***update below***
I decided to take matters into my own hands this morning. For 3 months, I have been dealing with parents who decide they want to avoid the "kiss and ride" line when picking up their children from school. Instead, they feel it is better to block staff cars so we cannot leave. ( I should mention here that our school is a "walking" school, which means all our student population live within walking distance. However, for some strange reason, parents who only live across the street, decide it is easier to get in their car and drive their children to school! It makes for a VERY chaotic parking lot. Whatever happened to walking your child to school. Ugh!)
Every day after work in order for me to be able to leave, I have to use my megaphone voice and detective skills to try to locate the parent who has decided to park their car illegally in front of my car thus blocking me in. (phew...that is a mouthful!) Administration has tried to correct this problem but these parents are not getting the message. I was EXTREMELY irate yesterday when I was blocked in for 15 minutes because we could not locate the parent who owned the car. I literally was almost ready to either kick his car so the alarm would sound and he would come running or get in my car and ram my way through! (Ididn't want my collision insurance to go up so I decided against the ramming!)
When my Principal finally located this man, he didn't even apologize. And most importantly, he didn't recognize he was illegally parked. You cannot block other cars so they cannot get out. What if there was an emergency? He was sooo rude to me. I have been more than polite to these parents ( most are the fathers) and am extremely appalled they show such disrespect to me. I understand it is cultural, but we are living in Canada now and women are respected in this country.
To try to remedy this frustrating problem, I came up with a great idea - so I thought. Here is what I did today...
I was eagerly anticipating the end of the day to see if anyone would dare block me in with my bright pink laminated sign taped to my car.
Guess what?
I WAS blocked in, but this time the parent was in the car. I could not believe my eyes. ***deep sigh*** He had the gall to say to me, " you can't post a sign like that on your car." (I can't believe he didn't like my pretty sign!) I angrily replied, " you are illegally parked and blocking me in so I cannot get out. I will call a tow truck next time to remove your vehicle." ***deep sigh***
New plan of attack for tomorrow!
**I had to stay late after work for parent teacher interviews Thursday night. Wouldn't you know when I peeked outside after school to see if anyone was blocking me in, to my amazement , not one car was blocking anyone in! I'll be! Today ( Friday) was a PD Day so no students were at school, just staff. So we'll have to wait and see what happens on Monday!**
6 comments:
WHAT?!?! THAT'S SO DUMB!!!! i think your idea was great! i also think you should continue to post that sign on your car because you're not doing anything wrong and because it obviously got noticed. people are such boobs sometimes!
i LOVE the sign, and I especially like that you went ahead and laminated it! hahaha! Now you can have it out there rain or shine! I'll be interested to hear how tomorrow turns out!
We have the same problems at our school ALL THE TIME! When I was on the parent council, this was discussed to death and we never were able to resolve it! Parents are rude and ignorant. Even parents that have been to our meetings would illegally park on the road and in the parking lot! I LOVED YOUR SIGN! I think the next step is for you to leave your vehicle parked halfway into the driveway! :) Will be anxious to hear how the next step goes!
Another person's culture doesn't = an excuse to not adhere to your culture. That's insanity.
That made my blood boil just reading about it. There are so many clueless, ignorant and inconsiderate people around who just don't give a rats razoo about anybody. I wonder how they would feel if someone blocked them in.
You go get 'em girl and I hope you win the battle.
@Joan Thank you!! It has seem to have worked!! yeah..but wait until it snows...our parents freak out over snow..in fact, many parents let their kids stay home..it is crazy AND we have indoor recess !!! CRAZY!!! I have the sign in my trunk to pull out again if needed!!
@Carolyn...thank you too...and I used our school laminator and bristol board..it wasn't coming out of my pocket!! hehehe!
@Carol ...I think I may resort to leaving my car blocking the parents from picking up their kids at the kindergarten..I can drive it on the lawn and up the sidewalk..great idea! hehehe! So your school had the same prob...wow...schools need to build in a proper kiss and ride lane to elleviate these issues!
@ Lauren..exactly, but I think it's a losing battle..during parent teacher interviews, the husband does the talking most often..
@gyspy...there are aren't there...I am gettin' them!! We'll see what the new year brings!!! trust you are keeping well down under!
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