School Bus

This year we have begun again the school bus fight. It's a fight I've had ever since my son started on the bus. It's really annoying.

Micah was never a school bus child until 2nd grade. He begged and begged to get on the bus until I finally allowed him to come home on it...even though it was only a 5 minute ride. I didn't realize at the time that it would turn into a nightmare.

The very next year he was sent to a new school. Literally the farthest school in the district from my house. It was horrible. Every day I still drove him to school. I'm a paranoid mom who really wants to know who is with my child every day and wants a talking relationship with my child's teachers and the staff at the school. This is 3rd grade. I know he could use some space, but I am just not that mom. It was really a good thing I stayed involved that year, though. Micah had the worst bus schedule ever. He was literally on the bus for 2 hours after waiting 30 minutes after school for the bus to even get there. Not getting my kid from school until dinner time was not a plus for me. Besides, he was so agitated after being in that bus for so long every day that he just wouldn't calm down until bedtime.

I debated dropping the bus thing all together. Honestly, it wasn't a fight that I wanted to have. Still, there were other kids going through the same thing. The bus system was broken and no one else was going to be loud enough to fix it.

I'm loud.

I rock the boat. I called an IEP. I requested that a representative of the transportation department be there as well as Micah's bus driver. I also made sure that someone from pupil services was there as well as an autism specialist and the school psychologist and anyone else I could think of that would help this situation. They all showed up and they changed his route and worked on strategies with the bus driver to help Micah learn to be on the bus. Overall it worked because he didn't have to be on the bus very long at all.

Then came the next year. New year, new school, new bus driver. New school not because of any moving that I had done, just because they "realigned classes". I didn't rock the boat again because I really liked the new school and the new teacher. The teacher and bus driver worked together for 3 months to get Micah to get on the bus easily. Plus, the bus driver knew to get Micah off the bus as soon as she could. This worked out well, Micah was on the bus for less than 30 minutes every day. Not bad since the school takes me 8 minutes to get to and she had other kids to drop off.

Then comes this year. Micah is back to a long bus ride. He's on the bus for about an hour and 15 minutes to two hours. Yeah, they aren't real regular with that. Not cool. Micah is starting to get frustrated. He isn't showing it on the bus yet, but I'm waiting for it. I don't want it to get bad again. Micah's teacher has already tried talking to the bus driver who isn't really happy with that. She's also called over her head to no avail. My turn.

Today I'm on the phone again. Pupil Personel, Transportation, if someone doesn't fix this this week we will have an IEP again. You all don't want to know that I'll do this time. Someone do their jobs before I start working the system. I know how to do that and my child will get what he needs. I take care of my kids.

That's why I'm Supermommie.