Summer School

Even though it's only summer school and only lasts for 20 days because Annie gets to go to the Kindergarten class she has the feeling that she is a big important kindergartener now. She is pretty darn proud. Danny is enjoying being a fourth grader as well. He is taking Spanish and Greek Mythology (I don't remember these being options for summer school when I was younger!) So the first day of school I pick them up from the sitters after work and I ask how the first day was. Danny says he is taking spanish and has learned the spanish words for Good, so-so, and bad, he learned "how are you?" and "whats your name?" After telling me this he says that he is going to become fluent in spanish so that he can go to China........after a good laugh I explained to him that in China they speak Chinese, NOT spanish. When it was Annie's turn she told me that she had chicken nuggets, beans, applesauce, and chocolate milk, but she didn't like the beans and applesauce only the chicken nuggets and chocolate Milk, and she said all of that in one big breath.
So most of you may know the story of the second day of summer school but for those of you who don't know the follow up I thought I'd add it all in here as well. Both of my kids have been "car riders" since we started in this school district, the baby sitter takes them to and from school, since it's such a small town her home is too close to the school to get a bus stop but too far away to walk. So on the first day of summer school all goes as planned, Danny gets dismissed he goes to Annie's room and gets her and they go to Callies car and they are on their way. However on day two the plan goes amazingly wrong. This is the story I received from my "meeting" with the principal. When children are signed up for school their names and addresses are sent to the bus barn, the bus barn then has the task of deciding if each child is eligible to ride a bus, they put a bus number by the childs name and send that list back to the school, that is how they know who rides a bus. Now OUR address is eligible to ride a bus however since the kids are in before and after school care our address should not have been sent to the bus barn. Because Danny is in 4th grade now they don't so much look at those because those kids are old enough to know what bus to ride and what their after school plans are. However kindergarteners are new to the experience so the teachers find out if they ride a bus, and put a sticker on their shirt with their bus number on it. Apparently on Monday 9 children got left behind, they were not given a bus number and as their paniced parents called from the bus stop when their child didn't get off it was determined that there was a slight hole in the procedure. So on Tuesday morning the principal had a chat with each of the teachers letting them know the importance of getting each child onto the correct bus at the correct time. Which brings us to Tuesday, Annie was given a sticker with a bus number, she told the teacher then that she was a car rider not a bus rider and the teacher said ok. However as the day wore on it was forgotten and at the end of the day she was put into the bus line and walked out to a bus where she again told the teacher that she was a car rider and her brother would not be on the bus. The teacher not knowing that Annie knows exactly what the routine is tells her to go ahead and get on the bus and look for her brother and if her brother isn't on the bus to go ahead and get back off. So Annie gets on the bus, and of course her brother is not on there, but this is where the story takes a turn that the principal now knows is NOT acceptable! She tells the driver that her brother is not on the bus and she is a car rider not a bus rider and the driver tells her that it's ok just sit down. The teacher seeing Annie not get back off the bus goes to the principal and tells him that "the Pope girl" (it is confusing her to other people that her name is Melina but she goes by Annie I guess) said her brother wasn't going to be on the bus but she didn't get back off. The principal knows Danny very well (from a previous incident where he had to take Danny home after school one day) and he knew that neither child was to get on a bus so he runs into the office to get the driver on the radio, with the babysitter right behind him. When they get into the office they hear the driver on the radio letting dispatch know that he has just dropped off "the Pope girl" at 404 Sellers and he didn't see anyone there. This is what pissed me off. I understand things happen, especially at the beginning of a school year, I am completely fine with the fact that she got put on a bus but she should have NEVER EVER EVER been let off the bus alone. She was let off on 33 Hwy that runs through town and had to walk across it, our house is about half way down the road, no way the driver could have seen our house from where he was to know if anyone was home and since no one was waiting for her at the bus stop she should have been kept on the bus and he should have called Dispatch to let them know he was going to have a rider while they tried to figure out where she should have gone. But instead he just dumped her off the bus. The baby sitter rushed right over but of course Annie had no way of knowing Callie was on her way so for 6 minutes my daughter shook the door knob trying to open it, yelling mommy just in case I was home and might hear her out there and then finally gave up and sat on the front steps crying not knowing what to do. The sitter felt so horrible for her that she took her out for ice cream. But this is something none of us will forget anytime soon, nor will the principal after I was done talking to him...and I'm pretty sure from the hints the prinicpal gave the driver won't soon forget it either. Of course I couldn't be told what action was taken against the driver but I do know something was done to make sure this never happens again.
So that was our first two days of summer school, days we probably won't soon forget! :-)