I try not to make my kids feel like they are a burden and really picking up Andrew after school is not a problem in most cases, but realistically speaking it was going to get real old real fast rushing back from Klein Oak High School to Blackshear Elementary every single school day and barely making it in time to pick up Lance to load his bike into the minivan. Realistically I was going to have to tell Lance that for the next few weeks he was just going to be a car rider to school and a walker after school and have him walk down the sidewalk and meet me at the car. It would work better that way. At least then I could have a “back-up” plan in place for him to walk home with someone if I did not get to the school by release time.
Then yesterday happened. It was the same thing as I mentioned in my previous post only I managed to shave a couple of minutes off of that. I stopped and mentioned to the crossing guard how bad the traffic at Klein Oak was after school and that was why I was just getting there and coming into the neighborhood from the back. She knows that I live up at the front. She also lives in the neighborhood. I explained how I had to go pick up Andrew and it takes at least 20 minutes to get off the school complex. What I heard next was like the Handel’s Chorus singing to my ears. She looked at me and asked why he was not riding the bus.
There was not a bus or so I thought. All indications were that there were no buses provided for us. Last year they sent one and we had to apply to ride it. We filled all that paperwork out. All that paperwork said it was for the 2012-2013 school year only. There was never any paperwork sent home for the 2013-2014 school year. When I went to the school website to their transportation department there was no indication that there were going to be any buses provided for us again this year. We were not zoned for Klein Oak, we are zoned for Klein High School. All information showed that transportation was provided for Klein HS only. So when I double checked right before school started it was the same thing. Other people had gotten the same information.
The crossing guard was standing there talking to a young lady/teenager who happened to be a senior at Klein Oak High School and she had just gotten off the bus that came from KOHS just a few minutes earlier. What?!. Yes. So they had in fact changed their minds about sending the bus after all. I asked her a few questions about it and there was some paperwork but she said it was a couple of years ago. Her mother had called the Transportation Department directly.
After I got home with Lance, I called the Transportation Department at Klein ISD as well. I wanted to verify this and wanted to make sure there was no additional paperwork to fill out. The buses that are used for areas that you are not zoned for require permission slips, etc. The lady I got on the phone after I explained my situation to her, says “I heard rumors that they were going to send buses for those kids, let me verify that they actually did do that.” So it was not just me that was under the impression that there was no bus for us originally. She took my information and she called me back a few minutes later verifying that they had in fact sent bus routes to these kids that had been grandfathered at Klein Oak but are zoned for Klein HS. This is not normal for them, but they did it.
Andrew has access to a bus to and from school again this year like he did last year. Granted the bus stop is a half mile from the house, but it is still a bus. The bus will get him home 30 minutes before I can get him home with our current situation.
Of course, all of this is only a temporary fix…
It does not fix the morning issues that come in between getting him to seminary and getting Ben to the park-n-ride or to the carpool location. It only solves getting him to school on days he does not have Early Morning Seminary. It does not even solve the problem next semester when he has Zero Hour Period for his Theory of Knowledge IB course.
It does temporarily fix my after school pick-up time crunch right now, at least until after school Orchestra Rehearsals start up. Then I will have the same problem again only in reverse order. At least then I will have the older child being the child that I can tell him he has to wait a few minutes and he will just hang out in the Orchestra room until I get there. It is not like being late to pick up Lance where he has no where to go and entertain himself.
All I can say is that this is the best news I have gotten all week…
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