For kids who ride the bus, there are a few things they can count on, and not one of them is the bus being on time or getting them to school on time every day. But don’t get it twisted, because as a parent of two school-aged kids, I 100 percent understand that. There are so many factors that go into bus pick-ups that drivers have to contend with.
And sometimes, waiting a few minutes for a kid to run from their house to the bus stop, or for traffic to cooperate, can mean getting the kids to school and off the bus a few minutes behind schedule.
Unfortunately, one mom on Reddit does not get that. She shared in a post that she reached out to the school with complaints about her kids getting to school “just a few minutes before or even after the bell time.”
For her, it’s an issue that she wants fixed for her kids. For kids who ride the bus, it’s one of those things you just have to accept. It isn’t a personalized car service for one family.
It’s school transportation provided to a school district and, in some cases, the bus is filled to capacity after pick-ups at a lot of different stops along the route.
The mom isn’t happy with her kids’ bus route and schedule.
She explains in her Reddit post that her kids have always dealt with being a few minutes late to school or barely on time because of the bus schedule. She also says that she spoke to the school to ensure that her kids are not penalized with tardies in those instances. But now, her oldest kid is worried about it, because those few minutes they are sometimes late cuts into their morning work in class.
As a result, the mom wants something to change and she talked to the bus driver about it specifically.
“I called the driver yesterday to ask if there was any way for them to get to school earlier,” she says in her post. “I said I was willing to drive them to school if not. She got short and impatient with me on the phone and then this morning was cold to my kids as they got on the bus, not saying a word to me. I thanked her and texted her another thank you when my daughter let me know that they got to school 10 minutes before the bell and she ignored me both times.”
I’m not saying that her frustration isn’t valid, because it can be hard to have your kids come to you with their own concerns about being late to school because of something beyond their control.
But if the school bus were to barrel through side streets in order to get kids to school just a couple of minutes ahead of schedule, it would be a whole other issue.
And after the mom shared her Reddit post, some parents in the comments came for her. Hard.
“The bus driver has no say on their schedule or their route,” one user commented. “And if they have to pick your kid up earlier. That means they have to pick up every kid earlier. Get the OK from every parent and call the bus company.”
Another user called the mom “entitled” and reminded her that bus routes are hard to learn quickly. “Your kid is not the only one on the bus,” they wrote. “Routes take a while to learn and iron out all the kinks with timing. It’s the beginning of the school year too.”
Someone else wrote that the school bus driver is not “a private chauffeur that you pay for solely to drive your children to school and you can control her schedule.”
An actual school bus driver weighed in too. They wrote, “As a bus driver myself, I would be seriously annoyed if one of my parents asked me to change the schedule I’m NOT ALLOWED to change so that a family’s child isn’t late for school. I don’t make the schedule, my company doesn’t make the schedule, the school board does.”
