Back to school means work for mom

Look at these happy back to school kids. It reminds me of the Staples commercial about "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year". It wasn't really Mitchell's first day, but he is on the leadership committee at school and was to be on hand to direct the grade 9 new comers around the sprawling school. Will is in grade one now and spending a whole day there now. Jack is happy with his grade 6 teacher and Olivia is looking like such an excited 9th grader, don't you think?

As has been the case for each year Will has attended some form of school (since he was one!) September usually brings a few hitches of some degree that require ironing out. This year is no different and small meetings about lunch/recess/toilet breaks have taken place. Most of my energy has had to go into dealing with the buses though. Today is designated letter writing day for me and I will be putting together an advocacy letter to send to the director of the bus company, the school trustee and the school superintendent. It seems that the regular bus cannot stop 50 feet from it's usual "set in stone until we say different" bus stop and let Will off on our driveway. We live on a road with no sidewalks and in the winter, snowbanks force the kids onto the road to walk home. Long story short, it is a recipe for disaster in my opinion. The bus company's only solution was to send out the "short bus" (We can see that budgetary constraints mean nothing when pride is on the line at he bus terminal. How much more is sending a bus on an additional trip twice a day for an entire year, as opposed to stopping a bus 50 feet from where it normally stops?) If the only solution to ensure my son is safe is to segregate him, we are moving backwards. How is taking a "special bus" going to help him develop important independence skills? What message does it send that the automatic default for people with developmental disabilities is to separate them from the rest of their peers?

So today it's me and the computer and some well chosen words to a few important people.