The school called today, or the bus driver, rather. Being that the school Gilly will be at this fall is over 2 miles away, I knew she'd be on the bus, and I was looking forward to being able to send her out the door to get on the bus, but that's not to be.
She is a bus rider still, but they only do limited "group" stops for picking the kids up, and our closest stop is .29 miles away, and it was requested that due to her age, an adult be there to put her on and take her off the bus each day. Their old school was .30 miles away, so it'll be a pretty even walk from what we had last year.
On the cold days, we'll drive so we can both stay warm while waiting. Maybe. Last year, the cold walks weren't too bad, but I knew that when we got to the school, she could go right in. If the bus is running late, it could mean a long wait in the cold, so we'll see.
I am kind of surprised that the bus stop is so far away. I know kids who live further down the road who will have to walk to it, which seems like a long walk to me. I don't mind doing this with Gilly, but some parents aren't around in the mornings, and the kids walk to school alone.
Last year, the little girl in Kindergarten was walked to school by her older brother. He is going to the middle school this year, so he won't be able to walk her. I don't know if the parents are able to in the morning or not, I just know I never saw them do it last year. Come to think of it, I never saw her walking on the days he wasn't there. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if she was kept home when he was. The kids are... not the kids I like my kids hanging out with, let's put it that way.
The girl is about as pushy and bossy as can be, and is down right mean to Gilly when they play together, so she gets sent home often. The boy is one who beat Chris up last year on the way home from school. I'm hoping those two don't get into it now that Chris will be riding his bike to and from the middle school.
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Comments: 22
I found myself wondering...if they were going to drive to the bus stop, then why not go ahead and drive their children to school.....
I'm guessing that when they closed Gilly's school at the end of the last school year, they wound up with a lot more bus riders than they had before.
If it were any closer, now that Gilly's riding a 2 wheeler, I would skip the bus and just ride our bikes until it got too yucky out to do that.
By the time she gets to Zachary's school he will be moving up to the middle school so he will have a new stop. I'm hoping by then we will be out of this neighborhood but my hopes aren't high.
When I was in high school the bus stopped right in front of our house because no one lived anywhere near us. That was really nice for me!
The cost of the three of us for the city bus would almost be the same as the cost of gas to drive. So we drive.
When my daughter was younger and going to a different school, they had school busing, but we also had a good walk to get to the bus stop. We walked on the good days. On the bad weather days I drove.
What annoyed me the most was that it was a very busy city street and the bus stopped on the other side of the road. We lived in a somewhat less than desirable neighborhood and you never saw parents with their kids. There was also no crossing guard.
One morning, one of my biggest fears came to life. One of the younger children walked with his slightly older sister. The boy was 5 or 6 years old and I think his sister was around 8 or 9 years old. She was normally very good about sticking with him and seeing him safely across the street.
One morning though, for whatever reason, he lagged behind. The bus was already there, stopped, with lights going and stop sign out. His sister ran ahead to get on the bus. He finally got to the road and started running over and this idiot in a car ignored the bus drivers signs and didn't stop. He even saw the kid and didn't stop. He just honked his horn.
The poor kid came out of it with nothing more than a broken arm. Horrifying!
I still to this day don't get parents who won't take care of their kids or expect very young children to care for even younger children. I would allow, maybe, my daughter to walk my younger sons to school. She is 13. But even at this age, she doesn't always display a lot of mature thinking and decision making skills so I doubt that I would.
I don't think he will end up going to school in district anyway if we still live here, though, so I'll be driving him back and forth everyday. Taking him to a different school will actually be closer, and close to where my husband works, so that's what we will most likely be doing.
When Raegan was in Kindergarten, we did a charter school, so it was self transport, or the city bus at $1 each way for her to ride, and I didn't trust having her on the city bus since we lived pretty far out of town.
With Gilly, she did Preschool at a self-transport place, which was fine- until Nick got his job he has now, and our only vehicle was gone each day. It was too far to walk, and only a few weeks left in the year, so we put her on the city bus, but it was paid for by the school, and it was a kids only bus with an aid on it, unlike how Raegan would have had it when she was in Kindergarten.
When Gilly was in Kindergarten, I was never told any rules on the bus about her being picked up or dropped off. I was out there with her when she was picked up, and usually out there when she was dropped off, but she was dropped off with all the other kids from the building we were in, so there were close to 20 kids. If I wasn't out there fast enough, I always met them at the main door to the building, though. She was picked up in front of the building we were in, but on the other end of it, so it wasn't right in front, or where I could see it from my balcony.
I do have to be right there this year, and last, because of having kindergardeners. They will not let them off the bus without seeing me. Last year I think they would have when my older daughter was there, but I never worried about it since it is right here.
The Friday bus was supposed to drop off at 11:07 AM and it was usually there SOMETIME between 11:07 and 11:35!!! A half hour of wasted time every week standing around just waiting really made me mad by the end of the year.