Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Asheville School Daze

Anticipating a delayed start of school because of last night's snow, we shut off our boys' alarm clocks last night so they could sleep in. At 6:27am this morning, the phone rang and rang rousing me from a saucy dream involving intoxication, the beach and a hot married man. Not surprisingly, I clumsily knocked the phone from its cradle and it skidded across the floor. Heart racing, I finally answered, assuming the news at the other end terrible, considering the time of morning. Perhaps my Dad had another mini stroke? My house was on fire? My mother-n-law fell out of bed again? No, it was our school superintendent, Robert Logan, calling with a recorded message to inform us that school had been delayed. Thanks an effing lot for waking up the whole house, Mr. Logan. And for interrupting the best dream I’ve had all year.

Fast forward to 2:30. Wednesday afternoon is the only time my boys don't regularly ride the bus. When I arrived to pick them up from school my oldest, the brainiaic, handed me a letter from the Central Office stating that because of low rider ship and lack of funding from the state, their bus route had been cut. Makes sense to me, it had maybe 20 kids on it. It's more economical to combine routes, right? So i read on to find out what bus would now be transporting them. To my shock and dismay, there was no alternative transportation planned.
Huh? Doesn't the school system have some legal obligation to transport all children to school? We are probably 5 or 6 miles from the school, so walking isn't a viable option. I just don't get it. If the state doesn't have the dough to get my kids to school, then the city needs to come up with it. Or perhaps the feds should so they can tout their slogan, "No Child Left Behind".
I have several calls into the Administrator for Transportation for the Asheville City Schools. Hmmmm, I wonder why he isn't answering his phone? When he does call back, I just have to remember not to shoot the messenger.

1 comment:

Amy Rio-Anderson/Running Rio said...

I thought if you lived more than a mile from the school they had to offer some kind of transportation - interested to hear what they say.

And the married man, was it your DH or some other married man? And the dream was better than the one with the Donald?

My fav dream this past year was when Roger Federer was a super spy and kept saving me from all kind of danger and sweeping me up in his arms.