Two Teenagers and a Christmas Gift

Every year around Christmas time someone amazes me. Yesterday my best friend purchased the Independence Reporter for Friday and in it we found this:

"Salina, Kansas -- A couple of Kansas teens have played secret Santa. Salina city bus driver James Lucas says a teenage boy and girl passed out Christmas cards on his bus the other afternoon.

He says shocked passengers found a $20 bill inside each of the cards. Lucas guesses the teens were about 17 or 18 and aren't regular passengers. Lucas got one of the cards himself. He says no one on the bus realized there was money inside until the young benefactors had gotten off."

Is the School Responsible?

About 3 1/2 weeks ago the kids got into trouble for fighting with each other on the school bus here in Independence, Kansas. Because they did not need to ride the bus directly after that for the next three weeks, we had to drop the bus slips off at school. We told the school of the situation and they told us they'd get the slips to the bus barn.

Today we learned the kids were told by the bus driver that they could not ride the bus anymore because the driver hadn't received the bus slips. This creates a serious problem since the kids have to ride the bus to and from school each day with their mom, generally, every other week.

So I called and left a message with the principal, hoping that something can be done immediately about the situation. Since Q often has outbursts due to his autism, it isn't always easy for him to abide by bus rules. Often times his sister, T has to get him to calm down when he does have an outburst on the bus.

This isn't the first time the kids have had problems on the bus either. Last year T had to defend Q several times because other kids were making fun of him for his autism and I don't think those kids were ever disciplined for it either. Also, last year , the bus driver allowed the kids to get off the bus where we found them wandering alone on a very busy street. So whose responsibility is it? We trust our kids with the school and school buses every single day, but they never seem to be at fault.

A New Update On Our School System

I did receive a call from our school principal. My husband also received a call, but it was from the school that the buses meet up at, for the transfer. While my husband got an unreasonable answer as to why our kids walked away without the school's knowledge, our school principal offered a better explanation to me as to why our school system is so screwed up.

Apparently, the reason they don't keep a list of what students get on and off the bus, is because each day, students on those buses change. By this the principal meant, sometimes a parent will call at the last minute and take the child off of the bus because their work schedule, etc. has changed for the day. So the list was not working. He did offer me the option of coming up with some ideas and seeing if we could change things together for the school. I've told him I will have to sit down and see what I can do.

I think the first thing I would like to do is talk to other parents and get some ideas from them as well. If they realize the concern of kids getting off the bus, etc. I think they will sit down and offer help on solving the problem.

I Changed My Mind

I wrote a post a while back about the school system and their thermometers being off. Then I went on about some garbage sentence saying -"So to all those schools who we understand are concerned about our children's well-being, we love you for it..."

I've changed my mind about one particular school. Why???

Because yesterday, I received a phone call from my fiance's daughter's school. Apparently his daughter had gotten on the wrong bus and was now at another school instead of home with mom in another town. Luckily I was at home since my fiance was at work and her mom could not be reached. After bringing her back here, I received mom's panicking phone call after finding out her child had not gotten off the bus where they lived.

Apparently the school had told her the same thing they'd told me at first. She'd gotten on the wrong bus. When her mom questioned how that happened, they then changed their story and said she'd gotten on the right bus, but gotten off at another school.

Now what's seriously messed up about the matter is, first of all... It's very obvious they were trying to cover their ass and blame it on the child. BAD IDEA. VERY BAD IDEA!

Every day the school's teachers, count heads and make sure every kid makes it on the correct bus to get home. Every day the bus driver does the same exact thing. Now any way you look at it, someone working for the school, screwed up BIG TIME!

What's even more messed up is that they would have never known she had even gotten off if it were not for my fiance's daughter who did the right thing and told the other school's principal that she was not suppose to be there. That was the only reason the school knew where she was!!!! What would have happened if someone would have snatched her or if she was scared enough that she didn't know what to do? She could have wandered away from the school!!!!

It pisses me off that they had no idea where she was at, didn't even know she was missing until that child told them and then they tried to cover their ass and blame it all on her!!!

It's not the first time a school has lost a child either. When my 10 year old started kindergarten at another school in the state of Oklahoma, the very first day, his teacher lost him. I almost understood that it was a first day and she didn't know all of the kids yet, until.... she walked away, back to the rest of the class without a concern in the world that my child was missing.

Come to find out, he had went to the other side of the school to find his oldest brother.
The very next day, I reported the incident with her to the principal. The rest of the school year he was always in trouble for some reason. Funny however, after that school year, he never was in trouble again.

And to think we have to put our trust into these schools!