Posted on 01/09/2007 9:06:29 PM PST by Nachum
Imagine sending your kids off to school, but when they get to the bus they are told they can't get on because they speak English.
That's right, English.
It happened to a few children in St. Paul and now the school district is apologizing.
Rachel Armstrong sent her kids to pick up the bus as usual Monday, but after the driver let the kids on, he told them he would not pick them up again. He even said he wouldn't take them home that afternoon.
Armstrong left work early Tuesday, forced to pick up her kids from Phalen Lake Elementary School.
Her twin girls, 10, and her son, 8, were kicked off their regular school bus. They were told by the bus driver the route is for non-English speaking students only.
"I was furious. I was at work and I was just mad." Armstrong said. "I felt like we were being discriminated because we speak English. Just because they speak English, they can't ride the school bus. I mean, this is America, right?"
Administrators at St. Paul Public Schools admit the district made a mistake when it stranded the kids at school Monday.
However, the district points out, that particular bus route serves one of three language academies. The one at Phalen Lake is for Hmong students learning English.
The academies all have separate bus routes to keep its students together.
The district decided to enforce the separate routes beginning Monday, but it did not tell the Armstrong family.
"It is our responsibility to ensure the safety of these kids and we made a mistake. The kids should have gotten home that day," Dayna Kennedy, public relations representative.
The district also discovered the Armstrongs no longer live in the Phalen Lake School boundary because they moved last year.
So even thought the district apologized, if they want to still go to Phalen, they are going to have to get their own ride.
That's the flip side. The English-speaking kids were benefiting by being immersed in a second language on the bus ride.
Thank you.
My take:
The bus driver tried to explain to the kids that it was the wrong bus. One of his explanations was: "If you can speak English, this is the wrong bus for you."
That's what they told their parents, and their parents went off.
It would be interesting to learn if people that were actually in the district were notified of the change. Maybe these particular parents had no clue because they're not in the district. Maybe their kids forgot to give their parents the handout. Who knows.
One thing is clear: this article was written to be reactionary, and it obviously worked.
How dare you try to inject logic into everyone's rant?? ;-)
And somehow I picture you to be just such a liberal agitator. After all, what else do liberals have to do but cause trouble in America?
These kids were told by the driver that his bus was for 'non English speaking students only', and that they would not be getting a ride home from him, and that they would not be picked up again by him. They were twin girls aged 10 and a boy aged 8. This was a monumental act of negligence for causing a serious safety issue for these little kids, and a potential civil rights violation. Underlying this moronic action by the bus driver are the usual liberal suspects, namely, multiculturalism, reverse discrimination and a politically correct mentality that has caused dementia in the American mind .
"The one at Phalen Lake is for Hmong students learning English."
Why do they not have an English only rule? What good is it if the kids learning english don't use it outside the classroom? What if the kids want to practice english on the school bus?
So many idiot bearucrats, so little time.
WTF?? This country is going to balkanize if we don't stop this.
Maybe that's what democrats want?
Back when we had fountains there were black only and white only labels on them; bathrooms too, I know, I almost wet my pants at a Greyhound bus stop in Georgia in 1962 heading to Florida because they wouldn't let me in the closest restroom because it was for "Coloreds."
What BS. Far too many people are incapable of teaching ANYTHING.
The family moved outside the school's area. If you live outside a school's area, you are not entitled to a bus ride there and back.
in MN? I always thought they spoke nordic, ya?
If it were your kid, we'd be mocking you for thinking your child deserves to get a ride to a school you moved outside the zone for.
"Everybody seems to have missed the truly abusive situation going on here. Busses are damn'd heavy and children shouldn't be made to pick them up."
I don't care who you are, that thar is funny! Thanks for the laugh!
Arabic will be instituted only after Muslims start beheading a few more Americans. Then the libs will cave-in and make Arabic mandatory. /Sarcasm but not unlikely in the not too distant future. (Assuming libs take control of America's body politic)
.
OK, this nut job read in the article where they claimed they were our of district since they moved and needed to get a ride themselves to the school if they still wanted to attend.
Now I can (just being a dumb right wing nut) assume several things. One is that they still can be taught normal English subjects at this school and are not prevented to attend. Second since the bus when right by their house, that the bus was picking up it's PC subjects just fine right where they were. I assume the bus did pick up Hmong students that far out, but not English students.
Yet the bus was there picking up students? Something is fishy, you don't drive where you don't pick up students.
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