I think what annoys me about this is not the issue of whether or not the kid takes the bus. It’s the issue of the mom having to ask an acquaintance to do a 60 min round trip favor. The mom needs to get out of her bind and get into her car. OR she needs to have a plan B for times she cannot make it to school for pickup.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in a major city and my DD takes buses all over the place no problem.

But when I was a child living in the suburbs, I had NO IDEA which bus to get on after middle school ended. I knew the bus stop near my house, but getting on the right bus to get home was a huge problem. I couldn't figure out how other kids knew. To this day I still don't know. I basically loitered near the buses until I saw someone who lived near me, and then stalked them onto the right bus to get home each day.

The buses display bus numbers. And generally line up in the same order. This was true even in the days of the Late Pleistocene North American megafauna, when I went to middle school/high school.

Lol. No they do not. The busses line up as they get there. I still have nightmares about only having 4 minutes to find my bus and did miss it several times. And I rode it every day. Now throw in the overcrowding and the fact the bus driver will likely question theckid and I can see why the mom is looking for someone to pick them up.

If OP has agreed to be an emergency contact for this kid she should try to do it. I would suggest doing the pick up early enough so that OP can be at home when she is supposed to be there for her own kids. The middle school kid would likely have to be dismissed early. In other words, OP does not have to follow the usual pick up protocol that involves waiting on the line of cars. If OP really cannot get the MS kid without jeopardizing her own kids then it’s just a no. OP’s friend will figure out how to get her child home. If he’s abandoned at school the office will call parents and all emergency contacts until the kid gets picked up.
It’s not really OP’s problem, it’s the parent’s job to manage this. Everyone needs to have back up plans for this kind of thing.

Good grief. SO many posters here making so many assumptions. And so many posters who think they know everything about buses.

Many of you above are conflating school and public buses. Your kid rides public, hooray! Your kid rides the bus to school and can find his or her bus among all the buses, hooray!

That means exactly nothing.

There may be no public bus he can hop onto that gets him from school to home. Why did public buses even come up?

Many posters are acting as if the boy is some kind of dolt who "doesn't know how to ride the bus." He likely does understand the concept of riding a bus, folks, and has seen his peers do it plenty. Have you personally been at a middle school when the buses are loading and departing? The "just look at the card in the window and get on" posters probably have not. It's very fast and by the time he finds the bus, the bus is driving away.

Middle and high school buses, as one PP tried to point out, can be hugely crowded. It's possible that the boy in question would not be allowed to board that bus at school because he is not a regular assigned rider. Some school systems have bus lists and if the kid is not on that list, the kid is not going to board that bus, even if he says, "But I live on street X and that's your route." A driver might let him on or might say no, at least where we live. Middle schoolers where we are were sitting three to a seat and squatting in the aisles the first few days of school and it's better after route changes -- but not much better. There are no extra seats.

OP also did not say why the mom is "in a bind." If she's purely a flake that's one thing, but we don't know if she has to take another kid to the doctor suddenly, or something else came up that is a real problem. I'm glad OP and everyone posting here has never, ever had an emergency or bind that fell right at school pickup time. But if you did, you surely told your kid to jump on that bus -- or you had a perfect plan B, like people on DCUM always say they do, right?

If this is the first time ever the mom has asked this, OP of course does not have to say yes, but the judgment is just pitiful. Someday her kid may be the one needing a ride. Framing all this as "the kid doesn't know how to take the bus!" is just so thoughtless. OP, you really are judging the fact that the mom drives her kid to school rather than having him take the bus -- it's not about this one favor she asked, it's about the fact you think she's coddling him, right?

Sounds like poor planning. My kid almost never takes the bus but I made her do it the first couple days of the year so she would know which bus and where it lets off. (It's a completely different part of our neighborhood, far from the house, so I wouldn't comfortable just expecting her to figure it out on the fly.)

I'd probably help her out today/make the trip if I could, but suggest that Larlo should ride the bus a few times b/c this isn't something you can do again b/c of your own kids.

But yeah, in general, the kid should know how to ride the bus.

Also, to the person that suggested house keys - I had a co-worker whose kids would lose or forget their keys ALL THE TIME and she would go home and bail them out. We have a garage door code and leave the inside door unlocked for my kid that walks home from school.

Weird.

We don't take it in the morning because pick up is 7am and my kid has a late sport activity. We prioritize extra sleep.

But--he takes it every afternoon...and could take it in morning if I every couldn't drive.

All of our neighbors drive in the mornings because of the time issue. We leave at 7:35am vs 6:55am which is huge in a kid entering puberty/growth spurt.

I have never had a neighbor ask me to go pick up their kid from school.

I have met elementary kids at the bus stop a few doors down since I work from home---but what your friend is asking is ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:At my kid’s middle school, there are a TON of buses and they don’t always line up in the same order every afternoon. There’s a map of the parking lot on a board outside the front door of the school that lists which bus is in which parking space on a given day. If a kid doesn’t usually ride the bus home, I can understand the Mom wanting her kid to be picked up. It’s chaotic at dismissal and the buses roll out in a hurry. My child has ADHD and hates the chaos of the bus.

+1. My MS ADHD child prefers the public bus to the school bus. She says she can track when the public bus is coming on her phone, it's a quieter and more peaceful ride, and it's air conditioned. The public bus drops off about 1/4 mile from where the school bus would drop her off. She doesn't mind the additional walk in exchange for the lack of chaos.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kids have always been driven to school, and they mostly take the bus back home. They have always been picked up and driven back home from the bus-stop. Should they be able to use the bus? Absolutely. All kids should know the bus number, their busstop and how to walk back home. All kids should also have a cell phone and house keys.

Nope they should not.

If a kid can't handle getting from the school bus to home you've got bigger problems.

Not all kids are misusing their cellphones. You can certainly buy them a very basic cell phone that allows them to call in case of any problems. The kid and the parents can handle getting from the bus to home, but it is smart to equip the kids with a phone JIC.

Yes, we have a big problem in this country. They are called horrible, irresponsible people and criminals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in a major city and my DD takes buses all over the place no problem.

But when I was a child living in the suburbs, I had NO IDEA which bus to get on after middle school ended. I knew the bus stop near my house, but getting on the right bus to get home was a huge problem. I couldn't figure out how other kids knew. To this day I still don't know. I basically loitered near the buses until I saw someone who lived near me, and then stalked them onto the right bus to get home each day.

The buses display bus numbers. And generally line up in the same order. This was true even in the days of the Late Pleistocene North American megafauna, when I went to middle school/high school.

Unless you were there the first week of school when they explained it, it looks chaotic and scary. I took the Paris metro as a kid. The suburban school buses feel more complex to me

"Your bus number is 2996." If you can take the Paris Metro, you can figure this out. Really.

You're right, but not in one day.

The sign is tiny, so you have to peer at every single bus. There are lots of buses, and you have to push past a ton of kids (all bigger than you, if you're short like me) and the bus can be parked on the side of the school, and by the time you get there, it's gone.

My kids, who are short, were somehow able to do this - including for different buses. I guess I can send them to New York City on their own now to figure out the subway. Hooray!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in a major city and my DD takes buses all over the place no problem.

But when I was a child living in the suburbs, I had NO IDEA which bus to get on after middle school ended. I knew the bus stop near my house, but getting on the right bus to get home was a huge problem. I couldn't figure out how other kids knew. To this day I still don't know. I basically loitered near the buses until I saw someone who lived near me, and then stalked them onto the right bus to get home each day.

The buses display bus numbers. And generally line up in the same order. This was true even in the days of the Late Pleistocene North American megafauna, when I went to middle school/high school.

Unless you were there the first week of school when they explained it, it looks chaotic and scary. I took the Paris metro as a kid. The suburban school buses feel more complex to me

"Your bus number is 2996." If you can take the Paris Metro, you can figure this out. Really.

You're right, but not in one day.

The sign is tiny, so you have to peer at every single bus. There are lots of buses, and you have to push past a ton of kids (all bigger than you, if you're short like me) and the bus can be parked on the side of the school, and by the time you get there, it's gone.

I agree that if your kid is eligible for a bus, he/she should at least know HOW to take it.

It's always good to have multiple options.

At my kid’s middle school, there are a TON of buses and they don’t always line up in the same order every afternoon. There’s a map of the parking lot on a board outside the front door of the school that lists which bus is in which parking space on a given day. If a kid doesn’t usually ride the bus home, I can understand the Mom wanting her kid to be picked up. It’s chaotic at dismissal and the buses roll out in a hurry. My child has ADHD and hates the chaos of the bus.

Anonymous wrote:
Look OP.

You can decline to help because you don't have the time.

But it's pretty shitty of you to decline because you're judging this family on bus-IQ.

OP must really have low self-esteem to come running to DCUM to gossip about this other parent.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in a major city and my DD takes buses all over the place no problem.

But when I was a child living in the suburbs, I had NO IDEA which bus to get on after middle school ended. I knew the bus stop near my house, but getting on the right bus to get home was a huge problem. I couldn't figure out how other kids knew. To this day I still don't know. I basically loitered near the buses until I saw someone who lived near me, and then stalked them onto the right bus to get home each day.

The buses display bus numbers. And generally line up in the same order. This was true even in the days of the Late Pleistocene North American megafauna, when I went to middle school/high school.

Unless you were there the first week of school when they explained it, it looks chaotic and scary. I took the Paris metro as a kid. The suburban school buses feel more complex to me

"Your bus number is 2996." If you can take the Paris Metro, you can figure this out. Really.