Paul-
Sorry to send this to you in an e-mail, but I'm in an all day offsite meeting today and don't want to be trying to make you listen to me on a cell phone. :)
Sometime after dinner last night Connor casually mentioned to us that he had to get a ride back to school yesterday afternoon because he didn't go to his after school activity (Krazy Kickball) and took the bus home. Clearly, the manner in which he told us (and the fact that he thought we were absolutely nuts to think it was an issue) indicates that he handled the situation as planned--that is--we have an emergency plan that we review with him constantly about what to do if he gets off the bus and neither one of us are there. That part is delightful.
The part that's not delightful to us as working parents is that this is one of our worst fears. Our 7 year old alone roaming the neighborhood. Things went fine yesterday, but on another day he could have just as easily fallen into tears and sat on the corner weeping. We're dealing with Connor here, but I can only imagine if this happened to a less self-sufficient child or one without parents who have reviewed an emergency plan.
He tells me that the mixup occurred because he had a substitute teacher yesterday and "it was just confusing". When I tried to get him to narrow it down for me he said that normally Ms. Reed has the after school activity kids sit in certain spots so that they know not to line up for the bus and that this teacher didn't do that. She called for the bus kids and he got in line.
Maybe he wasn't paying attention--certainly that's a possibility. But ultimately, I can't let him shoulder ANY of the blame. We rely on the school to make sure he's attended to and gets to where he needs to be and we're fairly concerned that something like this happened.
Thanks for all you do and thanks for taking care of this as I know you will.
Regards,
Dianna Tate
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