School Buses and Cell Phones

I am beginning to think I am raising a trouble maker. Elizabeth has gone and done it again. Yesterday she was kicked off her school bus.

My first day back on day shift was bad enough. I over slept, I was yelled at and told I have a bad attitude of course by people calling in bullshit. If one more animal lover accuses me of having a poor attitude because I am not sympathetic to the plight of a dead puppy or annoying barking dogs I think I may scream.

Now on top of dealing with the stress of work, Beth calls me when she gets home and tells me her driver let her ride home that afternoon but she was not to ride her bus ever again. She was nice enough to provide her with another bus number and her new stop which is at 10th/Boston. We don't live there anymore. I had the children change their address at the school but I did not think about the bus driver, my mistake, so now we are dealing with a zone issue. We are out of zone. Our new home is about 5 blocks out of our old zone and not wanting to disrupt out children's lives I kept our old address on file at the school until we longer held possession of it. (We gave it away in November just to get rid of it.)

This all started out innocently enough, Fred called Beth on her cell phone to make sure she made the bus. I'm at work, he's at work so she walked to the bus stop yesterday morning. When she answers she is already on the bus sitting behind the driver. Beth has the phone on and on vibrate now the driver did not hear the phone ring the bus is too loud she just sees Beth talking on the phone. She starts demanding to know who is on the phone. Beth told her its her father checking on her. While she is on the phone with Fred she starts crying because the driver is now demanding that Beth give her the phone. Fred tells her to just hang up and put the phone away he will take care of it later. Beth said when the driver asked her for the phone she just told her no then put the phone away. Now the driver is pissed and if I were her I would probably be angry too. She has signs posted over every seat no gum, no head phones, and no cell phones. These are her rules.

Now school rules don't say anything about cellular phone use. However anything that causes a disruption on school property is considered contraband and can be confiscated. I am assuming this rule applies to school buses. The rules themselves are very vague and leave all the discretion up to the school board. Fred is suppose to go and talk to someone today after he drops off Beth. I hope he can work it out I'd hate to have to go back to midnights because of this.