27 January 2011

Snow Bus

If you know me then you know that I drive a big yellow school bus, and it is my Favorite job.

But I have to say to those people that think that the schools close for no reason, You are wrong. When I drive a bus load of kids I am responsible for their lives, that is 60+ lives plus mine. I was not trained on how to drive a BIG bus in the snow or on ice. I know that in some places where they get more snow yearly than we do they do train their drivers on snow course. If that was available here I would do it only if I was paid better. I care for each of the kids on my bus and I want them to be safe and get to and from school safely. But I don't have an aide nor am I paid well enough to risk my life or the lives of my kids to get them to school when the roads are covered in snow and ice. Just because the road outside your house and the main road that you drive to and from work are OK or in great shape does not mean that every road in the county that the school buses go on are in great shape. Believe me we the teachers and staff of the school system don't want to lose our Spring Break or have to go to school longer into the summer either. But we want the kids to be safe.

Because Heaven forbid if a school bus was in an accident because of weather, there would be parents lining up and knock on there lawyers doors to see if they could sue the school division and the bus driver. I don't want that.

So next time schools are closed because of snow on a day when you think they should be open just thank your Father in Heaven that the person in charge cares enough to keep your child safe, and enjoy the time you have to get to know your child better you can learn a lot from them.

Peanut Butter Allergies

I couple of Weeks ago a friend of mine posted on Facebook the Following

"What can we do to keep kids safe from food allergies? I'm post this for a friend. Still trying to figure out how to keep peanut butter out of schools, I mean geez, can't the kids eat something else for lunch? they can eat a jar of it when they get HOME. why risk a childs life over a pb & J.... seriously?! what if peanut butter didn't exist? what would you pack your kid then? literal food for thought....hmmmm."

Well it really bothered me because I HAVE a Child with Food Allergies and I'm sorry I don't think you need to remove PB from Schools you teach your child to stay away from it. If we had to remove every allergy from schools then what would the point of going to school be. Here is a list of Common food Allergies: Peanut, Tree Nuts (All other nuts), Wheat, Milk, eggs, Soy, fish, then don't forget the child that is allergic to Insect bites are you going to tell them they can't ever go out side. Then there are kids that are allergic to Dust, Mold, soaps, Smoke etc. We can't take everything out of the schools, you have to Teach the Child when they are young to be careful of what they eat, if you don't know don't bite. We need to teach awareness, in fact I just spoke with our School Nurse today and she is going to be teaching all of the students in one Kindergarten class about there friend that has a Peanut allergy.

I realize that Peanuts also can have an airborne reaction but Banning them from school is not the answer, I don't know what is. I know that some schools have already banned them. I have to watch and so does my child what she eats at school there have been a few occasions where they gave her something that had Nuts in it but she read the package and didn't eat it.

Someone posted to the comment that they had been threatened by a co-worker by having PB placed on all of the door knobs. To me this is a threat against your live and should be reported to the police.

My post to that was "If an angry child wants to hurt you they can still bring it in, My Child has a Life threatening allergy to TREE NUTS, she carries an Epi-pen at all times. My child can't even touch a leaf from a nut tree, but I don't tell her she can't go hiking or playing in the woods. Allergies are around everywhere and I have seen people with allergies to animals react to someone that has a pet at home and that person comes to Wal-mart and the pet hair gets in the air around the person who is allergic, now do we need to tell Wal-mart that they can't let people in that have pets."

I realize that not everyone is going to agree with me on this but I had to get it off my chest it has been bugging me for a few weeks.