Morning
Car Duty
By
Mr. William L. Austin, M.Ed., NBCT
I am a teacher; I have a
bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees and am nationally board certified, I
have eight years of college and the student loan debt to prove it, yet for
fifty minutes every morning and forty five minutes every afternoon I open and
close car doors. You see, I work in a school with about seven hundred students
ages four to six and about two hundred and fifty of them, if not more, are
delivered and picked-up from school each and every day by a parent. I am
charged with the supervision of this task everyday for 180 school days. Much
like our fast food society today we offer a curbside pick-up and delivery
service. You drive up in the morning we will open your car door and help your
child safely exit the vehicle and enter the school building for an exciting day
of rip roaring fun and educational adventure. In the afternoon you drive-up we
will verify who you are and match you up with the correct student and send you
happily on your way. Our performance has to be 100% everyday and unlike my favorite
college football team we can’t afford to lose one. I know this job is not
unique to me or to my school just about every elementary school has a system
like ours, a system that is tried and tested and very frustrating at times.
Let me start by saying that if you see yourself in any of my descriptions that follow, know we still love you and your child, but understand that teachers talk and sometimes share their experiences. Let’s start with the invention of the “Stow and Go” mini-van door. We have about thirty parents, who drive vans with this new modern convince, the ability to open the door with the push of a button from inside. The door can also be opened from the outside without the power assist. Now some parents and children absolutely delight in pushing that button and watching that door open, others not so much. Problem is we don’t know which. One moment some well meaning parent will be explaining that the door opens itself and that I shouldn’t, and the next, a parent wants to know why I’m not opening the door for her child. Some children are so obsessed with the magic of the button that if we open the door the child will have a fit and refuse to get out. In this case you would be forgiven if you thought the parent would apologize for their child’s behavior, when in fact, the parent blames us and proceeds to lectures us on the protocol of opening her door. Maybe we need a flashing neon light on the car telling us to touch or not touch? There are four of us who open doors every morning and we spread out under a roof that spans 200 plus feet allowing us to serve four customers at a time in varying weather conditions and makes the process very efficient or at least it should be. Unfortunately, we have parents who decide that the best time to check a child’s homework folder is in the morning while thirty other cars wait behind them, or the parent who stopped on the way to school at the local fast food restaurant and wants little Johnny to finish his McMuffin while you hold the door open and then asks if you would please take the trash. We also have the parents who are still dressing the child for school when they drive up and asks you to please tie the child’s shoes as they drive off. Then there is the parent who wants to ask questions about the field trip, PTA Meeting, school pictures, lunch account, or any other topic that we have sent countless notes home for weeks in advance. Or the child who only wants a particular staff member to open their door and must hold up the line while they wait for that staff member to open their door. We open the door for children who are puking as momma says, “will you please send them to the nurses office”, we open the doors of cars whose music is blaring so loudly you need ear protection and now you understand why the child can’t hear you in the classroom, you open the door to parents who are cussing and fighting with each other as they ignore the child we happily unload. We see these things every morning, moms who are in such a rush that they themselves are barely clothed when they drive up in scanty night ware with robes hanging open as they wash their children’s faces with mom’s spit and a napkin left over from the latest trip to the fast food restaurant. Some cars are so full of trash it spills out of the car onto the road and you are expected to pick it up when they drive off. We keep a bottle of hand sanitizer available to help with some of the more unique substances we find on the door handles each day. We get fussed at for not closing a door hard enough, or for closing a door too hard, for not allowing students in earlier, or for not holding the door open long after the tardy bell rings. We are either too happy, or someone doesn’t like our attitude. We only allow loading or unloading of the car on the curbside of the car for the safety of the child but if mom has the car seat for the new baby on the wrong side and decides she’s going to unload where she wants, it then becomes somehow our fault and blesses us out. Yes, morning duty is a mine field of fun but the daily hugs from the kids and an occasional thank you from a grateful parent makes all of the fussing seem insignificant. That is until afternoon car duty which is a story for another day.
Let me start by saying that if you see yourself in any of my descriptions that follow, know we still love you and your child, but understand that teachers talk and sometimes share their experiences. Let’s start with the invention of the “Stow and Go” mini-van door. We have about thirty parents, who drive vans with this new modern convince, the ability to open the door with the push of a button from inside. The door can also be opened from the outside without the power assist. Now some parents and children absolutely delight in pushing that button and watching that door open, others not so much. Problem is we don’t know which. One moment some well meaning parent will be explaining that the door opens itself and that I shouldn’t, and the next, a parent wants to know why I’m not opening the door for her child. Some children are so obsessed with the magic of the button that if we open the door the child will have a fit and refuse to get out. In this case you would be forgiven if you thought the parent would apologize for their child’s behavior, when in fact, the parent blames us and proceeds to lectures us on the protocol of opening her door. Maybe we need a flashing neon light on the car telling us to touch or not touch? There are four of us who open doors every morning and we spread out under a roof that spans 200 plus feet allowing us to serve four customers at a time in varying weather conditions and makes the process very efficient or at least it should be. Unfortunately, we have parents who decide that the best time to check a child’s homework folder is in the morning while thirty other cars wait behind them, or the parent who stopped on the way to school at the local fast food restaurant and wants little Johnny to finish his McMuffin while you hold the door open and then asks if you would please take the trash. We also have the parents who are still dressing the child for school when they drive up and asks you to please tie the child’s shoes as they drive off. Then there is the parent who wants to ask questions about the field trip, PTA Meeting, school pictures, lunch account, or any other topic that we have sent countless notes home for weeks in advance. Or the child who only wants a particular staff member to open their door and must hold up the line while they wait for that staff member to open their door. We open the door for children who are puking as momma says, “will you please send them to the nurses office”, we open the doors of cars whose music is blaring so loudly you need ear protection and now you understand why the child can’t hear you in the classroom, you open the door to parents who are cussing and fighting with each other as they ignore the child we happily unload. We see these things every morning, moms who are in such a rush that they themselves are barely clothed when they drive up in scanty night ware with robes hanging open as they wash their children’s faces with mom’s spit and a napkin left over from the latest trip to the fast food restaurant. Some cars are so full of trash it spills out of the car onto the road and you are expected to pick it up when they drive off. We keep a bottle of hand sanitizer available to help with some of the more unique substances we find on the door handles each day. We get fussed at for not closing a door hard enough, or for closing a door too hard, for not allowing students in earlier, or for not holding the door open long after the tardy bell rings. We are either too happy, or someone doesn’t like our attitude. We only allow loading or unloading of the car on the curbside of the car for the safety of the child but if mom has the car seat for the new baby on the wrong side and decides she’s going to unload where she wants, it then becomes somehow our fault and blesses us out. Yes, morning duty is a mine field of fun but the daily hugs from the kids and an occasional thank you from a grateful parent makes all of the fussing seem insignificant. That is until afternoon car duty which is a story for another day.
