Posts Tagged “disney”

Welcome to……Disneyland????

No, it’s not Disneyland, it’s the first day of school, with a little Disney flavor. No, not on the lunchboxes, backpacks or folders – it’s the busing plan!!!!!

Ninety percent of the students in my small rural district ride the bus to and from school. When there were two elementary schools, busing was no problem, each building had a tried and true plan to get kids loaded and on their way faster than you can say, “I forgot my homework.” Of course, each building had half the number of students to load. Since the consolidation of the old building into the new five years ago, there has been a new bus plan each year. So, this year at the first faculty meeting none of us were surprised to hear bus plan number 5. But wait, this one is different; they are using a successful program as a pattern. They unveiled, “The Disneyland Plan”.

When you go to the Disney resort you are shuttled from pick up point to pick up point on character named buses. If you want to go to the Donald Duck resort, you get on the Donald Duck bus! The bus numbers have been changed. Instead of riding bus #8, you can now ride the Pink Bunny Bus, the Green Turtle Bus, or the Brown Horse bus just to name a few. This change was made so that all students could be shuttled to a central location and easily spot their bus in the exchange. I know what you are thinking, it’s a school bus, they should be able to read the NUMBER. Seems logical, but, there are Preschool and Kindergarten students in the mix so the animal buses were created. Afterall, getting on the Pink Bunny bus is not nearly as intimidating as getting on bus #22 right?

In order to help the staff shuttle students between buses, colored cards would be attached to all students’ backpacks. Match the card to the bus like some weird form of Garanimals. This would be the first task on the first day of school - to attach the cards. I offered to help a co-teacher in her first grade classroom and she pounced on me. As each of these fresh faces came into her room, I asked their name, found their colored card and explained this would be the bus they would ride home as I attached it to their backpack. One little guy looked at me when I told him he was on the Pink Bunny bus and said, “But I want to be on the Blue Whale bus, I like whales.” At this point I am thinking, I bet he isn’t the only one who wants to choose his bus, this doesn’t bode well. As the attaching continued, another little boy, condemned to ride the pretty Purple Butterfly bus said to his snickering classmate, “It’s only for the bus!” Yep, I can see problems a brewing.

As the day went on, teachers in all the classrooms did their best to explain the bus plan and help the students understand what was going to happen. Not all of the buses would come, some would get on their assigned bus, others would fill in a bus until they were able to board their bus at the exchange. The moment of truth arrived. All teachers put on their best Disney employee smile as they began to load buses. Those who could board their buses did, this didn’t go badly. Then it was time to load the “overflow”.

“NO, THAT’S NOT MY BUS!! I AM A PINK BUNNY!!!!” The screams could be heard all over the loading area. Tears and protests ran freely as teachers calmly reassured children the Pink Bunny bus did exist and they would get on it and get home. And then, there was no more room on any of the buses but 30+ children still needed a seat. Perhaps the transportation manager needed to have a refresher in division. A frantic call was made to the bus barn for another bus to be dispatched as the full buses left to go to the exchange site. That was too much. The remaining children still standing in the loading area began to breakdown. More tears and sobs as they just knew, they would never get home. I promised one little first grade girl that we never kept students overnight, but she was not convinced. In minutes, another bus arrived and 40 minutes after the Disney plan was put into action, all the students were loaded, tears dried.
Instead of heading to the local pub for a drink, which is what we all needed, we headed into the media center for the debriefing. The goal was to get all students to the exchange site by 3:10, we missed that by 30 minutes.
Maybe we should call Disney……me MUST be doing something wrong. I wonder what plan we will have next year…….