Dad On Duty #72

I’ll be damned. That went pretty well.  Actually, it went *really* well.

I was skeptical to say the least. Good thing I wasn’t at the first meeting, when somebody said “let’s take the whole school off site for Field Day”. It’s very possible I would have said lots of Adult Words.

By the time I got involved, it was a done deal. We were going. My involvement was limited to mitigating the extent of the damage.  Which basically meant, in my mind, minimizing the TV air time. I was hoping for just a scroll across the bottom of the screen (“14 kids at local school sent to hospital. Three missing. Alligator suspected”) instead of a feature story on the national news (“school field day descends into Lord of the Flies.  Several teachers still unaccounted for. Governor declares emergency”).

I realize I’m paranoid but…..that’s pretty much my job here. What’s the worst thing that can happen, and then the 70th percentile worst thing, and we need a real, actionable plan for that.  That’s exactly what they don’t pay me for.

And every single kid…Every. Single. Kid….off campus doing zip lines and on boats in a slimy pond, makes even the 70th percentile event rather concerning.

The kids were REALLY excited about the outing

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I was wrong. The teachers were right. It went great.  Maybe that’s why they get paid to be here, and I don’t.

*******

The sheer scale of this thing is staggering.  At 0830, busses start arriving.  A lot of busses. Twelve altogether.

There’s some confusion. We’re trying to load big kids out front and board the little kids in the bus lane, on the side of the school.  We can’t talk by radio to the busses (problem, gonna work on that over summer) so we have to wait for them to drive up, then hop on and tell him where to go.  Nobody, including the bus drivers, are 100% certain how many busses we have coming.

Most of the drivers don’t know where the site is. So now we gotta get the guy who *does* know where he’s going to the front of the line.

Busses are very large. They are not easy to rearrange. It’s an ordeal.

I’ve got two Dads out front corralling seven of the busses, and myself and another Dad (his first time to ever help, btw) working with the little kid and special ed busses on the side of the school.

Finally it looks like everybody’s on board.  But our protocol is that we make direct verbal contact with each teacher and confirm that she’s OK, and ready to go, before we let the bus pull away.  Here’s why that’s so important; if you’re the teacher, you can’t get off the bus.  Your kids are there now.  And there’s no practical way for you to communicate an issue or problem, in a timely manner, to get it fixed.  The kids are loud and fidgety.  You can’t leave another 24 students with one of your colleagues, even for 5 minutes, and expect that to go well.

You’re stuck.  Any issue….you forgot an item, a kid has a tummy ache, somebody needs a quick potty break….anything at all becomes a big damn problem once you’re on the bus.

So it’s part of our job to make that easier.  We get on the bus, make eye contact with each teacher and personally confirm that she’s good to go.

I jump on one bus and start that process.  The bus driver interrupts me “they’re OK, we’re ready”.  He might be right, but I don’t care.  I need to hear that directly. I ignore him and make contact, one by one, with the three teachers on the bus.  Sure enough, bingo.  We have a problem.  Easy to fix, since I can hop off the bus and run the needed errand.  But otherwise, it would have been a pretty big thorn in everybody’s butt.

I launch two of the Dads ahead of the busses to make sure the site and staff are ready, and to help park and off-load.  Myself and the 4^th Dad follow the last bus.   Arrival and off-load go well, although it looks like the invasion of Normandy.

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Over the course of the preceding several weeks, the staff sent DAILY emails to the parents, and notes home in folders, telling them that if they wanted to attend the event, they had to sign up and get a sticker printed.  The staff made it really easy to do; they even brought all the stickers to the site.  All you had to do was click a link, type in your name, and show up.

And yet, several parents came to the event without doing so.

And Ruth, the main Guardian of the Gate, turned them (politely) away.

The reason is this; the system we use to make sure you’re OK to be around kids is updated in relatively real time.  That’s why you have to sign in for each visit, not just once at the beginning of the year.  If, a few days ago, you had a big fight with your ex-spouse and now there’s a restraining order out on you, it will change your status.  And we will know.

We can’t run that query from the event site.  We needed to do it early this morning, before we left the school.

So if you missed that window, you’re SOL.  We can’t have you in here.

Some of the parents who are turned away are shocked, and angry.  But our message is clear, and important; we are deadly serious about this stuff, and even if it hurts your feelings, we are sticking to our process.  Sorry.  But there’s 625 kids here, and 624 of them are NOT YOURS.

******

One of the favorite events is a paddle boat ride around a pond.  This pond is, well…., let’s call it “natural”.  It’s green and slimy and full of animals.

It ain’t a swimming pool.

The kids get to paddle their own boats around, and they love it.  But on the very first go-around, some kids get stuck on a rock.  They try to free themselves, but the boat looks a little unsteady when they do.

Coach Nick jumps in.  He wades over, gets them unstuck, and then realizes “I gotta stay here”.  And he does….the entire rest of the day.  Up to his belly button in green water, while perch and the occasional turtle nibble on his leg hairs.

Talk about under-paid.

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I was expecting a lot of injuries, and some over-heated kids.  I brought a lot of first-aid firepower.  Mary is running a nurse’s station in the center of the venue, by herself.  She’s pretty busy, but nothing bad.  Lots of bandaids, bunches of ice packs, a few eye washes and a couple of kids that need to be cooled down.  I only help a few times; she’s got it completely under control.  And as always, cool as a cucumber through out it all.

The kid with, numerically, the most injuries, is my own.  That’s one of the problems with this gig; Tori has high-profile access to me all day, and can make a big production about asking me for help in front of her classmates…which she loves to do.  It’s a way for her to separate herself from the other, mere attendees, rather than the celebrity that she is.  See, I can walk away fr
om my class and ask my Dad for an icepack for my “eye injury”. I am way cooler than you.

And she does just that.  Several times.  Twice, she actually has an injury, so I can’t totally dismiss her.  She’s really pushing her luck though, and I try to rein her in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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When it’s time for the classes to rotate stations, Coach Sharon is using a bullhorn with an electronic siren function, blasted over the venue’s PA system.  She’s having WAY too much fun with that.  She holds the siren up to the PA mic, and does this strange Native American War Dance while blasting the noise across the acreage.  She is amusing the daylights out of herself.  The rest of us are worried she drank some of the pond water.

*******

One of the activities is zip lining.  It’s actually pretty darn fun.  As kids get to the end of the run and off the line, they are directed by the volunteers to go OUT AND AROUND the enclosure to go back to the top of the ride.

Some kids don’t get it.  They attempt to swim back upstream, along the zip line route.  As another pair of kids comes racing down at 20 miles per hour.

A mom volunteer points out “it’s the thinning of the herd.  If you don’t realize that walking back up TOWARD the zip line is a bad idea….well…..maybe it’s just meant to be……”

Amazingly, and due in large part to the quick action of the volunteers (including our smartass Mom), no kids get bonked in the head.  But you gotta wonder.

*******

It’s the end of the day.  We’re whooped.  We get the kids loaded back up (no small operation) and are checking in with the teachers to clear for departure.

The bus drivers had also done headcounts, but then they re-arranged some of the busses (we had assigned certain busses to certain grades), and we also changed the grade groupings.  So as we loaded up, a couple of the drivers were concerned because the headcount on their bus didn’t match what they thought it was supposed to be.

Dude, your count doesn’t matter.  Normally of course, the drivers are responsible for what kids are on their bus, where they get off and whether there’s a change in routine.  They take it seriously, as we all should, and do.  But in this scenario, accountability is ultimately the individual teachers’ responsibility.  All of us are here just to support the classroom teacher.  Nobody else even needs to know the count; we just gotta know that the teacher is happy with her kid count.  I quickly (and I think nicely) explain that to the driver, then turn to the teachers and ask for a thumbs up.  I get three.  I turn back to the driver and tell him “that’s all that matters.  If they’re good, we’re all good.  You’re ready to go.”  He nods knowingly and sits down.

*********

All of the beach balls, ice chests and tug-o-war ropes are packed up.  The last kid is headed back to school.  The busses slide in and off-load with 12 minutes to spare before dismissal.

The kids are exhausted, hot and smelly.  I’d say that’s a pretty good day.