School is in Session

So today I put my baby on the school bus for the first time. She didn't hesitate except to figure out how she was going to tackle the yellow beast and once she was on, she went right to the aid and didn't look back. I guess I'm glad. I wanted her to be happy and to go with confidence, but I confess--the mommy in me is sad.

I can't complain though. At least the bus was here today. And as you already know from my last post it wasn't easy getting here.

If you can believe it, the whole ordeal got worse after I posted.

So I called a total of three times and left two messages, both of them detailing how urgent it was that she get back with me. Of course that wasn't enough.

Once Daddy got home we loaded up the car and went up to the school. The ladies in the office were happy to page the Incompetent Mrs. ESE Facilitator for us. They called her on the intercom. No response. They called again. No response. Finally, after the third time, one of them went looking for her and found her for us.

The first thing she did was try passing the blame on to someone else. It went something like this. "Oh, see, we have a part-timer who handles that and I don't think she's here right now. I can TRY to get in touch with her though and see if she can take care of it."

In the meantime, I'm just going... Umm, I'm going to be one seriously ticked parent if my kid misses her first day of school on account of you being unable to do your job. Can you just call me when you get a grip?

Before we left she advised us again to just go on out Monday and see if the bus shows up. Since Grumpy Mom asked last time, yes, I'm pretty sure she was serious. She made the statement more than once and she really strikes me as the type to make air-headed suggestions without considering how idiotic they sound.

So anyway, we left and left her to sort it out. Later on we got a call from her saying it was fixed, to call the bus people and find out the details. The bus people were, however, already gone by the time we got the message.

Monday morning rolls around and thank goodness I thought ahead to call the bus depot and ask where we needed to be and when we needed to be there. They told us that they didn't know why Incompetent Mrs. EF told us it was fixed because it wasn't. They said to give them the day and they'd have it taken care of by the end of the day.

So I waited and waited and just because I'm the type who can't stop picking at a scab, I called around 3PM just to make sure the issue had been resolved. The lady told me that they'd be able to bring Little Froggy home from school the next day. I informed her that if they couldn't pick her up to go in the morning then she wouldn't be at school for them to pick up. The lady was nice and stopped right then to punch everything in for us and give us a time to be out there. Then, she asked... "Does Froggy have any particular needs on the bus? A harness or booster seat or anything? The papers don't say and they should. All it says is that she needs an aid."

*Facepalm*

I told her yes, Little Froggy needs a booster seat or harness because she's not even 4 yet and the law tends to frown on children being in moving vehicles without some sort of restraint. She punched it in but told me to call the school and have them fix it, since the error was on that end. So I asked her, who is responsible for sending all of this information?

From your school, the lady said, the Incompetent Mrs. EF is responsible.

Funny, I said. Incompetent Mrs. EF told me there was a part-timer who did all of this and she was responsible.

Nope, lady said. She might have someone punching in the info for her--some schools do--but she's ultimately the one who is supposed to make sure it gets done and gets sent.

The kicker? Nice Lady told me they'd gotten the request in May and immediately sent a response back saying they didn't have the IEP information they needed. So the Incompetent Mrs. EF knew IN MAY that this was a problem. In May all she could say to us was that the busing would probably take too long to get worked out before the end of the school year.

To put that another way: Incompetent Mrs. EF implied in May that it would take more than three weeks to work out the bus situation. It took a lot of footwork on my end, but isn't it funny how I had it taken care of in less than two business days?

At the end of it all we got the bus situation straightened out (no thanks from You Know Who) and today my baby climbed aboard for the first time. She's off to her favorite place (no offense, MeMe!) and hopefully when she gets home she'll be a new girl.

Part of me is sad. Part of me is glad that the next phone call I make won't be to Incompetent Mrs. EF but to someone at the district who will listen to my complaint about her. Part of me just ready for a nap.

I hope school is going well for everyone. I'll post pictures and an update on Little Froggy just as soon as I can.