Lowering my Expectations

Yesterday one of my sons got off the bus and told me that a certain kid gave him the finger. This is nothing new. There is a core group of bullies on the bus and my son is one of their targets. Then my son tell me how one of the bullies had a glass bottle that he so graciously gave to another bully to try to break over my son’s head. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. My son has already been assaulted and threatened but this really crossed the line.

I put in a call to the assistant principal but she was in a meeting so I was forced to leave a message. This morning I decided I was going to call the transportation office to find out why there is no bus monitor on this bus. The man that I talked to provided me with various excuses. The first was that there are no special ed kids on the bus. Well, he didn’t know that he was talking to a mother with a special ed kid on that very bus and knows of at least 3 other special ed kids. Then he told me they weren’t special ed enough, according to the state of Illinois, to require a monitor. He said he didn’t have a monitor to spare anyway. So I laid everything out for him with out all the bullshit. I told him that he was tell me that there was no money for a monitor and that was tough. He told me that he didn’t say that. He told me how it was all the state’s fault because they won’t provide the funding and how a bus driver is perfectly capable of driving a bus and disciplining more than sixty kids without help. I then told him what exactly had been happening to my child on the bus and he already knew which mom I was (there was a particular incident that is too disgusting to forget). Then he explained to me how there are far worse busses in the district and they don’t get a monitor. Now he is justifying bad behavior by pointiing out worse behavior and he expects that to pacify me? He told me all I can do is contact my state legislature and beg for money so my kid can have safe ride to and from school.

In a nut shell, district 150 can come up will money to buy a house that border the park and demolish them when they don’t get their way but money for a bus monitor for elementary school students is out of the question. Thank you district 150. I thought my opinion of you could not get any less but you lowered the bar and lived up to your shitty reputation.

16 Comments

• katearch1978, January 31, 2008 @ 10:36 pm How horrible and completely inexcusable!

• Heather, January 31, 2008 @ 11:07 pm Hey, Typical District 150 bullsh*t. Always blowing smoke up our asses so that parents won’t figure out that they are completly clueless.

• jadedgirl, February 1, 2008 @ 11:00 am This is exactly the reason why I refuse to live in Peoria. Don’t get me wrong…I grew up there and attended many dist 150 grade schools, including, but not limited to Blaine Sumner, and Sipp. I also untimately graduated from Peoria High School. I am proud of being a peoria graduate…but district 150 has rapidly deteriorated in the past 10 years…and there was no way I would allow my son to be subjected to it’s bad decisions. I had no choice, like many others I graduated with, we spread to the outlying communities, where education is still a priority. I feel for you EBB, I truly do. Keep your head up and keep bitching all you want! It shows that you are willing to get results for your child, no matter what…and that is what a GOOD parent does! Afterall, that is the only way that things get done. )

• Rixblix, February 1, 2008 @ 11:11 am You know, you could reconvene your IEP team and have a bus monitor written into his plan. If it’s written into his plan, the district MUST comply. Actually, that’s what I’d do, call the Sp. Ed. department and request a team meeting. They’ll have to answer your request within 10 days (I think that’s how many).

• PeoriaIllinoisan, February 1, 2008 @ 11:15 am What crap! If it weren’t for private schools, I’d be outta here too.

• East Bluff Barbie, February 1, 2008 @ 11:33 am It isn’t my special ed son that is being bullied. That was just the excuse for not putting a monitor on the bus. In fact the kid who was going to bust the bottle is in special ed. The Assistant Principal is diciplining the kid and he will be suspended from the bus for either 2 days, 5 days, or 10 days depending on which offense this is. After they have reached the 10 days suspension then they are thrown off the bus for a calender year. Considering how many incidents there have been and how many kids are doing the bullying, I don’t see anyone getting the year long suspension anytime soon.

• Grandma's Attic, February 1, 2008 @ 12:27 pm I went to Dunlap High School and rode the bus 3 times the entire 3 years I went there. I could tell you horror stories about the bus situations that occurred out there. My daughter went all 4 years to Dunlap HS as well as Dunlap MS before that, and Banner Elementary. Bullying is alive and well all over. I even knew kids that smoked cigarettes and pot on the buses at DHS and drank booze. Anyway, this is not endemic to Peoria. What is endemic is the amount of funding the Dist. 150 schools get compared to the ‘white flight’ school districts. Keep fighting as that is the only way change comes about!

• diane vespa, February 1, 2008 @ 12:56 pm Call Mike Sullivan, Director of Transportation at District 150. His Phone number is 693-4418. Ask for a face to face meeting. He will handle it for you. Don’t talk to anyone but him or you will get the run-around. As you are talking to him, tell him that you want to be on the same Parent-Transportation Liason committee (that is supposedly in the works and I already have dibbs on) as me. One of the first topics I wanted to tackle was the subject of Bus Monitors. If they can’t pay for them, I’ll organize a parent effort…. keep me posted!

• East Bluff Barbie, February 1, 2008 @ 1:22 pm For insurance purposes they can’t allow parents to be volunteer bus monitors. I already discussed that with the Assistant Principal. Bus Monitor has to be an employee.

• reno, February 1, 2008 @ 1:28 pm Go get ‘em, tiger.

• jenjw4, February 1, 2008 @ 2:07 pm EBB, How frustrating. It’s bad enough to have your child bullied but not having the adults in the situation take it seriously is very, very frustrating. It seems crazy that all school buses don’t automatically have moniters. It seems a matter of basic common sense and safety. Jennifer

• Rixblix, February 1, 2008 @ 3:28 pm Diane’s plan might be the best way to go, avoid the underlings and go to the top. However, those parents who have students with IEPs can use that as an avenue for remediation as well. If nothing else, it’s a way to MAKE the district address your concerns in a timely fashion.

• East Bluff Barbie, February 2, 2008 @ 11:22 am Rixblix, Changing an IEP in District 150 is like pulling teeth unless that change cuts the services to your child. Most IEP meetings I have been to involve how to cut services to your child. Money is what motivates everything at District 150 not the welfare of children.

• NewsAnchorMom, February 3, 2008 @ 1:30 pm Wow! I had no idea what it is like to ride the bus. I lived within walking distance. I am certainly thinking twice about whether to drive my kids to school and let them take the bus. Wow! I did a post on bullying a few weeks ago. Maybe there’s something in there that would help?? http://newsanchormom.blogspot.com/search?q=bullying

• diane vespa, February 9, 2008 @ 3:00 pm Other school districts allow parents to be bus monitors.. after those parents submit to a background check. I’m not sure who gave you the “insurance” line, but it could be they said that instead of “we’d rather not mess with that”. One of the newstations did a report on the prevalence of bus drivers within D150 that have criminal records. Certainly if their “insurance Provider” would overlook that then what’s the big deal about parents being bus monitors?

Pingbacks/Trackbacks

1. Local: Don’t bother District 150 with annoying concerns about safety — February 1, 2008 @ 10:43 am

   [...] Bluff Barbie has a very infuriating post about school bus safety. It seems the district can’t afford to put safety monitors to protect special needs kids from [...]

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment