Monday afternoon we kept waiting for Zac to get home on the bus. When he was more than 45 minutes late, I walked to my neighbor's house, and the neighbor told me that the bus was parked three blocks away, and they wouldn't let the kids (all from Panther Creek High School) off the bus unless a parent came with ID. (I'm assuming his son had called him on a cell phone. I had not received a phone call, from my son or from the school.)
That really ticked me off, so I grabbed my purse and drove over there. I got my Coolpix 8 megapixel camera out of my purse and put it on "video" and walked up to the bus and asked for Zac to get off.
I was told that the the stop sign on the side of bus number 204 was broken. When the bus driver had pulled up to the first stop on her route, the stop sign did not flip out on the side. The driver was instructed by her superiors not to let the Panther Creek High School students off the bus, because it was unsafe. It is illegal in our state to transport students in a bus without a swingarm stopsign on the side (so cars won't pass while the bus is stopped.)
The school people thought the students were incapable of crossing the street safely, unless a parent came personally, with a valid driver's license and filled out paper work. But, they did not call the parents to let them know that they had to come.
The bus was parked with the door opening onto a wide, safe sidewalk. It made me very angry that the school officials could not trust high school children to be able to get off a bus and make their way home in their very own neighborhood.
School was out at 2:28. It was 3:53 by the time I got to the bus. The repairman was there trying to repair the stop sign. And he got finished at 4:30, when I presume the remaining kids were allowed to get off the bus "safely" with a functioning stop sign.
Those kids were held on that parked bus for almost 2 hours, most within sight of their streets. If the kid didn't have a cell phone, or their parents were far away at a job, how in the world could the kid get off the bus? What if the kid had to use the bathroom? I think it was cruel to hold them that long.
I made a bunch of video of the whole scenario, including the bus driver filling out a form saying I could take my own child off the bus. She was very mad at me and kept saying I was going to make her lose her job. I told her as I left that I knew it was her stupid superiors, not her, that were making the rule.
I went home, called WRAL, and they sent a reporter and a camera man to my house. The story was on the 10:00 news on local FOX news and the 11:00 news on CBS-WRAL. They used a few short statements from me, and a bunch of my video clips.
And I got complimented by the camera crew, they said I took some good video!
Here is a photo of the men who came to interview me:
Oh, by the way, I wasn't the only irate parent. I just learned that another mother actually called the police. I think my plan was better.
No comments:
Post a Comment