First day of school

Today was a nutty day at the boys' school. I'm not sure that I can blame it on the ongoing construction or the new principal and superintendent.

Anyways, first we went to the preschool class and I wasn't sure how ds#2 was going to handle me leaving him in the classroom when I walked out. He's my clingy, mommy's boy. Surprisingly enough he was absolutely fine. Made me so proud.

So then ds#1 and I went to his classroom and met his new teacher (she got hired over the summer, so nobody knew her and there was quite a line). We finally got through the line and then went to find his seat and said hi to his friends from preschool and mr little independent that I wasn't worried about instantly became attached. I had to pry his little arms from around my neck only to have to pry them from around my waist. OMG - the guilt!! LOL He was practically wailing that 'Mommy don't leave me' tune that hopefully I'm not the only mother that's ever had to hear it.

I'm sure he was fine within seconds of me leaving the room, and was hoping that I could get confirmation on that from the teacher when I went to get him at the end of the day. Well no such luck.

The street that the school is on has only the Elementary and High Schools so all the traffic is for the school. Last year they had the street be a one way (except for the school buses) during school hours and the parents could park on the dirt alongside the paved road, when they were picking up their kids. Well, not any more. They're changing the direction of the one way and also are going to be putting up huge-ass boulders (my words, not theirs, btw) to ensure no one parks on that side of the road. And now every kid in the school gets dismissed out of the cafeteria doors. (Last year there were 3 different exits being used.) The kids all line up in the cafeteria by category (which bus or if they are pickups, walkers, etc) and then released by category. What a freaking mess!!!

There were probably 100 parents standing around waiting for their kids to come out. Still waiting at 20 minutes after dismissal time! The buses showed up while we were waiting, so all the bus riding kids were released to go ride on the bus. FINALLY the pickup kids get released and it's like a mass exodus as all the kids are bottlenecked at the door, looking for their parents. And there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to how they were released. The kindergarten class was one of the last classes let go so there's all these short kids trying to see over the taller kids heads to find their parents. Needless to say I didn't even get to talk to the teacher. It was an absolute mess.

So while we were still waiting around for the kids to come out, the superintendent said that tomorrow they're going to try something else and that it would be great. (I'm not thinking so!) Instead of the parents parking in the way back parking area and then walking up to wait for their kids, they are going to have us all stay in our cars, lined up through the parking lot and then release the kids as the parents are in line. WTF? School gets out at 3:00, it's going to take freaking forever this way. I'm not sure how they could possibly do this and not have the kids waiting on the sidewalk waiting for their parents to get to the front of the line to get them. What kind of security freaking nightmare is this, not to mention my 5 year old is gong to absolutely FREAK out if he walks out the door and doesn't see me standing there waiting for him.

There's a lot of irate parents over this, so we'll see what's going to happen after tomorrow.