Dad on Duty #60

First week of school

************

We had an alternate Bobby (not me) for the first Friday of school. I stood out front and helped unload cars. Both students and staff would see me at the entrance, then see Bobby in the hallway….and do a double take. “What the wha…?!?” was pretty much the reaction.

“I told you…I’m not Bobby…”   Looks of bewilderment.   Confusion. Consternation. “I was sure it was him…” I could hear them mumbling.

Awesomeness.

**********

The sink on the girls’ side of one of the bathrooms is broken. The girls have to wash their hands on the boys’ side. I jump in to help the teachers manage that (significant) extra moving piece to the normal bathroom melee.

As girls head to the sink, I redirect them: “you need to come over here on the boys side to wash your hands. We are using this (closest) sink”.

The reactions are *priceless*. Can you imagine? A seven year old girl being told she has to cross the Cootie Border and stand within eight feet of boy potties?

You can tell the girls with brothers. They don’t even blink. They stroll over and wash their hands, shoulder to shoulder with boys.

For other girls, the transition is not so easy.

First, they look at me like I’ve just instructed them to do fire walking, or eat a live snail.

After I persist (“no, over here. You have to wash your hands over here”) they dutifully, but begrudgingly, march over, as if on their way to the gallows.

Most of them wash quickly, and are cautious not to glance right, lest they accidentally see a Boy Potty and are struck blind.

A few….and these are the interesting ones….intentionally *do* look right and/or engage the boys in conversation or even engage in a little shoving match at the sink.

Unafraid, undeterred and unflappable.

Attagirls. That’s what we want to see.

***********

A 3rd grader escorts his little brother, a kindergartner….and new to school…..to the nurse’s office for a minor…very minor….injury.

Mary applies a cold pack and a bandaid, both clinically unnecessary. “Is that better?” she asks. The little boy nods. His big brother, worriedly, asks “are you sure it’s ok?”   “Yes, I am. Mr. Phillips, what do you think?” Mary replies. She then turns to the boys: “Mr. Phillips is our emergency paramedic”. “I agree; Mary is right. You’ll be fine. No problem”.

With both health care providers in concurrence, the big brother is satisfied.

As he begins to escort his small charge back into the rough and tumble world of kindergarten, wrapping his arm around his little brother, he offers this advice, in the serious tone of a neurosurgeon discussing the outcome of a head injury: “we should be glad it wasn’t serious”.

His little brother nods, solemnly, as if he was narrowly missed by a crashing plane.

Yes. We should. Phew.

(I’m gonna enjoy watching these two boys this year)

*******

As dismissal time approaches, a new family parks just inside the front door, awaiting their kid for an “end to the first week” reception. (“Yay!!! You did it!!” I imagine is the planned script).

Mom, Dad, a toddler and a baby in a stroller.

They gravitate inward, closer to the INTERSECTION of CHAOS; where 300 kids are about to flow out, headed to three different destinations, but compressed for a few minutes in a space about the size of your kitchen.

That’s where I stand for those first few minutes. And a *lot* of stuff happens in that small compartment of space and time. A LOT.

So as I take my position there, ready for the onslaught, I glance over at this family. They are exactly in the pathway of the oncoming Army Ants.

Now mind you, it’s a perfectly *legal* spot for them to be. I have no grounds to order them to move.

“Hey y’all. I don’t think that’s gonna be a good spot for you. It gets pretty crazy right here”. I emphasize the “here” part by sweeping my arms around the area in which we are all standing.

“Oh. Ok…” the Mom replies, looking surprised. “um…where should we go?”

I look up the hall. Here they come.

“At this point, anywhere but here” and I point at the column marching down the hall at us.

Her eyes widen.

They quickly migrate across the hall and take a couple steps down the ramp toward the cafeteria, and press themselves against the wall.

The Army Ants arrive and wash over us.

In four and a half minutes, it’s over.

I turn to head out and start loading cars out front, and the Dad says “wow, man. That was crazy. Glad you warned us”. They all look stunned.

Welcome to our world.

*********

We are trying to improve the process of car and walker pickup. It is a daunting challenge.

We are a relatively affluent school which means that fewer kids than average ride the bus. We have a disproportionate volume of parents who pick their kids up, because they have that luxury.

We’ve also had a new road and subdivision open up just in front of the school, which changed the traffic pattern.

All this has made “car line” a bit bumpier this year.

We are trying to solve the problem, with these two priorities (importantly, *in this order*) in mind:

1) safety

2) speed.

In many ways, these are mutually exclusive objectives.

The biggest challenge is the lack of resources and training. This is a serious enough, endemic enough, and tough enough issue that it should be a six week training program for school administrators. “How to make kid pickup not a CF, and nobody gets runned over”.

I’d totally take that class. Pretty soon, the Boss and I could teach it.

But right now, there’s nothing. Some common sense, experience and experimentation.

And a lot of help from our parent-partners, thank goodness.

It’s getting incrementally better every day. But it still remains one the most intense 25 minutes of frantic, risky operations I’ve experienced.

And I used to work with stuff that blew up, and people that would shoot at me.

We’ll get it right. Don’t worry.

It’s going to be a fantastic year, Bobcats!