Bookends

My day (the Friday before break! WOOHOO!!) was bookended by a very rude parent, and it's a woman I can't even remember seeing before today.

It was raining pretty hard when I arrived at school this morning, but I have no doubt that this woman didn't need that as an excuse to pull into our assistant principal's parking spot in the staff parking lot. I would be very surprised if this wasn't a regular occurrence.

Anyway, as I was nearing the building, this lady was walking her kindergarten daughter up to the same door. I said to her -- very politely, I thought -- that since it was raining, her daughter could come inside today through those doors, but that the signs on the door very clearly announced to parents that those doors were for staff only and that children and parents needed to enter through the front doors.

Of course, at right around the point where I was pointing to the large signs, she turned her back on me and walked away. I wonder if she heard me.

I had kind of forgotten about her until the very END of the day, when all of the kids were on the bus, and I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for my bus to leave. I noticed that about 5o feet away, a familiar looking blue car had parked across the street, with its rear end angled out into the street. The driver's side door was wide open, and a familiar looking parent was walking across the street and in front of the bus. I wondered why there were no teachers at that bus to stop this woman from taking her daughter off of the bus -- if not illegal, I'm pretty sure that's at least against school policy -- but I guess since the bus doors HAD been closed, the teachers had left already. I then saw the woman walk her daughter right out into traffic again and across the street before doing a 3 point turn and speeding off.

Now I'm no Nostradamus, but I just have a feeling that by the time that girl gets to us in the 3rd grade, she might just have a hard time following the rules.

Judging by her role model at home, anyway...