At our local elementary school, where Logan attends, we’ve been having serious carline issues. Since being out of work, Poe has taken over the dropoff and pickup for me. He was coming home increasingly angry at the other parents doing stupid stuff, against the “rules” stuff, illegal stuff, and flat out dangerous stuff. Examples: Parking across the street, and then having their kids come to them, between the cars in the carline AND jaywalking alone (6 years old) to boot. Pulling u-turns straight out of the line. Parking in local residents’ driveways. Parking in the red. Blocking fire hydrants. Double parking in the middle of the street. It got to the point that he starting documenting on his cel phone.
Because of our frequent meetings with the principal for Joseph’s IEP’s (this was prior to his switching schools,) Poe was able to bring up his issues with the whole thing. The school is a little at a loss as to how to really fix it. They are already participants of the Calico program – a Sheriff’s program that trains parent volunteers to help the line move faster and safer. Finally they decided to publish a rather harsh letter in the school newsletter (I’m the editor,) and bring in the Sheriffs. And up the parental volunteer muscle. So they brought in Poe, a former marine, who’s mad at what the other parents are doing. So each day, at least while he’s out of work (still?!) Poe will hang out at the school, help kids get out and in the cars, holler at stupid parents, and if they don’t listen take their license numbers and pictures for the Sheriff. He got trained by the Sheriffs this morning (yes, it’s that serious.)
These parents are impatient, and think that they have more important things to do than the rest of the parents do. As a result they put all our kids in danger. If it were just a matter of being rude, that’d be different. But a little girl was killed near here not all that long ago for the same reasons. Time to put a stop to it – Poe stepped up to the plate. This should get interesting.
Is it just me…this blog entry totally needs a picture of Poe in an orange vest lookin’ MEAN. Pleeeeease! I just gotta have it!
I’m glad the school is doing something about it. You should see the chaos that is the pick up line at my son’s elementary school. School lets out at 3:30pm, but if you’re not in line at 3pm you’re on the road waiting to get into the parking lot. People double park too. Or my personal favorite, they park their car in the line, then get out to go find their kid, only to return to their car 5-10 minutes later where if they would have just waited their turn, it would’ve been faster for us all. And my son wonders why we make him ride the bus.
I don’t see any of this, but I get to the school a half-hour early so I can be in the same spot every day, right in front…Moroni thrives on consistency. I stay there until I have talked to the teacher about how the day went. I don’t really care if people get annoyed with me…Moroni needs me to be in the same spot, and the teacher needs to know that I appreciate everything she goes through with my kid.