major vent, I hate the school bus

[Jeannie in NJ]

I hope you ladies don't get sick of me posting, but I don't know where else to get this vent off my chest.

 

OK, dd has been in school for 4 days now, the first day the bus was 20 min. late (it was the first day so ok , I understand), the next day the bus was early and waiting for us when we showed up 10 min. early as we have been so as not to miss the bus. Then Fri, which I posted about with the flooding and the bus being 4 hours late. Well now to today.

 

We go to wait for bus at 6:50, no bus, wait until 7:20 try to call bus company takes at least 5 min. to talk to 2 different people at dispatch and finally talk to owner of bus company. He puts me on hold to talk to bus driver, bus driver tells him that she was at bus stop at 7:07, I said no, she wasn't. He does not know who to believe. He then let spill that only 2 of the 5 kids were picked up today, so why weren't the other kids picked up. Anyway, too late for another bus so I drive dd on the long drive to school, by the time we get there she has missed most of first period which is Spanish, one of her favorite classes.

 

Also, dd told me that so far it has never been the same bus driver twice, and

 

new one every day and also different one each time in morning and afternoon

So what to do:

Dd loves the school she goes to so does not want to not go to that school, that school has nothing to do with the buses. Each individual local school district has to supply the bus, our local school district is the worst to deal with, it took a call to the superintentant to convince them that they are actually required to suppy the bus. So then they hired a private bus company and told me all my dealings are to be with the bus company.

 

I can't drive her every day, because what if the bus gets used to not picking her up and then I can't drive due to bad weather or car trouble or I'm sick or something. Dd does not want to miss school, she wants to go every day.

 

I am upset, so is difficult to figure out what to do.

 

oh, also dd says the other kids on the bus just spend the entire time on their ipods so they probably don't even notice where the bus is going or what dd's bus stop is or even if the bus driver is going the right way or not.

[BabyBre]

This sounds a lot like our bus, but we only live 1.5 miles from the school so our drivers' only excuse is incompetence. This is why my dc don't ride the bus, but I am able to take them every day.

 

I guess you can call the bus company with your concerns, but if you don't have any other options, you're kind of at their mercy.

[lgm]

Go back to the superintendent with the facts and ask him to solve it.

Chances are the bus co can't find a reliable driver, or the drivers are changing around to get more lucrative routes. The super has the weight you don't have as the bus co is going to want their contract renewed without reduction next time it comes up for bid. Poor service gives the district a chance to find some savings.

[Barb_]

I would just drive her if it is going to be that much aggravation. My high schoolers go to a small classical charter 45 minutes away and there is no bus service available. Dh drives them in the morning, I pick up in the afternoon. It is a huge pain in the butt, but I'm thrilled with the education they are getting, so I consider it a cost of doing business. Really, bus service is an extra, not a necessity, IMO.

 

Barb

[LibrarianMom]

Unfortunately, because it is a private bus company there is likely to be little driver consistency. Is there a possibility the driver stopped but at the wrong place? As school has just started, students aren't going to know each other yet and won't know that someone hasn't been picked up yet even if they weren't listening to their ipods. You might encourage your daughter to seek out a friendly soul to either call her with a heads-up on bus location or speak up for her if the bus doesn't stop. You are probably going to have to hound the superintendent about transportation issues until a satisfactory solution is found. At least the bus is supposed to pick her up. I can see where some schools would require the parents to take the student to the main hs and the students be bussed from the central pick-up/drop-off point. Good luck!

[gingersmom]

My daughter was in private school last year at a school about a 30 minute drive from my house.

 

I paid $5000 to a private company (they do car service stuff) and they picked up about 10 kids all together (in a big passenger van). According to the school they had used them for about 10 years. Hard to believe but apparently true.

 

The entire year my daughter moaned and complained. Some of her complaints were legitimate. The driver would blast the radio so even with her Ipod on she couldn't drown out his radio. She repeatedly asked him to lower it to no avail.

 

Then he started bringing his year old son on the van in the afternoon (he was a single father with scheduling issues, not my problem). One day the kid threw up on the way home so they had to stop so he could clean up his baby. It was very weird.

 

If the owner of the company was driving she would not get out of the van to open and shut the van doors. It was awfully hard for my tiny daughter to climb in the van with all her stuff let alone lean over and slide the van door shut (big passenger van).

 

My favorite was the time that he almost backed into my daughter while she was removing her stuff from the back of the van. Because he was too lazy to get out of the van and was running late, he did not remember that she was removing her stuff. Thankfully I was there and an accident was averted.

 

Another favorite was when he "got stuck in the snow". So he never showed. And didn't call. Now I know he has our cell phone programmed in his phone because we forgot to say we were not going to be on the van one morning and he called from the pickup site extremely annoyed.

 

When I asked him why he did not call us to say he was not showing he said he forgot.

 

I could just go on and on.

 

I finally started driving/picking her up as often as I could.

 

Ultimately it was one more reason for her wanting to be homeschooled.