Blurred Edges
8 years ago
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Another Reason Why I Homeschool
Given things I have been reading in the news of late, I've decided to post (from time to time) reasons why I homeschool. This is the first installment.
Recently, a local child - a kindergartener - was dropped off at the wrong bus stop the first day of school. The child was wearing some sort of identification which detailed his (or her, the gender of the child was not disclosed) address and which bus he was to take. However, this information, provided to the child by his school, was WRONG! The child's mother had attended the school's open house the night before and had noted the incorrect information and told a school representative about it. The school representative said it would be taken care of. It wasn't, and this five year old was dropped off in the middle of nowhere. The child was "missing" for some 40 minutes. Fortunately, a kind woman saw him on the side of the road and took him back to the school and into the arms of his frantic mother.
Of course, the school system has now implemented a new policy of requiring each child dropped off by the bus to be delivered into the care of an approved adult. According to school officials, this is not a "knee-jerk reaction" to the missing kindergartener episode. RIGHT!
I shudder to think of what could have happened to that child, and that is why I homeschool!
[NOTE: This is why I homeschool, not why YOU should. These posts are not for debate, but are purely my opinions and why homeschooling is good for my family. TYVM.]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Thank you for sharing. It's one of the MANY reasons we decided to start homeschooling this year.
My husband and I were to get my neice (now a college freshman) off the bus on her first day of kindergarten. The bus driver forgot to drop her off. My niece, being 5, didn't know what to do, and ride the bus to the garage. The drive parked the bus and went home, leaving my niece quietly sobbing for an hour while we called the school, the garage, and eventually the police, who found her. The driver was supposed to check the bus before leaving but didn't bother.
Both my husband's parents are school bus drivers and are very careful, but not everyone is!
This happened to one of my daughter's friends when they were both in Kindergarten too...Poor Mia showed up at our house because she had been dropped off at an empty house. No one had told her she was supposed to be picked up by a family friend, who had completely forgotten. Mia was at out house for 3 hours before anyone even knew she was missing. We are so far out in the country I don't know what she would have done had we not been home. I can't imagine the terror a 5 year old child felt being alone like that..
Our school is the most lackadaisical place I've ever seen about student security and scoffed at me when I suggested changes. It's a reason we homeschool too.
A similar thing happened to me on my first day of kindergarten back in 1986. I was supposed to go to a sitter's house. They had all the information, but they still labeled me and put me on a bus for my house. The bus driver wouldn't listen as I told them repeatedly that I wasn't supposed to be dropped at my street. I refused to get off the bus. The driver pulled in front of my house, and my middle school age brother happened to be home. He watched me for the afternoon, but he didn't know to call my mother. The sitter and my mom were frantic for several hours until they discovered I was home.
I never rode the bus to and from school after that. Had we not homeschooled, I had no plans to ever have my children ride the bus. This incident certainly reinforces our choices.
Similar things have happened here in Maine. Certainly, student safety is part of why we homeschool as well.
Post a Comment