Principal called again

I am in a rollercoaster of emotions right now. I got a call from the principal today requesting that I drive Alex to and from school instead of him riding the bus. Now, if money were no object, I would be perfectly fine with this; however, money is an object. At the current gas prices, it would cost me between $5-6 a day for transportation. That's $25-30 a week.

When I informed the principal that we just could not financially accomadate their request, she asked me to call the spec ed supervisor. She is someone that I know personally, but because Al is not in spec ed she could not authorize anything. So she gave me the number of the transportation director.

I called and left a message with the transportation director's office. About an hour later he called me back so I had to go over the whole situation with him and his assistant.

Here's the situation: Alex has a problem with soiling and wetting. He wears pull-ups to school and has extra p/u's at school for accidents. I have only been called by the school ONCE to have to pick him up for a soiling accident since school started back on Aug 18. He has had soiling accidents on the bus in the evenings on his way home from school but it has been fully contained in his pull-up. His clothes have never shown any evidence of soiling or wetting. The bus driver made statements that it is getting on her seats. I was really gentle the first time that I spoke with the principal and said that the bus driver's statement was false. I had already spoken with the bus driver and asked if we could have a 2 week period where the school worked with me to have Alex scheduled to go to the bathroom within an hour before he is to get on the bus as this helped him last year (on this same bus driver's bus) to come home virtually accident free. The bus driver agreed. Alex has only attended school 2 days since that time (we had Hurricane Rita) but today I got the call from the principal.

I also told him that I have a 5 year old who has been looking forward to riding the bus with her brother since last year when she was not allowed to attend PreK because of her high test scores.

The transportation director actually listened to everything and thought that my plan was a good one. He also gave some back-up options such as letting both of them ride the accessible bus or even the transportation department providing gas for me to take Alex to school everyday. The only problem is that the other bus may not get him home any sooner in the evenings. The Transportation director said he would call the and talk with the bus driver and the principal at the school tomorrow to discuss the transportation situation. So right now we are at a stand still.

Jaba came home and is quite upset as I am, too, but I'm a little more willing to try and work through the rungs of authority. Jaba told me that either I should or he will call tomorrow and tell them that any other child who ever has a "first incident" report as our son has and is not required to be removed from the bus then he will sue the school board for discrimination. Believe me I understand his frustration, but I think that we may have better results with "honey" first.