The start of a new school year

Today my roommate brought home next year's bus schedule that has just been sent out to students. It has all the elementary and middle schools and the route schedules for each. Now, I had already pretty much decided that if changes weren't made to my route, then there was no way I'd take it again.

Well, changes were made...just not the ones I had wanted. The worst part of the route was the afternoon. I shuttled students from an elementary school to the middle school across the street. This put me at the end of the line of buses at the middle school. It was a miracle if my bus got out of there on time. Add to that terrible traffic and really bad construction sites (with no plausible ways to avoid them) and I was quite often just baretly getting to my second school before the bell was ringing and my second group of riders was running toward my bus. Many days, I was so late that the bell had already rung before I got there and I had to deal with school traffic getting in to the school.

Well, that has all stayed the same. What has changed about the route is that the children I liked the most are only driven in the afternoons on this route as opposed to mornings and afternoons like last year. That means I don't get to see them twice a day. The most difficult portion of the route is now run both mornings and afternoons and they added another middle school run in the morning portion. That second middle school, by the way, is the one school in our district for which I have sworn I would never drive.

So, I am essentially going to need to review the other routes and figure out which one I will take. There is one route that would allow me to drive the kids I liked in the morning, so at least I'd get to see them a little. I would drive middle school kids twice a day, though, on that route. This is something I will REALLY have to evaluate. I much prefer driving the elementary kiddos.

So, that's all I know for now. Things are really going to be different next year. I just hope the changes work well for me.