No, this is not a rant about automated robo-dialers or the “press 7 to speak to a representative” customer service lines. This is about me wanting to speak to someone who had a heart, some one who had emotions like a human being. Someone who would listen to me and respond with honesty and compassion.
Here’s the situation:
Pookie rides the bus to school. Because his Modified Learning Program is a magnet-type of program, it is not at our local elementary school. It is across town. Because none of the kids in the class live near the school, there is a special assigned bus that runs the route for his class. His bus ride is kind of long. He gets out of school at 1:45 and gets home at 2:25. He is the last one off the bus.
Yesterday, at 2:45 he was still not home. We called the Transportation department. They put us on hold while they called the bus. The bus driver (a sub) said he got lost and done the stops out of order. Pookie would be home in a few minutes. He finally arrived at 3:08.
After he was home, we called the transportation department again, to ask what the procedure was for late buses. At what point would they call us to tell us that the bus was late….20 minutes late…45 minutes late….60 minutes late? The *Person Undertaking Tenderness Zero*, we’ll call him PUTZ for short, answered and told me there was no policy which required the parents to be notified when a bus is late. I asked if the drivers were required to call into the depot and tell them they were running late. No, said the PUTZ. I expressed that as a parent it concerned me that a child could be on a bus for 45 minutes extra, without the depot or the parent knowing what was going on in the bus….if you know what I mean. The PUTZ did not know what I meant. So, I told him. I asked what was to prevent a driver from thinking that since no one cared or would notice that the bus was 45 minutes late and off-route, it would be a perfect time for a Sexual Crime. Did the transportation department not see the danger in not requiring drivers who are significantly late to call into the depot? Did they not see that by having no policy, they were not doing all they could to prevent abuse of a child?
PUTZ said there were only 5 dispatchers on the afternoon shift and nothing could be done. I asked him to record my concerns, intending to ask him who I could send a letter to or call to discuss further. Before I could ask for a name, PUTZ rudely informed me that my best option was to vote “YES” in the next referendum, so that they would have more money to hire dispatchers. Flabbergasted, I told him that I would be voting “NO” in the “Let the Idiot keep his job” referendum and I hung up on him.
Today, I called the District’s Director of Transportation, a few steps above PUTZ’s head. The Director’s assistant helped me and I must say that she is not a PUTZ. She listened to my concerns, acknowledged my logic and said she would bring it up with the Director. She promised to call me back in a few days.
That’s all I wanted.
I know that you can’t change these things in a day. But I also know that if people do not voice their concerns, nothing gets done at all. All I wanted to do is voice my concerns, and have them recorded. I wanted to speak to someone who would not get defensive and angry that I had bothered them.
We will see if anything changes. I hope so, it really is a glaring gap in their policies. Pookie was fine when he got home yesterday. We have NO reason to think anything happened, but it was something we felt we could not ignore. Someday, somewhere, some school district, some late bus, some driver, some kid….this type of thing will make the news someday. But, I am trying to make sure its not my district, my bus, my kid.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Ooh, I would be FURIOUS…this just sounds like a recipe for disaster. I would be raising heck. As you said, what would stop them from just taking the kid off somewhere?
Give ‘em heck, beagoodmom and beagoodad. I’m one very heated beagoodaunt! You totally did the right thing!!!!!
I’m going to contact Congressman Foster’s office on Monday and send them to your website. This needs to be fixed or papaw will need to become a bus driver. And papaw doesn’t like mornings:)
We have a specialty (“short”) bus driver at the school I work at. She takes a couple general SPED kids, some preschoolers, some deaf-ed kids, and a couple of my behavior-challenged children. This woman has multiple complaints against her to no avail. She cusses at the kids, saying “half of them are deaf and the rest cuss more than I do!” One day she physically kicked a student in the bottom and said “Get your ass in your seat!” The deaf-ed kids gave her cards for Christmas with “Merry Christmas” written in braile (with a translation underneath) and she said “What the hell am I gonna do with this, im not deaf I cant read this!”
We’ve finally got almost all of our kids off of her bus, but its awful for the others and we havent stopped fighting. I hope you make an impact!
On another note, my town (not my school thankfully) made national headlines this week with this story:
http://yakimaherald.com/stories/2009/04/23/father-not-surprised-by-media-response-about-feces-incident
I am still waiting to see what they say. Really, I would do the same for Geetle’s bus, but with Special Ed, there is an even higher degree of care required, I think. Thanks for your comment. its nice to know others agree and would do the same.