howwould you handle missing the bus?...

[16th ave.]

emmy missed the bus yesterday afternoon. the vice principal brought her home. they actually got here the same time the bus did to drop off the other kids. i went with it and talked to dh--played the idiot though i was pissed. dh was too after he got home.
we're sending a note to find out how it happened. but from what we can understand emmy was not listening for the announcement about her bus--she was watching the movie the teacher had going--and she don't know what the teacher was doing and didn't even get emmy's attention that it was time for her to leave.
emmy's in trouble--got a stern lecture and loss of a couple toys for a couple days.
but our question is:
where in the hell was the teacher, what was that woman doing when emmy missed the bus???
how would you handle this?

our own standpoint is that emmy should be in big trouble. but so should the teacher. emmy should loose some sort of priveledge or something other. & it looks like the teacher wasn't paying much attention herself and should at least have some sort of write-up put in her file.

 

[margherita]

sorry but i don't understain because emmy should be in big trouble and should loose the priveledge?
you are hard because the child can't have the fault, the teacher must pay attention for all children.

 

[IADad]

so....they show a movie at bus loading time? While I agree that the kid has to be responsible for paying attention, the school needs to set the proper environment for everything. I mean during reading time, they don't bring in rock and roll dodgeball...Our school has an end of the day routine, they get their stuff ready, they're responsible for checking their mailboxes for take home stuff and packing it up, they release the "bus Line" the "walker line" and the "car line" Kids go to their appropriate lines, there are students and teachers positioned to be sure kids know the right busses, we've never had any problems with it.

I just don't understand why they would create a distraction for the kids at this crucial time. I think you need to sit down with the principal and have them explain, just how this end of the day is supposed to work.

 

[16th ave.]

iadad that's nearly the same routine the school here has.
when emmy didn't ride the bus, chloe-n-I saw the whole routine while waiting on school to get out. the staff does pretty much what you described. i think it varies in the classrooms themselves. they have had a few kids miss the bus but most times it has been b/c the kiddo decided to fart around or use the bathroom and someone didn't see them not get to where they needed to be (the kiddo pretty much "snuck off".). the school is very good at catching things most times and getting the buses back and getting sick kids home, etc. except for a few small issues like grades and a couple instances where kids were picking on each other we haven't had any problems. others have had some, but not us. its definitely a school that we want to keep the girls in as long as possible.
anyway, for some reason this teacher finds it necessary to put on a movie that last 30 minutes. & she doesn't make them stand in line or anything. she just lets them get together on the rug and watch the movie.
whatever she was doing while they are watching a movie is beyond us. the last time i was there at that time of day she was working on grades and cleaning. but really, its anyone's guess. the other teachers emmy has had in the past didn't do a movie thing. they did the line up or made the kids wait at their desks for bus announcements with no distractions like a movie while they (the teacher) was picking up/cleaning up a bit.

yeah, emmy's in trouble a bit. emmy knows she can't miss the bus. so she should have been paying a little closer attention to the announcements. its not going to be a real big punishment. (there's not much we can do as far as that since we don't have much anyway.). she's loosing a couple of toys and no choice of what to watch on the tv and a lecture.

we don't understand the distractions for this time of day either. what was the teacher doing that she didn't even hear the bus announcements? fi she was listening to them, why didn't she check to make sure all the kiddos were where they should be?
what ever gets done, we don't want the teacher to have reason to make things harder for emmy. (she might not do it intentionally but i think she would if given the chance without realizing it. that's coming from my own experience and general distrust with people.) this one is still going to school evidently. emmy says that she misses a lot b/c she has to take more teaching courses--something that the teacher told the class from what emmy says,,,,which raises even more questions ...
i wanted hubby to go to school this morning and get to the bottom of it. but he brought up work and he's right. he can't miss more than necessary since he aint worked a complete week yet b/c of all the problems these last 3 months. we agreed on a note for now. but tomorrow morning there's probably going to be a meeting or phone conference with the principal and teacher.

 

[IADad]

sounds like the teacher is using intsructional time for her planning and grading time. Okay, so if she's showing a movie (with no real curriculum plan behind it) the last 30 minutes, then she's losing like 20 minutes of instructional time a day (assuming she'd need 10 minutes to round everybody up for leaving time, okay maybe 15.) so 15 minutes a day is like losing 8 instructional days a year. What would your hubby's job do if he just took off 15 minutes early every day.

That's stealing, they are stealing from your daughter's education.

 

[bssage]

I have had a couple of different but similar occurrences this year. Chloe is supposed to have a aid ride on the bus with her. twice that has not happened. And both time we talked with the principal.

There are a lot of interdependent activities going on at the end of the day. A kind of domino effect takes place. This triggers that, which triggers something else. Both times we had the problem a couple of triggers were missing at the same time. Typically the second action checks the first and so on. Its easy to see how a mistake could occur. The first time her teacher was in a con ed class, bus driver and aid both had the flu (lots of people out that week) I met with the principal right after it happened. And tried to meet today.

But mistakes are going to happen. You have the advantage of the principal being inconvenienced by your situation. While I know it make you mad as hell (us also) IMO It would not be in your best interest to go in swinging. Better to take the attitude what can we all do to make sure this doesn't happen again.

Ask what the system is. Look for opportunity there. Even if you do correct the people issue. People change, teachers change, and the next person will still have the oppertunity to fail. A system change is needed that either fixes or checks itself.

IMHO its easier and better to improve the system than change people.

 

[16th ave.]

ouch! glad your girl got home safely.

yeah though. we were pissed and it scared us.
we're staying calm and handling it as nicely as possible. see how it goes after emmy gets home in a bit..
probably still talk to the principal. suggest that there be no movies at/near that time of the afternoon...

 

[mom2many]

Out here it's a 10 minute warning bell and then all kids are taken outside and to line up, they all have an assigned animal and that is were they are to go. So far this has caused no problems.

When we lived in Cali, Ted attended a different school, out of district, so he was "bussed" to and from school, from the house. The thing was, that when Sam was picked up from school Ted's car would be there so I would just pick him up from the car, and if I didn't do that she would bring him to the house. One day there was a sub driver, so the regular driver explained how Ted's drop off went, well for some reason this lady just left him...I wasn't there that day as Sam didn't go to school. So I am sitting outside our house waiting and waiting and waiting, a half hour later I am worried so I call the garage and ask where my son is, the lady has no clue but will get back to me, while waiting for her to get back to me I go outside and what do I see walking up the road...my 6 year old son walking home...she left him, he had to cross three MAJOR roads to get home (we lived by LAX if that helps anyone) it was a good 2 miles. I was very proud of him, he knew what do do even though we had never done it before. The bus people kissed my ass for a very long time!

I would talk to the teacher and explain that if your child ever misses the bus again she will be bringing her home.

 

[16th ave.]

the results are in: come hell or high water there will be a meeting tomorrow.
i'm shaking like a leaf and very upset. man i hate having to argue or disagree with folks, esp. when it comes to the kids and school. that stuff scares me as much as my dad did....
so i'm sorry if it comes out a little scattered.

the teacher's response to the note: emmy "misheard" the announcements.

i called the school--evidently there's a meeting so someone was in the office.
the response: something about "we are teaching the kids responsibilities and they need to listen to the announcements. (yeah, i get that. we feel the same way so there's a punishment for the emily. but where was the teacher????!!!!!???)
&
"at least we got her home" safely yada yada...
the lady in the office could not tell me what the teacher was doing that she could not make sure all her students were where they were supposed to be. she said that they called the bus barn which sent someone over and Mrs. D (the vice principal) brought emily home (yeah, sure did. they were honking at me after having gone around back of the apts to ours to bring emmy home and came back around front and seen me. but i didn't realize the honking i heard was the school looking for me b/c emmy was supposed to be on the bus!!! i have to walk around front to get her off the bus. plus another prick had just speeded past the stopped bus letting kids off which was another scare. folks speeding past the bus seems to be the norm and there really should be a cop posted there at that time of day.)
anyways, according to the lady on the phone, "it took emily a long time to get to the office after Mrs. C called up to tell them she had a student miss the bus".
i said well that's a load a bull and yada yada yada. we'll be there in the morning for a meeting.

emmy's response is that she went straight up to the office when she was told to go on. that walk to the office is a long one for kiddos that age. so it takes a minute even for an adult unless they're running which would get ya in trouble if you're a student.

 

[mom2many]

I am all for kids learning responsibility, but the key word in that sentence is learning, and until it is ingrained in thier little brains it is the adult in charge's responsibility, there excuse would not fly with me either, you do not blame a child when when at the end of the day it is the adults job to make sure all kids return home safely. Had she been screwing around it would be different.

 

[16th ave.]

and thanks for sharing your mishaps. much appreciated.

m2m, your post reminds me of what happened at the first of the year.
a little girl was dropped off at her dad's work. no one was there and they left her anyway. she was supposed to be dropped off at home.. the bus driver was fired and the staff member was transferred to a different position.
the student was one of emily's classmates.
Athens school bus driver terminated » Local News » Athens Review, Athens, Texas

 

[IADad]

^^ what M2M said, teaching doesnt equate to throwing them to the dogs to either sink or swim, they have to set the expectations and provide an environment that allows for a reasonable expectation of success.

 

[AmyBelle]

Now I dont have a clue how school busses work or anything as we dont have them here (with the exception of special needs schools and very expensive private ones) but just to be on the safe side could you get her a little watch that has an alarm that goes off at bus time? Just to be sure that she knows that she has to get on it right at that moment?

 

[16th ave.]

good idea. we'll look into that amy. chances are she would take it off or it would get her into trouble. but we could find one at the dollar tree for sure.
yep, emmy ain't one to fart around. she usually gets stuff done so she would have been getting there as quickly as she could had something not happened to stop her (evidently mishearing the announcements). except for her math emmy hardly ever has any trouble so this is very unusual. there's only been two other incidents where we had to get to the school and those were taken care of pretty quickly.

 

[Jeremy+3]

We don't have school buses here, you have to be at least 10 to use the bus without an adult/parent here, it is 8 in some places though, it depends on the bus company. Here you walk, get driven or you are accompanied to and from school by a parent.
Here they don't do like bus lines etc at the end of the day, we just let everyone loose to go crazy, how long does the bus wait after school? It takes a good half an hour to get everyone out of our children's school.

 

[16th ave.]

they let 'em out in stages from about 3pm to 3:30. its usually ten minutes for each set.
more later....

 

[Jeremy+3]

Hm, ten minutes isn't very long, especially as everyone has to gather their things and some need to use the toilet first, maybe the school should have a register for each bus, tick everyone off as they get on, if someone is missing they can hold the bus for a few minutes, obviously the list would need to have those absent crossed out for that day, otherwise the bus would have a long wait!

 

[16th ave.]

the kiddos get ready in the half hour before the buses arrive and are supposed to be waiting and listening for announcements.
the schools do the "hold the bus" and "have it turn around and come back" thing when kiddos miss a bus. sometimes that's not possible if the bus is far gone on its route. usually when buses are leaving more are pulling in. it sounds like a long wait but it actually goes pretty quickly and all the kids get on the bus in time. but every now-n-then a kiddo decides to wait until the last minute to use the bathroom or farts around getting to the buses.

the car riders are a little different story. that really seems like a long wait but they still have 'em gone by 3:45-ish..

each campus loads gets out at different times too which helps. i think the pre-k actually gets out at about 2:45 but not i'm sure.
imagine the traffic jam and confusion if they didn't.:wacko:

it all does sound really crazy and confusing & it is when each new school year starts but within a week all the kinks are usually worked out and the problems slow down.


anyways, we got there Early. the meeting was short. Mrs. D, the vp, said she hadn't had a chance to find out how it happened that emmy missed the bus. dh told the v.p. straight up that when a mistake of this magnitude happens he does a write up. (he's been a supervisor for yrs now at one job or another...) Mrs. D is supposed to get to the bottom of it. but she had no explanation how it could be that a teacher wasn't making sure all the students were where they were supposed to be. just that it sometimes happens, Even after we made it clear that emmy was still in the class room and not in the bathroom or anywhere else and didn't fart around when she was sent on to the office to catch the bus after missing it. so basically she hum-hoed around that question. the teacher, Mrs. C, wasn't in yet so there was no way talk to her when we was there.
its a wait-n-see thing. we did tell Mrs. D, the v.p., that the movies should stop that they are too much of a distraction for that time of day, and also that we think its time to get emmy switched to a different teacher. we even told her that it raises questions about her abilities to doing everything else. all Mrs. D had to say to that was that she was in that classroom all the time and has seen first hand that Mrs. C., the teacher, is doing her job. that right there raises other questions: why is the principal having to constantly be in that classroom???? what's going on that she has to be there instead of taking care of other business? is this woman even qualified to be a teacher?

we'll wait-n-see.

 

[Jeremy+3]

School masters are always in classrooms here, ensuring the teachers are working correctly and the kids are okay, there isn't any point being a school master if you lock yourself away in an office all day.

 

[16th ave.]

see, we have a school board that makes the big decisions like budget and handling all things state law. then there's the administration that supervises the campuses as a whole or something other. then there's principals and vice principals at each campus. under the principals are the teachers.