Field Trip

I got asked to go on a Field Trip with a 5th grade class as a substitute teacher a few weeks ago.  It was a little different sub job.  The teacher only needed me 1/2 day so I went to the school at 11:25, picked up the teacher's car keys and then got in her car and drove to the field trip site.  Once I got there, we swapped places and she took her car to go to a training and I stayed for the remainder of the field trip to ride with the class on the bus back to the school.  Luckily, I know this class really well and knew most of the parents on the field trip too.  Things were going smoothly ... we got to eat lunch, look for animals (we saw a pretty good sized snake), use nets to pull up creatures in the water, test the water, and learn how they clean sewer water.  Then, it was time to load the bus to head back to the school for a 1:30 arrival time.

As we were heading out of the site we had to go through a one-way, very narrow tunnel.  I was looking down at my notes for the rest of the day when we crashed into the tunnel as we were going in!  The bus full of kids was silent!  Luckily, it was a new bus that had seat belts and she wasn't going very fast. Everyone was OK, but our bus was not.  The side mirrors all shattered and got knocked so they were blocking the door.  The bus driver was able to move them out of the way and after asking if everyone was OK, drove through the tunnel to the other side and parked off to the side because where we were, we were blocking traffic. 

I called the school to let them know we were OK while the bus driver called her dispatch and called the police.

 While we were waiting for the Highway Patrol to come out, I had to go seat by seat and write down the kids' first and last names and which seat they were sitting in when the accident happened.  The kids were so good while we waited on the bus!

Once the Highway Patrol arrived and checked out the bus, a new bus arrived and we moved the kids one by one onto the new bus.  They had to give the Highway Patrolman their birth-date to go along with their names.  After four or five calls to the school and an hour of waiting, we finally made our way  back to campus.  We arrived back at 2:43 just two minutes before the bell rang.  Because we were so late, the bus couldn't get into the carpool lane to drop us off, so she parked in traffic and crossed us across the street.  A car pulled around the bus (into oncoming traffic ... which is illegal by the way!) trying to get into her driveway!  She was a little annoyed that the bus was blocking her way!  We all arrived safely back at the classroom safe and with a great story to tell.  Best of all ... they had no homework!

The following day I was subbing at the school and we had an unannounced fire drill.   As I was taking the class of 1st graders outside, I was really hoping it wasn't a real fire drill!  That would have been the topper to my week!