School busing decision unfair to parent

This is in regards to last week’s letter to the editor headlined “Shared parenting complicates busing decisions.”

I too am a parent that shares joint custody of my son. He is currently in middle school. My ex and I have shared custody for the last five years and for the four of those years we have not had an issue. The school system has never had a problem, in the last four years, of a schedule in which one week the child is picked up and dropped off at his dad’s and the following week the child would be dropped off and picked up at my house at the school bus stop every morning and every afternoon.

But this year the school decides to drop my son off somewhere and not notify me of where they were dropping him off. So basically no one bothered to let me know about the decision that the school bus transportation had made about my son until he is calling me from an undisclosed location. My child also informed me that he would not be allowed to get off with his younger brother, my pre-Kindergarten son from my second marriage, at the designated bus stop.

So then I decided to see if he could get dropped off at the local Boys & Girls Club Carrabelle site and once again the school system denied that right to my son and me. I called the school transportation office and spoke with Mr. Coursey and quickly became embarrassed by how he talked to me. He told me that this is the way it is. That in no terms was the school bus dropping my son off at the Boys & Girls Club, and furthermore they would not be letting him get off of the bus at the same stop that they had been letting my son off for the past four years. Mr. Coursey continued to inform me that it was not up for discussion. This conversation was then promptly ended by him hanging the phone up on me.

So I went to the school board meeting and explained about how the situation seemed not fair. I was met with an apathetic response. The board members told me that they would look in to the situation and give me an answer within two weeks. Unfortunately, I never received a call within those two weeks.

So in short, I understand exactly what "some" parents are going through. When a judge decides that a set of parents should have split or joint custody, that parent should not have to go back through the expenses of court just to uphold the ruling.

Kari Libby