It’s the first day of school for my kids, and it’s so quiet here now that I can hardly think. I like the noise, I like the chaos that having two children provides, I like hearing my daughter yell “mommy” a hundred times a day. Okay well that last one may be pushing it a bit, but I do love hearing her call me mommy, most of the time.
Things went as smoothly as they ever do this morning getting the kids off to school. They had to change the high school bus run, so my fifteen year old son now gets on the bus at 6:15 am, 20 minutes before my hubby even leaves for work, so now at least if he misses the bus, he can just catch a ride with him. Although I do think that that’s a bit early for a kids to have to be off to school, when I was his age I didn’t have to leave the house until almost 8am, despite the fact that I lived just 1/4 mile down the road.
The school has my son’s schedule and bus schedule all screwed up because he changed his mind about going to vo-tech, they have him scheduled to go there, despite the fact that we notified them months ago that he wasn’t. As of right now, no one still has any idea how my son is getting home from school, as they had him scheduled for the vo-tech run, and all the regular run buses that can come out our way are full. Why? Because they won’t run a real school bus to our house, despite the fact that the bus owner approved our driveway as a bus turn around point, and even had the state put up the school bus stop ahead signs, the school board won’t approve it (we’re the last house in the school district on this road.) But yet they have the vans picking up kids who live in areas that the buses pas through. Yeah, that makes sense. I’m just glad that he has a cell phone so he can let me know what’s going on this afternoon.
My daughter was so excited this morning that she could hardly contain herself, and was ready nearly half an hour before the bus was due to pick her up. Of course, at the last minute, just seconds before the bus arrived, she decided that she needed a shirt on under her tank dress, so I was dressing her in the driveway, it’s a good thing that we live in the boondocks! Luckily, her bus route is exactly the same as it was last year, so I don’t have to worry about her getting on the wrong bus or anything, our bus/van driver is a great lady who takes care of each of the kids as if they were her own grandkids, which some of them are. I can’t wait until she gets home, I put a special surprise in her lunch box that she didn’t know about, a little “whimsy pets”, teeny tiny stuffed animals that she loves.
My biggest worry this year is about the school district. Our school district has been rapidly declining over the past few years. Once ranked number one amongst all the schools in a tri-county area, it’s now at the bottom. A three year teachers strike started the ball rolling when my son was in kindergarten, after that they went through 6 superintendents in rapid succession, senior teachers and administrative staff started leaving for the neighboring school district and even sales jobs, PSSA test scores falling, and only sports oriented parents on the school board have left it totally floundering right now.
The latest gossip is that if things don’t get straightened out this year and the PSSA scores up where they need to be, then the state will take control. Whether that rumor is true or not, I really can’t say, as no one in any position will make a straight comment one way or another. I guess we’ll just see how it goes, and if things get really bad, we’ll petition to have the school district line moved to the other side of our property so that our kids can follow where all the old staff went, and switch to the other school district.
