Colin's First Day of Kindergarten

It was bound to happen eventually...Colin started Kindergarten today. As you can see above, he was nervous. In his words "I'm so nervous I can't stand it." He is a student at the ECC (Early Childhood Center) of the Decatur Township Schools. He is enrolled in All Day Kindergarten which is going to be great for him. His teacher is Mr. Dennis. And everyone at the school has been great. Almost everything has gone on without a hitch...

Let me start by saying everything is fine. Colin is safe. But today, my worst nightmare almost came true. The school was scheduled for a half day today with dismissal at 12:40. I called around 1:15pm (before my 2 hour meeting started) to check and see if he made it back to the daycare center where he is to be bussed to. Nope, not yet. I thought that was still pretty reasonable, especially given that this is the first day of school and things might have been a little more chaotic than usual.

I called back after my meeting about 3:25pm to make sure he made it back to the daycare. NO!!!!!!!!!!! HE HAD NOT!!!! You can only begin to imagine the terrible things racing though my head. The daycare had 19 kindergarteners missing. The poor daycare director was trying everything she knew to track these kids down. She said she would call me when he arrived. She said she had heard there was some confusion getting the kids on the right bus. In my mind, at least they all were missing...that was strangely comforting.

She called me at 3:55pm saying that Colin had just been dropped off with most of the other kids. Thank you, God.

So here's what I'm wondering...
Since when is it ok to have kids on the bus for 3 hours and 15 minutes? The school is a mile, MAYBE 1.5 miles from the daycare. And it was HOT today. Wouldn't it be reasonable for the school to call whoever was expecting him to be dropped off (in this case the daycare or the parent) and say they're running late? And wouldn't you halfway expect some kind of explanation phone call this evening? Nothing yet...

I've left a voice-mail with Colin's teacher, the ECC principal, and the bus garage. Tomorrow, I'll be getting to the bottom of this. I don't like to be mean. But he is my little boy. If they can't be trusted with his care... Surely we can get this figured out.