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Oct 10, 2013

This Is What I Get For Joining The PTA

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There’s a reason I’m hesitant to join advocacy groups.

Since I was little, if there was something I was passionate about, I hunted down every fact, exposed truths, and worked to educate others, persuading them to open their eyes to injustice and also take action. I can’t count the number of groups I was involved with in my teens and twenties: animal rescues, save the children, food drives…

It’s exhausting.

As a parent, I’ve been forced to rein in my causes to fight for, if only because I cannot expend that much energy on them while still working and being a good mom. So I’ve been more careful with my choices, although anything directly involving my kids generally comes right to the top of the list.

The transportation debacle launched school issues to the top of my priority list two weeks ago, and I started speaking out regarding the need for improvements to our district’s transportation department. We’re still in a bit of a stalemate with that.

Fast forward a week. A friend alerted me to a special meeting of the Columbus Council of PTAs on October 8, where the Columbus Mayor would be present to discuss the district’s levy issue. The levy committee was also asking for PTA members to lend their endorsement to the levy, requiring a vote.

Getting into all of the details and problems with the levy would take 3-4 posts entirely, and completely bore those of you who don’t live in this area. So I’ll sum up: the levy asks for a LOT of money from a 24% property tax hike, gives some of that money to private charter schools and private businesses, limits the power of the elected school board, makes a lot of promises with no real details on who will benefit and how they’ll do it, and still has the strong chance of no accountability if they squander the money. Again. And they’re going to cut $200 million from the existing budget, without saying where those cuts will come from.

Also, it assumes that the way to fix failing schools is to throw more money at them to make the problem go away, which definitely isn’t an answer. If you’re really interested in learning more, there’s a lot of info out there. I’d be happy to share some links.

Anyway. I’m a PTA member at our local school, like many parents, so I agreed to go to this meeting, hoping that the superintendent or someone from the school board might be there so I could talk to them about our transportation issue. (None of them were in attendance.) I made arrangements to meet Aaron after work to hand off the kids so he could take them to gymnastics while I drove to the other side of Columbus for this meeting.

The Meeting

I was nervous walking into the room. I didn’t recognize anyone there at first, and I worried about speaking up against the school district. I thought I’d be the minority in the room. My friends arrived about five minutes later, and others recognized me from my earlier blog posts about the bus, so I didn’t feel quite so afraid.

The mayor was running late, and this group of parents were ready to get things moving. They had babysitters charging by the hour and others inconvenienced by their commitment to be at this meeting. Suddenly, one of the parents announced, “I’d like to move that this council NOT endorse Issues 50 & 51.” It was immediately seconded. The president of the council asked if we wanted to vote now before the mayor had a chance to speak, and the room erupted in affirmative responses.

It was suddenly clear that quite possibly everyone there was against the levy. The president suggested discussion of the motion. At that point reasons why people opposed the levy began spilling out. There were overall concerns about the lack of detail regarding the business plan, including measuring success and holding people accountable for meaningful improvement.

Some made the point that many of the commission’s recommendations for improving the district could be implemented without any money. Others explained that they had attended all of the focus group meetings for the levy, designed to allow the public to provide input, and felt that none of the concerns expressed by parents or community members were heard or addressed in those meetings.

Then the vote was taken. All in favor say aye: “AYE” echoed in unison around the room. All opposed, nay: …silence. Not a single person said nay. We had unanimously voted to not endorse Issues 50 & 51. I was hoping there would be those who felt similar to me, but I didn’t expect a one-sided vote. Were there no parents who felt strongly enough in favor of the levy to come speak their minds and vote? Or are most parents feeling the same as us and concerned that our kids won’t really benefit from the vague language?

At that point, it was asked how the public would be notified of our decision. Another motion was made to give a public statement on the council’s unanimous decision to vote no and why. The vote passed unanimously. You can listen to it here:

Music Hosting – Embed Audio – Columbus Council of PTAs una…

Here’s the link to the audio file for those reading this on mobile.

We then waited and waited for Mayor Coleman to arrive. A little over an hour after the start of the meeting, he finally showed up, having been briefed on his way there about the vote we had already taken. I was curious as to what he might say to help us better understand the design of this plan, perhaps giving us more details about the private partners or the plans to ensure the money isn’t being siphoned to private interests with little in return.

Instead, the mayor began by expressing his displeasure and disappointment with our vote and chiding us for our decision, saying he hoped we’d reconsider and vote again. Then, when parents told him how they’ve attended all of the meeting and spoke at them, and yet the public’s input was not considered for this levy, he said this was the first time he’s ever heard that the public didn’t feel they had input into the plan. When a gentleman near me gently challenged this, the mayor erupted at him, yelling defensively. You can hear all of it here:

Play Music – Audio Hosting – Columbus Mayor at Columbus C…

Here’s the link to the audio file for those reading this on mobile.

Columbus Mayor addresses PTA CouncilMayor Coleman stayed for about 15 minutes, then decided he wasn’t taking any more questions and left. He didn’t have any answers for us. He knew few details on the plan, insisting that it would be handled after the levy passes. He couldn’t answer basic questions regarding the plan’s suggestions for recruiting and retaining teachers, even accidentally saying at one point that Columbus City Schools needed to get good teachers, before backtracking once he realized the insult he had just spoken.

He also reiterated the stale talking point used in the countless commercials and near-daily mailers that business and government were ready to help, but it was time for the parents and community to “step up” for their kids’ education.

Um, PARDON? Forgive the outrage, Mr. Mayor, but don’t you think it’s a little insulting to tell parents to step up? Never mind, don’t forgive the outrage – to belittle us and try to pin the blame for failing schools on us is wrong.

If you want to blame something, try blaming poverty, or segregation, or a minimum wage so low that parents work multiple jobs and leave their older kids to raise their younger ones. Why not work on improving those issues in city government first, since you proved you’re not the education expert you claimed to be in the Dispatch three weeks ago?

It gets worse. (Wednesday)

The next day, the committee that was formed at the meeting to develop a public statement for the media ran into problems immediately. (I was a part of this committee.) The first draft, including reasons some of the individuals present at the meeting expressed for their vote, was criticized for including the reasons, despite the vote taken at the meeting including the words “and why.”

Not an hour after that first email, my home phone rang. Caller ID said it was the Columbus Dispatch. I was working, so I ignored it, thinking it was likely a sales pitch. Instead, it was a reporter who knew about the meeting vote and wanted to get more information from me. How did he know my phone number? I ignored it and continued working. Soon I had a tweet notification, followed by an email, all from the same reporter.

A short while later another parent who attended the meeting sent me a link to a Dispatch article. It was vague, but already reporting that we had voted not to endorse Issues 50 & 51, without providing any of the concerns expressed, and then provided a rosy picture of the levy. It would seem someone from that meeting had already leaked the information rather than waiting for our official release.

I disagreed with the committee over the wording, arguing that the press release had no useful information to share without giving some of the reasons that individuals voted the way they did, especially since someone had already told the media. (No, I have no idea who it was.) Then there were thoughts about whether the Columbus Council of PTAs vote meant that we didn’t endorse it (as in, we don’t support the levy, which it was clear that was the intent) or if it meant that we just weren’t taking a position.

As you can guess, that same mysterious someone had told the press that as a group we had voted to not take a position on the levy. The press release was not going to happen at this point.

So much information was flying around the back-channels that by the end of the night, I was fed up with the half-truths. I carved out some time and emailed the Dispatch reporter back, giving him the whole story as witnessed by me, as well as the audio recording of the mayor that had been provided to me by another parent.

And then today.

I woke up this morning to more emails and a link to the same Dispatch article. It had been updated with some of the information I provided to the reporter, as well as information from other parents.

It also included statements from the mayor’s office, claiming our meeting “was a small sample that does not represent the membership of the organization,” and downplaying the vote. Seriously?

They were the ones who forced this vote to happen to begin with, because they thought the PTA important enough to flaunt as an endorsement. Yet when the vote didn’t go their way, they chose to make us look like a few radical parents who secretly got together for our vote. Wrong. It was a public meeting, advertised to all PTA groups, and the importance of the meeting was stressed in the invite. If those in support of the levy chose not to attend, then they chose not to have their vote count.

That’s the way democracy works – if it matters to you, then you’ll be sure to vote. The mayor had better hope they feel more strongly about going out to vote on election day.

The other insult in the article was the Council PTA president claiming that she voted no, discrediting those of us claiming it was unanimous. As you can hear in the audio above, she didn’t vote no. She did tell us, long after the vote and during a break while waiting for the mayor, that she was in support of the levy, but that support was not voiced during either vote. It was a unanimous vote.

Look, I know our school district has problems. That’s obvious. But if a business tried to present this school plan as a business plan to request investment funding, they’d be laughed out the door at the lack of details, along with the flaws in the few details that are in the plan. We’ve tried to throw money at the district’s problems before – we voted for the 2008 school levy, also full of similar promises, and that money vanished without better schools or any benefit to our kids.

Last week, when Aaron and I petitioned the school board and the superintendent for the need to improve their solutions with the transportation office, the superintendent, Dr. Good, had this to say to us in an email response:

While I’ve very limited opportunity to craft a more thorough response to your correspondence, please be assured that I (and although I do not speak for the Board, I know they share the sentiment) am very concerned, but highly committed to finding solutions that are effective while honoring our pledge to be prudent fiscal stewards.

Well then, if being prudent fiscal stewards is the game plan for transportation, then let’s make it the game plan for the entire district’s operations. You don’t need millions of dollars more to correct the school district’s problems. Often, the best innovation happens when resources are limited. It’s time to prove they can be creative thinkers.

And, like the new Common Core standards require for all students, please show your work.

Filed Under: politics, school · Tagged: , ,


Oct 8, 2013

3rd Grade OAA Test Day – Here’s Your Pencil & Your Xanax

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Today is a big day for third graders at our school, and all third graders in our district. It’s Test Day. I don’t mean a normal spelling test or math test, but the BIG test for them. The OAA third grade achievement test. The district already puts an enormous emphasis on this test already, since it influences each school’s state report card, but a new state policy called the Third Grade Reading Guarantee will this year automatically hold back any students who don’t pass the test.

That’s a lot of pressure for eight and nine year olds over a single test.

OAA Test Strategies

Last month, the papers starting coming home about this test. The kids have been working on practice tests and focusing on homework that develops their answers to match what is wanted for the test. I won’t even get started on how maddening the Common Core standards are, especially for a child who can’t show her work because there was no work to show – her brain just moves that fast to the answer.

Cordy did well on the practice test. They said she was finished with it before all of the kids had even received their tests, and despite zipping through it at breakneck speed, nearly all of the answers were correct. That gave me hope that she’ll do well on the real test.

This may solidify my status as strange, but I’ll admit I loved taking standardized tests as a kid. It was a game to me – a challenge to prove I could beat the test and show how smart I was. School was maddeningly boring for me. I spent most days reading ahead in all of my textbooks, starting assignments before the teacher was done explaining the lesson, and getting a pass to go to the library when I finished my work ahead of everyone else so I could browse what books I wanted to read next. From second to fifth grade, I spent one day a week entirely in a gifted ed classroom, and that was the only thing that kept me from giving up on school entirely.

But whenever we had a standardized test, with its little scan-tron bubbles to fill in with pencil, I got excited. After all, it was my first standardized test in first grade that led to me being placed in the gifted ed program, so I saw these tests as a chance to earn something by showing them I didn’t belong in my current class.

As soon as my teacher said “Go,” I flipped open the first page of the book with excitement, knowing the first few questions were always the easy ones and wanting to move past them as quickly as possible. I never went back to check my answers – I’d carefully check that the answer I chose matched up with the bubble on the scan-tron, make sure it was filled in completely, and then didn’t look back.

I did feel some pressure, but it was all internal. I was competing against myself, and no one else knew it, which made it all the more fun. But the scores didn’t really count for much. The teachers didn’t have any pressure, either – these were nothing but aptitude tests, and no district report cards were hanging in the balance. Back then, the districts knew there was more to each student than just a test score, and there was more for a student to learn than just the test materials and test strategy. I happened to be good at these tests. Other kids had different strengths, and those strengths were valued in the classroom, too. (If anything, my strengths were not all that valued.)

Sadly, there were no rewards beyond the first grade test. I never got to skip a grade, and no black car pulled up to the school to take me to a more interesting school. I still enjoyed seeing my accomplishments on the tests, though. I’d never be talented in sports, but I could pull 97th percentile and higher scores in all standardized tests, so that was my source of pride.

Cordy has had similar reactions to standardized tests so far. When she was given the IQ assessment earlier this year, the psychologist remarked that she seemed to be having fun with the test, even showing pride when she realized she was doing better than expected.

But the build-up to this test has been hard on her in the past two weeks. Test taking strategies are being taught, and the kids brought home a Test Pledge that we had to review with them and sign together. This pledge included such things as “I’ll get a good night’s sleep the night before the test,” (of course you will, with that much pressure on you!) and “I’ll carefully read the entire passage before answering questions.”

Papers came home for parents, too, urging us to make sure the kids went to bed early on Monday night and had a good breakfast this morning. If we couldn’t provide breakfast, they reminded us that free breakfast was available for all students before the start of school. And, of course, there’s this tip: “Remind your child that your love does not depend on how well he or she scores on the test.” Gah! Really? People really put that much pressure on kids?

Loki says: oh, yes

Damn, even I’m feeling anxious about this test now, and I’m not the one taking it.

It’s no surprise, then, that in the past few days Cordy has become increasingly anxious about this test. Last night, she started to panic at bedtime, saying she was worried about the test. “What if my teacher isn’t there? What if there are questions I don’t know? What if there are 400 questions and I get too tired to answer them all?” she asked.

Aaron and I tried to soothe her worries, reminding her that our definition of doing well on the test means staying focused and trying her best. If she did that, then she did well on the test for us and we’ll be so incredibly proud of her, regardless of her score.

I also tried to get her back into feeling confident: “But Cordy, you have no reason to worry, because I know a secret about this test.”

“What is it, mama?”

“This test? It’s only testing you on third grade material.”

“So?” she replied, curious as to why that mattered.

“So,” I explained, “you have nothing to worry about, because you know WAY more than third grade stuff!”

It made her smile, which was a victory in my mind. She then tried to compare the test to a Skylanders battle, and I went along with it. Whatever it takes to make her feel better.

It also disheartens me to see so much of what is taught directed towards The Test. And now, with the state basing all decisions on holding a child back in third grade on this assessment, it’s more important than ever. A child’s entire third grade experience is more than a score on a standardized test. The test puts too much pressure on the kids and the teachers to perform for this single day event, with future performance for both groups linked to these scores.

I truly appreciate the teachers in my daughters’ lives. They have talent and passion for what they do, and I wish they had greater freedom to teach their students without the test pressure. So much gets left behind when you’re stuck hammering home key points and strategies for The Test.

I’m hoping Cordy does her best today, and that she somehow finds a way to enjoy this test.

Filed Under: Cordy, school ·


Oct 4, 2013

An Update on the School Transportation Debacle

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When we last left this saga with Columbus City Schools taking three hours to bring our daughters home with no notice, we had emailed the superintendent and the school board about what happened to our family last Friday. The superintendent had replied to the email agreeing that the incident was inexcusable and let us know he had asked the deputy superintendent and director of transportation to investigate and follow up with us.

The next day, as I was driving to pick the kids up from school (Mira had asked that I pick them up that day, saying she was still a little nervous to ride the bus home for fear of being on it for another three hours), my phone rang. I recognized it as a Columbus City Schools phone number, but it wasn’t the number for our school, so I ignored it because I was driving. When I arrived at the school, I listened to the message – it was from their customer service department, asking to speak about the transportation/communications screw up on Friday. I texted Aaron and found out that they had called him as well.

He spoke to the customer service representative. She apologized for the incident and then tried to shift the blame onto the school, especially the principal, for “not realizing” that the kids would be on the bus for so long and notifying parents that two bus routes were combined. I was livid when I heard this.

Look, I don’t place even half an ounce of blame on the school. They have always been amazing and the communication between our school and us has been exemplary. The school didn’t make the decision to combine routes, and they don’t have easy access to the route maps to see how that combined route would take the kids into all four quadrants of the city of Columbus. The school’s principal is responsible for the school – her job is not transportation, nor should it be. That’s why they have an entire department for transportation.

And now that I’ve brought up that department…let’s discuss what happened next. After that call, Aaron then received a call from the director of transportation to set up a meeting. We agreed to meet on Wednesday morning, right after our annual IEP meeting.

I know – transportation meeting right after the IEP meeting. Talk about an intense morning, right?

The director of transportation began by apologizing and stating that they had failed on Friday. He showed us the route for the bus our kids take, as well as the route they combined with on Friday. That second route covered a large portion of the other side of Columbus. It’s easy to see why it took so long, considering they received a tour of the entire city, but didn’t excuse why we weren’t notified, given the chance to pick up our children, and couldn’t get through to the transportation phone number.

He explained that they have no ability to contact parents in these cases. What?? They have no robo-call technology, or any technology to send out emails or texts. They do have a Twitter account that is not publicized on their website (@ccsbuses) but he admitted that they don’t respond to anyone tweeting them and when they’re short on staff or really busy – times when you’d likely need the Twitter account the most – they don’t update it. I checked the account – last Friday, they listed some buses running late, but ours was never listed.

So why did no one answer when we tried calling over and over last Friday? Because no one was there. They were so short on drivers that the entire office staff were out driving the buses, leaving one person (the director) to be dispatcher to all of the buses carrying thousands of students, and answer a phone if he had time.

Here are some facts I learned about the Columbus City Schools Transportation. On any given day, they transport over 32,000 students to and from schools. They have over 800 buses that do this. But in their office, do you know how many call center operators and bus dispatchers they have to manage those enormous numbers?

Four call center operators, and two dispatchers.

And that’s on a good day when no one is being called to go drive a bus at the last minute. Think about that for a minute. Four operators for 32,000 students and two dispatchers to stay in touch with 800 buses.

A friend on Twitter did some of the math for me to prove the absurdity of this: if 2% of parents need to call the call center any given morning or afternoon, that is roughly 640 calls. Spread between four representatives, that is 160 calls per representative, almost all of which will likely arrive in a one hour window. It’s obvious that there simply are not enough people available for parents to have any reasonable expectation of reaching someone in a timely manner.

It turns out the district does have a Lost Child number to call, but that number is not published. I asked why it wasn’t published, and the answer was because if parents had access to that number, they would call it whenever they couldn’t get through to the regular number. (Perhaps because they need to FIND THEIR CHILD?) Can you see the problems here?

The director of transportation did share with us some of the technology they have partially running at the moment. All buses are equipped with GPS tracking devices. However, the district deems it too costly to provide parents their own individual logins to the software to check in on where their child’s bus might be.

I was given a login to see how the system works yesterday, and after using it last night while my daughters rode the bus home I can declare that it’s not ready for prime time by any means. The software is glitchy and unreliable. It logged me out several times while checking. If a bus is not on the mapped out route – say they take a different street to avoid construction, for example – the system reports that the bus is not running its assigned route.

GPS tracking of school busIf it worked reliably, it might be useful.

If the bus stops for 60 seconds or more, it disappears from the map with no last location displayed and only displaying the student’s drop-off location, losing all sense of where it was. Since buses are using city streets, with traffic lights that often last more than 60 seconds, it’s impossible to see where the bus is on the tracking map unless you catch it at just the right time.

Also, should there be any mechanical issues where they have to swap a bus out for another bus, it’s unable to track the route because they can’t reprogram the software to assign the route to the new bus. The software also has no ability to display messages for the route, updating parents on any potential issues that could cause a delay.

We also learned that about half of the buses are equipped with RFID readers, and they had an idea to assign RFID cards to students and then track them on the bus. In this system, parents would be able to log in on a smartphone app to see where and when their students swiped the card when getting on the bus, and where and when they swiped it getting off the bus. This system also requires funding, though, and at this moment there’s no guarantee it’ll happen.

So there are some half-done technology solutions in place, but half-done is nearly the same as not done at all – the only difference is for half-done, money has been invested to still have no solution.

At one point I mentioned that no parent should ever have to resort to calling the police to find their child’s bus. I was then shocked to hear them say they work with the police a few times a year for these types of issues and they’re grateful for the help the police provide. Ummm…I could be totally wrong about this, but I’m not so sure the police are as grateful to serve as the district’s response system and safety net when parents can’t get through.

The message we received from this meeting over and over was that the transportation department has no funding to improve services and that their hands are tied regarding communication and safety improvements for their office. He stressed several times that they have been asking other school districts how they manage their communications issues regarding transportation, and have also reached out to non-school places like the airport for their ideas on logistics.

It took a little while after that meeting for me to process everything I’d heard and tie it all together. Once I did, I realized that there are some enormous problems at play here that the school district can’t keep ignoring.

It’s obscene and shameful that the largest school district in the state of Ohio, and the 8th largest in the entire U.S., has such limited resources for their transportation department. There are plenty of smaller districts that have more call center operators to help parents and better technology to assist in making sure everyone is aware of where the students are at all times once they get on those buses.

After we met, I realized that several times it was mentioned that they were looking to other school districts and transportation services, asking them for solutions. I was also told yesterday that they met with the company who provides the GPS technology for the buses shortly after meeting with us to discuss the problems with the software and ways to improve it.

But wait – if they knew of the problems with the software, why did they wait until now to start asking for fixes? If I’m paying for a big piece of software, I’d be asking for changes as we discovered any limitations. And why are they just now looking for ways to improve the entire system? They didn’t JUST start moving students around by bus these past few weeks – they’ve been managing transportation for some time. Surely our bus issue last Friday didn’t suddenly open their eyes to flaws in the system. They’ve known about these flaws for some time, but perhaps it took an angry parent to make them start addressing it?

Columbus City Schools prides itself on teaching children to be leaders and innovators, and yet their own administration is failing at doing just that. Asking other school districts how they do things is fine, but really, shouldn’t larger school districts be the pioneers for creative, proactive solutions that allow them to work smarter, not harder, and put technology to use to help deal with limited funding? They shouldn’t be following behind other districts, begging for ideas, but should rather use their own resources and talents to blaze ahead and create successful models for other districts to follow.

One final point: in November there is a controversial school levy on the ballot. It’s asking Columbus residents for a steep increase in property taxes to fund building improvements, academic initiatives to improve test scores (’cause only test scores matter with Common Core and the state report cards), and, sadly and unfortunately, provide money to select private charter schools, despite the entire reason charter schools were approved was because they wouldn’t take additional public funding.

I’ve read the tax levy wording and inspected the detailed breakdown on the district’s website. Nowhere does it specify any dedicated additional funding for Transportation. If the charter school issue hadn’t swayed my opinion of the levy before now, this issue may have made up my mind and set my course on which side to advocate passionately for.

Before we left on Wednesday, Aaron and I both expressed that we didn’t want to be against the district on pushing for new policies and procedures for better communications with transportation, but would rather be advocates alongside them. We’ve echoed the same sentiments to the superintendent and school board. Our words were met with polite courtesy in our meeting, but I’m not sure they were fully accepted. I drove the point home before we left, though, letting them know I will remain in touch and this issue will not drop until changes are made.

And it won’t drop. We’ve already emailed the superintendent and school board again regarding what we learned in our meeting with the director of transportation, and our expectations from here. I have a few weeks before the next school board meeting, and will start gathering up as much data as possible.

It’s time to request budgets and deconstruct them line-by-line. Time to call other school districts and find out how they allocate transportation funding. This isn’t my job – and it shouldn’t be my job, because OMG I have enough to do already – but if a squeaky wheel is required to force some changes so parents can have some peace of mind about their children riding buses home from school? Consider me your loud, angry, squeaky wheel. I’d rather use our situation, which thankfully turned out well in the end, to enact change rather than wait for a situation where the ending isn’t so happy to make the district put the time and resources into solutions.

I’d love to hear in the comments (or email me if you don’t feel comfortable leaving a comment: amommystory at gmail dot com) more of what other districts do to keep your kids safe? What types of services would you expect to see from a school district’s transportation department if you needed to find your kids or if the bus was running very late or had trouble?

(And if anyone in this district wants to help me spread the word far & wide or help prepare a presentation for the school board, I’m happy to accept help!)

Filed Under: big issues, school ·


Oct 3, 2013

Turn Up The Music With Monster’s N-Tune Headphones

By ·

Evenings around our house are often a battle of noise. One person wants to watch TV. Another wants to play on the Nintendo DS. Another is practicing her spelling on the iPad. And then there’s always Aaron or I on our computers or iPhones, occasionally clicking through to hear a quick video or song. With that many devices, it would be a cacophony of sounds, but most evenings (or car rides) it’s fairly quiet because at least the kids will be wearing their headphones to go with their devices.

Cordy’s sensory issues caused us to quickly become a family dependent on headphones when we’re spending time in independent electronic pursuits. We got Cordy her first pair of headphones at five years old, and then bought new headphones for both kids two years ago. Headphones keep the peace in the car, and there have been a few times when an overstimulated Cordy was soothed by restricting the noise around her with a set of headphones.

I love listening to music. When the volume is just right, I can lose myself and forget about all of the stress in my life for the length of a good song. Flying to and from Atlanta last month, I popped my headphones on at ten thousand feet and listened to music for most of the flights. And while a lot of people advise against running with music for 5K events, I can’t do it without my running soundtrack urging me on.

I recently had the chance to try out the new N-Tune headphones by Monster. I like that these are over-ear headphones instead of ear buds – nothing against ear buds, but the 80’s girl in me appreciates the old-school headphones with a sleek, modern redesign. Earbuds never seem to get the depth of music that you can get with over-ear headphones.

I have a small set of ear buds, but they’re the ones that came with my iPhone and while they’re good for basic sound, they aren’t that great for music. And I don’t really like earbuds – no matter how well I try to fit them to my ears, they always make my ears hurt after a bit. Not to mention that people still feel the need to talk to you when you have earbuds in. Large, over-ear headphones project that “I can’t – and don’t – want to hear you” vibe that is sometimes needed.

The Monster N-Tune headphones are designed to provide the perfect balance for modern music, emphasizing beats and bass. Unlike the headphones of the previous generation, these also have a built-in ControlTalk remote, meaning that when they’re plugged into your smartphone, you can not only adjust volume from the remote but also automatically pause your music and answer calls.

The Monster headphones have a tangle-free cord as well, are lightweight and come in a variety of sweet candy colors. Mine? Orange, just in time for Halloween.

Monster N-Tune headphones

So how did they work for us? I was surprised by the comfort and cushion of the ear pieces. They looked too small for my ears, yet fit comfortably over them. The cord really is tangle-free, too, avoiding any knots even when I stuff it in the included carrying bag without folding up the cord first. Just take it out, give it a little shake, and the cord goes from a bunched up mess to a long, smooth cord.

I did find that connecting the cord to the headphones required pushing the connector in harder than I expected. I connected the cord and felt a click, so I thought it was in, but the music sounded tinny at first. I unplugged it and plugged the cord into the headphones again, putting a little more force into it this time, and that time I was certain it was properly connected. The music confirmed it.

The sound coming from these headphones is impressive. The bass comes out loud and clear, not overpowering other layers of the music but instead serving as the musical punctuation it’s designed to be. Voices are clear and crisp, and the most subtle song intricacies aren’t missed. The headphones also are fantastic at reducing outside noise so you don’t need to turn the volume up as loud to block the outside world.

The N-Tune headphones by Monster are adjustable and fit well for both of my kids, too. Plus, these headphones are flexible and can withstand a lot of abuse – always a bonus when using them with kids.

N-Tune headphones by Monster

Giveaway!

Want to win a pair of Monster N-Tune headphones for yourself? Monster and BlogHer are giving away 25 pairs of these headphones (valued at $150!), and you can enter for a chance to win one right here!

To enter, take a peek at all of the features on the Monster N-Tune headphones product page, then come back here and leave me a comment letting me know which color is your favorite!

Sweepstakes Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

  • Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post
  • Tweet (public message) about this promotion; including exactly the following unique term in your tweet message: “#SweepstakesEntry”; and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
  • Blog about this promotion, including a disclosure that you are receiving a sweepstakes entry in exchange for writing the blog post, and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post.
  • For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older. Winner will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

BlogHer will pool entries from participating blogs and select a sweepstakes winner at random and will contact the winner with details about fulfilling the prize.

The Official Rules are available here.
This sweepstakes runs from 10/2/13 – 11/1/13.

Good luck!

Filed Under: reviews ·


Sep 30, 2013

My Children Were Missing For Two Hours Because Of Our School District

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On Thursday morning I took a flight to Atlanta for the Type-A Parent Conference. This was the first time I’ve attended Type-A, and I was so excited to attend. I had planned to write a post for today about my conference experience, sharing fun photos with friends and some of what I learned, but then something happened late on Friday afternoon that changed my plans for today.

When I left Columbus, I prepared everything as best I could to make it easy on Aaron for solo-parenting for a few days. I set out clothing for the kids for each day. I also arranged for my mom to come to get the kids off the bus on Friday so Aaron wouldn’t need to leave work early.

On Friday afternoon, I confirmed with my mom at 3:30pm via text that she would be at our house by 4:15 to get the kids, who usually were off the bus between 4:30-4:45. She was already in town, near our house, and would be there in plenty of time.

I went back to my day at Type-A, confident that everything was being handled. So when I got a text from my mom at 5:18pm, I thought it would be her telling me the kids were home, or asking if Cordy could play on the XBox or some other simple request. Instead, it was this:

“How late should the kids be? They aren’t here yet.”

Even with the bus issues we’ve had so far this year, the bus had never been later than 4:50pm. It was nearly half an hour past that. (Their “official” drop-off time is supposed to be 4:15pm.)

Realizing the time, I was a little worried but wondered if perhaps my mom had missed a call from Columbus City Schools Transportation. In the past, they’ve used robo-calls to let parents know when bad traffic was slowing buses, or the driver has called us if the bus had mechanical trouble. The drivers have emergency phone contacts for all kids they transport.

I called my mom and asked her to check the answering machine. No message. She told me she had already contacted Aaron and he was trying to contact Transportation to find out where our kids were. I asked her to text me as soon as they got home, expecting this was just a case of bad traffic or a sub driver and they’d be home any second.

But.

But the fears started in my head. Why weren’t they home yet? They did get on the bus, right? I decided I’d help in the effort, calling Transportation myself. The phone rang and rang and rang. No answer, no connection to the usual holding queue – just ring after ring for nearly ten minutes, until it abruptly cut off and disconnected.

Did they all go home before all kids were safely at their homes? I hadn’t received another text from my mom, so they still weren’t home and it was now approaching an hour later than the late time they are usually home.

I was really worried now. I called my mom again to see if they had shown up. Still nothing, and no word on where they could be. The panic was slowly rising as I did my best to force it down and focus on what I could do to find my girls.

What could I do? I was three states away. I felt utterly helpless and frightened. So I went into full-court press, reaching out for help on social media:

I also looked up the school district’s directory and called the main office for the district. Still no answer. I tried Transportation again, and again had no answer.

I was supposed to go out to dinner with a group at the conference. With the panic now firmly taking hold of me, I choked back tears and waved them to go on without me as I returned to my hotel room, clutching my cell phone tightly, eyes glued on my only link to the drama back home.

My mom called again, asking if I’d heard anything. It was now 6pm, two and a half hours since the school day ended. I told her I couldn’t get through to anyone. “I don’t like this at all,” my mom said. “Do you think we should call the police?”

“Yes,” I replied without hesitation, suddenly realizing it was the last option we had left. My kids were missing, no one from the district was available to tell us where they were or if they even made it onto the bus. The school district had failed us at this point – the police were the next logical step. “Call the police and tell them exactly what happened and ask for their help.”

I held it together until I got into my room. I called Aaron next, confirming that he was just as worried. I told him about calling the police, and he agreed it was the right thing to do. He was racing home from work to join my mom.

My mom then called to tell me the police were at our house and wanted to get a description of the kids. Did I know what they were wearing today? The tears started coming and there was no stopping them now. Our children were missing, and I couldn’t remember the clothing I set out for them on Wednesday night. Why could I not remember what I picked for them to wear?

I sobbed as I apologized for not remembering, as if having my children go missing was something I could have expected. The police were treating this as a missing child case, which frightened me even more. As I tried to catch my breath between sobs, I heard the police officer thank my mom for the details and say that he’d let her know as soon as they heard something.

My mom didn’t have any other details from the police. I hung up so her phone would be available in case they called and then I called Aaron again. He was getting close to home, cursing at the traffic in his way.

Maybe the kids fell asleep on the bus and the driver didn’t see them and took the bus back to the garage with them in it? Or what if it was a sub driver who let them off at the wrong stop and they didn’t know where they were? Maybe they didn’t even make it onto the bus and someone took them? Or what if the bus had an accident and no one had seen the wreck yet? Each scenario running through our minds was worse than the next.

Aaron decided to try calling Children’s Services to see if the girls somehow ended up there. I sat in my hotel room, three states away, staring at my phone through my tears as I waited for news, completely broken.

Then, right at 6:30pm, three hours after our two girls finished their school day, the call from Aaron: the police found their bus, and they were about five minutes from our house. I let out that deep breath I’d been holding in for almost two hours, the grip around my heart released as I was relieved to know they were almost home. The police were able to use some super-secret-police-number to contact Transportation and make someone give them an update on the bus route. Had I been at home, I probably would have offered the officer any amount of money to gain access to that number for future reference.

But they found the bus, there was some kind of issue with the bus that caused it to be so late, and it would be there any minute. Thank goodness.

“They’re here,” Aaron then said. “I’ll call you right back so you can talk to the girls.” I held the phone with both hands and locked my gaze on the screen again as I waited, only this time it was for the anticipation of hearing my daughters’ voices, voices I wasn’t 100% sure I’d hear again a little while before that. It feels overly dramatic to write that now, but there was a short period of time – a short period that felt much longer, as if time was standing still and yet running out all at once – where we weren’t sure if this was a terrible communication misstep by the district or something even worse.

My phone rang again, and I anxiously answered. “Talk to your daughters,” Aaron instructed.

“Hi mommy! I miss you!” Mira’s voice was sparkling and beautiful to my ears. “We were on the bus for a REALLY long time!”

“I know!” I laughed through the tears, “That was the longest bus ride ever!”

Cordy, as usual, didn’t waste words: “Hi mommy! I’m alive!” I have no idea if anyone told her we were worried, if she picked up on it from seeing my mom and Aaron, or if she thought she was being funny, but her cheery proclamation of living helped dissipate the remaining fears hovering over my head.

Once I knew our kids were safe, my mind switched to wanting to know what happened? Why were they on a bus for three hours? Why were we not notified?

Aaron had spoken with the driver, who wasn’t the usual driver, but was a driver we’ve seen before. The story was that there was a family issue with the usual afternoon driver, so her route was added to this driver’s route to get the kids home. (Remember that our girls route was already a double route due to the driver shortage at the start of the year, so it was really three routes in one.)  Thankfully, the police remained at our house until the kids were home and they spoke with the driver to get a report.

Aaron asked the driver why she didn’t call us to let us know the situation. She said she expected that Transportation would have called all of the families to let them know. No one got a call.

Allow me to repeat: no parent or guardian received a call to let them know that there was a bus issue and that due to this issue their child might be arriving home much, much later than normal.

It’s inexcusable. I’d rather receive an extra call to make sure I was aware rather than no call at all.

School bus

Image credit: Yellow Dog Productions / Getty Images

First, parents should always be notified if there’s going to be any significant change in a bus route or arrival time. There’s a reason they make us turn in emergency contact forms, in duplicate, at the start of each year.

They have our numbers, so there’s no reason we shouldn’t be contacted for these types of issues. Safety and communication should be the guiding principals for transportation.

Parents need to know when to expect their children so that we feel secure that our children are being transported in a safe manner. Otherwise, we have no assurance that our children are coming home safely. When it was close to 6pm, and we had no communication from the district regarding our children’s bus route, we didn’t feel our children were in a safe place. Buses don’t take that long to get home. There was no advance warning of a delay, and there was no one available when we tried to call to find out where our kids were. Calling the police really was the only option available.

Also, when a situation like this comes up, parents should be notified as soon as possible and given the option to pick up their children instead of forced into an absurdly long trip home. If we had received a call that our kids were going to be on a three hour bus ride, I would have sent my mom to the school to pick them up instead. I’d never willingly let my nine and six year old girls sit on a school bus for three hours. Had they called the parents, several parents might have been able to pick up their children, leading to a shorter bus route for those who had to remain on the bus. And those who did remain on the bus wouldn’t have had parents waiting nervously at home, worried about where their kids were.

Finally, the school district let these kids down, big-time. This was an elementary school bus with mostly special needs kids on it. No child should have to sit on a hot bus for three hours without bathroom privileges, but special needs children may have additional issues that make this type of treatment especially inhumane. They may not understand why they’re being held there so long. They may get anxious that they won’t reach their home. (Cordy told me today that she was scared they’d never be taken home when she was on that bus.) They may have medical issues that could be affected by that long of a drive.

I am angry that I had to go through that kind of soul-crushing worry because of a lack of accountability on the part of the Columbus school district. No parent should have to endure that wait without any communication from the district, and no child should be forced to sit on a bus for three hours. I don’t know what protocols the school district has in place at the moment, but they failed miserably on Friday.

Aaron has already emailed the superintendent, asking for a meeting to discuss ways to prevent any parent from having to go through this again. The superintendent responded late today, agreeing that it was unacceptable and letting us know the deputy superintendent or director of transportation would be in touch soon. Hopefully they will be, or I’ll soon be in touch with them. I expect a meeting with these officials to discuss potential policy changes.

I’d like to see a parent and student bill of rights for the district’s transportation system, with procedures in place to handle unexpected bus issues. There should be a team of people to reach out to parents for any issues, offer alternatives if time permits, and keep the process running as smoothly as possible.

The Transportation office needs to have people available to answer calls each day until every last child has been dropped off at home and the buses all report that they’re empty. And alternative plans should be in place, rather than combining multiple routes, to ensure that no child is stuck on a bus for three hours, or even two hours.

The school district should take a stand to forbid any route from taking longer than one hour, with a maximum of one and a half hours for occasions when issues crop up. If you can’t get them all home within one and a half hours, you must divide it up or reach out to parents ahead of time to see if anyone would rather pick their child up at school.

I don’t think I overreacted at all. When there was no sign of my young children or word on their whereabouts three hours after they left the school, I was justified in freaking out. I’m thankful that everything was okay, but I’m also angry that it ruined my evening and scared my children. It’s an experience I never want to go through again, and I’d like to make sure no other parent or student in the Columbus City School District has to go through it, either.

Update: I did meet with the director of Transportation for Columbus City Schools. That meeting and the disappointing outcome was detailed in a later post.

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Filed Under: big issues, school ·