.

My personal feeling on the school bus is that if my kids are going to ride them, which they are because we live far from all the schools they will eventually be attending, than I would rather they would learn how to ride them in a safe environment like a kindergarten only school bus. That way when they are dealing with the social aspects of the school bus as older kids, they'll already be familiar with the basic school bus etiquette and expectations. Plus because of where we live, we don't pay for the school bus. If it doesn't work out, at least we haven't lost any money on it. If it were a different school or a different school set up I might feel very differently about it.

Because of all of this, the Big Giraffe and I have had a very positive attitude towards OS riding the school bus this summer which I'd like to think rubbed off on OS. OS was really excited about the bus. I think he may have been even more excited about the school bus than he was about kindergarten itself.

The first day of school came and we eagerly waited for the bus. I should add too that it was also his 6th birthday. I put "we" in there since I'm not going to even try and pretend I wasn't excited about it as well. The school bus came and off OS went.

Later that afternoon my younger son (YS), his friend H and I all went out to wait for the school bus. I carefully instructed the two boys to stay on a certain part of our driveway.* The school bus came and the doors opened. No OS. The school bus driver repeatedly called his name. Still no OS. She instructed me to come onto the bus to make sure that he hadn't fallen asleep on it.

I gave YS and H the look of death and told them not to move. The school bus driver came them a school bus driver you-better-not-test-me look* and they froze. I climbed aboard the school bus and looked around; no OS. I was starting to panic, but I didn't want to scare the kids. They already knew that something was up that there was a parent on the bus. Also, I knew from the parent orientation that they never just let off a kindergartner off the bus. A parent has to be there or they just take the child back to the school and call the parents to pick them up. I may not have known where he was, but I knew that he was safe. I asked the bus driver what to do and she told me to call the school.

I got off the bus and immediately called the school. Fortunately OS was standing right there chatting away about his birthday. I was so relieved I can't even put it into words. There had been a school bus mix up because the number on his bus tag was wrong. I knew that it was wrong and BG and I had alerted everyone and had even written the correct numer on his name tag. I think though that the bus tag with it's professionally printed bus number was a lot more believable than a bus number scrawled in pen. I had my choice of picking OS up at the school or having a new bus, that they had already called for, bring him home.

There are very few aspects of parenting that I can look back and say I am 100% sure I handled correctly. This is one of them. I clarified that OS was indeed in good spirits and not scared. Then I told them to have him come home on the new school bus. I didn't want OS to be scared of taking the school bus. If I showed up and picked him up, he would have known that something was wrong. We spent all summer long talking about how fun it would be to ride the bus to and from schoo and how it would drop him off at home. He was excited about it!

Of course you know I just had to post this ordeal as my status on Facebook. A friend commented on how she hoped the OS would see it as an adventure. The school bus pulled up. The doors opened. I flashed back to my friends comment and I said in my most enthusaistic voice, "I heard you had an exciting adventure!". The bus driver looked relieved. A man who I believe is the head of transportation who was on the school bus looked relieved. OS excitedly started talking abou this day. The new school bus wasn't even mentioned. I thanked the driver, wished her a good afternoon and we went into the house.

Inside OS's backpack was a brandnew school bus tag and a note saying that his new bus stop was our driveway which I had requested earlier. Both of those may have just been coincidences, but honestly I'm just pleased about them either way.

The rest of the week we've had no problems with the bus. His ride is 8 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Sometimes you really do get things right.

posted by Alex Elliot @ 1:00 PM 4 comments

4 Comments:

At 9/05/2009 7:24 PM, Count Mockula said…

You made a great call, even though I know you must have wanted to rush over and get him. I know I would have wanted to!
At 9/05/2009 9:25 PM, Heather said…

Thumbs up to a smart mama!
At 9/07/2009 3:19 AM, Goofball said…

I'm sure he's hardly aware things happened differently than should have gone....Yeay for that :)

sorry you had to go through the stress though
At 9/08/2009 8:05 PM, Kami's Khlopchyk said…

I personally think you should get an award for how you handled this!!!

It would have been easy to freak out, I think would have.

Way to go Alex!

My Profile

Name:	Alex Elliot
Home:	MA, United States
About Me:	Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 5 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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