Who is in charge of this Bus?

Most of you know that I'm a bus driver. That being said I must vent.

It is conference week in my district which means elementary and middle school gets out of school 2 hours early all week. I do not have a regular route, I'm what they call a retainer driver, I drive for those regular drivers who are out. I drive everyday but different routes. So I'm doing a route Tuesday afternoon and in the area I'm in it is not customary for the parents to be out at the bus stop to retrieve their kids(yes that is right elementary kids getting off the bus with no adult in site, crazy right?) So I let this brother and sister off at their stop they are kindergarten and 2nd grade, I finish the rest of the neighborhood. On the way out I see them running up the street away from their house with their book bags still on, the rest of the kids on the bus are screaming oh their mom is not home (again). I stop the bus and ask them is your mom home? At first I was thinking maybe the mom forgot about the early release this week. They say no but we are suppose to go to the neighbors house when she is not here.(the neighbor eight houses up) I ask them if they have a note on file at the school that states this, so that I could call on the two-way radio to the school to confirm. No we do not have a note, I then ask does your normal bus driver let you do this? answer is no. I then say, get back on the bus,I will take you back to school. I'm not leaving you both here alone. I then finish the route, we are pulling into the school about 15 minutes later when out of nowhere here comes mom flying into the school and pulls in front of my bus and she is mad at me. It seems that I made the wrong decision in caring for the safety of her children and even though I'm not their regular driver, I should have listened to her 5 and 7 year old children and let them go where she told them if she was not at home on time. I apologized but then said to her, now put yourself in my shoes would you have left them? She said yes I would have listened to the children.

Well Thank God you are not a bus driver.

If I listen to children all day and did what they instructed, they would be driving the bus and stopping at every McDonald's we past and all getting off the bus at the cool kids house for the afternoon.

Sorry for the long post just needed to get that off my chest.

By the way, checked with regular driver today. This mom is always late and several times has been mad that children were left alone when the neighbor was not at home, which is where they are to go when she is late.

The Harmon's