Starting School Make Sure He Knows His Last Name

I have five children ages 5-25, two older girls and my three boys are younger. I remember when my middle son first started in kindergarten, we had just moved to a new neighborhood, so it we were all in a learning curve about the schools and the busses and the scheduling.

During the first week or so of starting the new school year, the teachers put pinned name tags on the children that are in the lower grades; kindergarten, first grade, second grade. You have to make sure that you send your child to school each day with the name tag that they have provided. It is a good way to put a name to a face, plus the bus monitors can check their list to make sure they are transporting the children on the correct bus.

My middle son\\\\\\\'s name is Link Michael H. Link is named after his grandpa, Link, and after his dad, Michael H. He was born in 1997. I remember when he was a baby, and people asking what his name is and when I told them \\\\\\\"Link\\\\\\\", they were always asking me if his name was Lincoln. His name is just plain Link. After a while I began the habit of calling him Link Michael all the time.

Link turned five years old and I enrolled him into kindergarten, oh how exciting! The bus scheduling was fairly easy to catch on to and we had it pretty well nailed by the third day. He was scheduled on the second round of the bus route. Many of our bus routes take two trips each day when they are taking kids home. While the first round of busses are out on their routes, the children that are scheduled for the second round will be waiting in the gymnasium of the school and are monitored by adults.

One day, during the third or fourth week of school, I was surprised and frightened as I watched the bus come to a halt near the corner of my house and I did not see my child get off of the bus. I became terrified as all kinds of thoughts raced through my mind. Where was he? Why didn\\\\\\\'t he get off the bus? Why haven\\\\\\\'t I received a phone call about this?

I frantically called the school and explained to them that my son did not get off the bus. They asked me if he had ridden the bus to school this morning or if we had given him a ride to school. They explained that if the monitor did not see him get on the bus in the morning, then the child would not be considered missing from the bus ride home since they wouldn\\\\\\\'t be expecting him. I told them that he had ridden the bus to school that morning, just like he does every day and that we do not transport him to school. They said they would call me right back. When they called me back, they told me that Link had gotten on the first round of busses by mistake and he was safe, but they did not know where he belonged because when they asked for his name, all he kept telling them was that his name is Link Michael. They did not have a Link Michael on their list! They had a Link H. So, this explains why I did not get a phone call from school. They could not find our contact information because they did not know his name. Who is at fault here for Link getting on the wrong bus? I am not sure who made this mistake at school, but I am taking full responsibility for my own negligence of not teaching him his own name.

I\\\\\\\'ve learned to write my kid\\\\\\\'s names and phone numbers all over everything after I went through this horrible day.