IF you have kids, this will make your heart pound.(happy ending though)

[sweetnpetite]

Adam Herman called it "the longest and worst hour of my life."

That would be the 60 excruciating minutes last week when nobody could tell Herman where his 6-year-old daughter was.

Nov. 3 was Caitlin Herman's first day at her new school - North Elementary on Lansing's south side.

According to North Principal Layla Ahmad, Caitlin's teacher, contrary to district policy, left the job of making sure Caitlin got on the right bus her first day to two first-graders.

Citing personnel rules, Lansing School District spokesman Mark Mayes declined to name the teacher or say whether she was disciplined.

Mayes did say, however, that all elementary teachers in the district have been reminded that an adult must escort every new student to the correct bus.

Adam Herman took Caitlin to school that first day. He spoke to both the principal and Caitlin's teacher regarding, among other things, her transportation. He went home believing everybody was on the same page.

At 4 p.m. that day, Caitlin's mother, Brooke Herman, met Caitlin's bus near the family's Lansing home. The mother had her camera locked, loaded and ready to record her daughter's first successful bus ride home.

The bus stopped, and a neighbor girl climbed off - but then the doors closed, and the bus pulled away.

Caitlin wasn't on it.

Missing in action

Adam Herman phoned the school and learned his daughter wasn't there. Then he called the district's bus garage. Nobody there knew where Caitlin was either.

The woman to whom Adam spoke speculated that the girl might have been dropped off in the wrong place, but she couldn't say where.

Not knowing what else to do, the father, panic rising, got into his car and headed for an intersection that the woman at the bus garage had mentioned as a possibility.

Unable to find it, Adam Herman raced back home. By then Brook Herman had dialed 911.

"It hit me like a ton of bricks, that my child was REALLY missing," Adam wrote in an e-mail to me. "Every horrible story I ever heard started going through my head."

Desperate beyond words, Adam Herman chased down a school bus that happened to wander through the neighborhood, but couldn't get the driver to stop. A second call to the bus garage yielded no new information.

Nervous energy

Needing to do something - anything - Adam Herman got back into his car, planning a random search. But as he began to pull away from his house, his parents drove up with Caitlin in the back seat.

"It was the greatest sight in my life," the father said.

After getting off the bus, Caitlin saw nothing familiar and started to cry. That attracted the attention of a woman who lived near the bus stop.

Fortunately, she was just the kind of person Caitlin needed at that moment in her life.

The woman took Caitlin into her house and invited her to call home. The girl did so, but because the phone at the Herman household was in constant use, she couldn't get through.

Then she called her grandparents, who promptly extracted the girl from her nightmare.

Adam Herman said his daughter would not return to Lansing schools.

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041113/COLUMNISTS09/411130327/1007

 

[cloudy]

How absolutely appalling!

I think I'd make damn sure that the teacher who was too damn busy to do what she was supposed to do would be starting a long, unsuccessful search for a new job.

 

[fille]

That is terrifying - my child's after school care once wasn't sure where she was when I went to pick her up (she was actually in a recreational class exactly where she was supposed to be, they just forgot she was still there), and I was scared to death for a couple of minutes. I can't imagine going through it for an hour.

Here in Atlanta, a 5 year old child was run over by his school bus driver last week. She thought he had already crossed the street and began to drive away. He was in front of the bus.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

Horrible. The same thing happened to me the first day of kindergarten. I was put on the wrong bus and watched every kid get off at their stop until I was the last one. I can still remember the sinking horror of not knowing where I was.

Living in a rural area, there was no way to explain to the driver where I lived by an address and no landmarks except cornfields to go by. Luckily, I knew the name of the tiny town near my house and the driver went there and called to bus shed to get my grandparents' phone number. My mom came to pick me up and she was hysterical, having watched the bus go by our driveway and not stop.

You always think your parents overreact to every drama in your young life until you have a child of your own. I will never ever put my son on a bus while he's little. I don't care how much driving around I have to do.

 

[snowy ciara]

I bet she's looking for a job tonight. If she isn't, she needs to be!

 

[fifty5]

After getting off the bus, Caitlin saw nothing familiar and started to cry. That attracted the attention of a woman who lived near the bus stop.

The story simply doesn't say whether Caitlin was on the wrong bus, or if she just got off at the wrong stop (too early or too late).

There's just not enough evidence here to draw any conclusion, except that the parents were (of course) traumatised.

I don't say the teacher was right, but it might have been the neighbour's girl to whom the teacher entrusted Caitlin - and who forgot her 'responsibility' when it got to the right stop.

There just isn't enough evidence in this article to assign blame - the article boils down to media bullshit and nothing more.

Sure, someone was to blame, but we really, really don't know who, based on the 'facts' given - and they may well be bullshit too: accurate enough to avoid a law suit, but entirely misleading. I've been the victim of exactly that sort of 'accurate' misrepresentation in the press.

Don't jump to conclusions without knowing a lot more than this article tells!

Eff

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

... I don't say the teacher was right, but it might have been the neighbour's girl to whom the teacher entrusted Caitlin - and who forgot her 'responsibility' when it got to the right stop ... someone was to blame, but we really, really don't know who, based on the 'facts' given ...

According to North Principal Layla Ahmad, Caitlin's teacher, contrary to district policy, left the job of making sure Caitlin got on the right bus her first day to two first-graders.

I don’t think there is too much wiggle room, here.

Either the reporter added an unnecessary and entirely erroneous fact, or the teacher shirked her duty. She went contrary to “policy” and passed off the job to two first-graders. That would be two six-year-olds.

In my opinion, she should at least be made to seriously worry about keeping her position.

Or perhaps the father would prefer to put the teacher over his knee and spank her bare bum twenty times.

 

[fifty5]

I don’t think there is too much wiggle room, here.

Either the reporter added an unnecessary and entirely erroneous fact, or the teacher shirked her duty. She went contrary to “policy” and passed off the job to two first-graders. That would be two six-year-olds.

In my opinion, she should at least be made to seriously worry about keeping her position.

Or perhaps the father would prefer to put the teacher over his knee and spank her bare bum twenty times.

Sure, sure. If that's right, then the teacher didn't do what was required by the letter of the law.

I still stick by the fact that the article doesn't say that Caitlin got on the wrong bus, so the teacher's technical infringement may not have had any relevance whatever to the outcome.

Please note - I'm not saying it didn't, just that the article, even if accurate (and that ain't necessarily so), simply doesn't give readers enough evidence to make a final judgment.

Or, to take up your final point, Burley, maybe you'll only accept that if I pound it into your fanny... I'm willing! (And to kiss it better afterwards... )

Eff

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

...maybe you'll only accept that if I pound it into your fanny... I'm willing! ...

Okay

But I want an ice cream cone first, and the right to lodge a complaint later.

 

[fifty5]

Okay

But I want an ice cream cone first, and the right to lodge a complaint later.

Sure, I'll get you one from Luca's (remember that thread?), but no right to complain: ya'll only get the spanking if you ask for it.

Nicely!

Eff (Looking out the paddle with silk on one side, velvet on the other, and corduroy piping...)

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

... no right to complain: ya'll only get the spanking ...

Don't come too close. I'm saving spit!

 

[R. Richard]

I think you people have overlooked a key piece of evidence:

"Nov. 3 was Caitlin Herman's first day at her new school - North Elementary on Lansing's south side."

Why would NORTH Elementary be on the SOUTH side? Obviously, the people who are supposed to run the school are too confused to do ANYTHING right.

JMHO.

 

[fairysong]

I'm a college student planning to become a teacher and as such find the entire situation disgraceful(on the teacher's part).
This year i began student teaching and my school district has strict policies where the principle along with a number of teachers (in rotation) do bus duty. My first day at school I was instructed to meet the v.p at the bus drive and greet the girls and boys and the next day i had bus duty after school where i made sure everyone caught the right bus and all was well.

I think that a teacher it is responsible for not only teaching a child but the child's well-being. Any teacher who shrinks his or her duty looses my respect.

 

[SensualCealy]

When we started school in our area, we wore badges made of cardboard, laminated with our bus number and stop number and our last name. This was before it became common to have parents seperating and having a number of kids with different last names. It made it easier on the kids as well as teachers and bus drivers.

Now due to confidentiality issues, their names can't be put on tags so new teachers or new drivers know who they are. I dont know about you, but have you ever gone into an area with little kids and saw how many wont even open their mouths when you say Hi? Just try to get their names out of them!

Our school is a city school, a number of times in the beginning of the new boundaries, we had little ones leaving at break and not coming back, had they made it home- Nope! Many of us parents assisted in the searches to find they were going home, not understanding the time frame that was involved with school, they thought it was home time.

Too many issues are left for the teachers to handle now a day at least in our district. Not only are they playing parent to many kids, they are disaplinarian, and teacher. We have 460 kids in our school, which to some would be small, but coming from a school of 127 its alot!

At our break times due to union rules, we have two teachers on duty for 230 kids. One for each side of the school. People wonder how things can happen, its easy when you only have two eyes.
C