Is there some taxi service for kids I was not made aware of?

 It never ceases to amaze me the thought (or lack thereof) that goes into planning activities for the school-aged children in our school district.

When we lived in Des Moines, and obviously were part of a huge conglomerate that was *THE* Des Moines Public Schools, we didn’t have this problem. Now, being in a small town, it seems our calendar is full of inconveniences.

What is the problem, you ask?

It seems to me that every schedule for anything my kids are involved in are being planned out by a college dropout with no job and obviously, NO CHILDREN.

Case in point. Take my oldest daughter’s basketball practice schedule. Not only are they having practice for a SCHOOL SPORT during CHRISTMAS BREAK – you know, when there IS NO SCHOOL — but the practices are during the day.

A little background information: The school district we live in is a small one– made up of 3 different towns. I would venture to say about 75-80% of the students and parents live in the largest of the three towns. The rest of us fools live in one of the other two small(er) towns. For us, the schools are in the next town, 8 miles away. Not within walking distance. Not even within biking distance, since the only way to get to the next town is a busy 2-lane state highway.

Fun times.

Imagine, if you will, my irritation when I saw the latest revised 8th grade basketball schedule, which was handed out on the last day of school before Christmas break. Every day this week there was a 2-hour basketball practice scheduled–either 8-10am or 10am-12noon. FOR KIDS THAT CANNOT DRIVE THEMSELVES ANYWHERE YET.

Thanks to this new schedule, not only was I spending Christmas weekend scrambling to organize some sort of carpool to get my daughter to and from practice, but I was also forced to locate CHILDCARE for my youngest daughter, who can’t be home for that long by herself.

Now I know it’s been a while since I was in junior high, but since when did 8th grade sports require daily training? Seriously, they can’t take a break when there is no school? Out of the 18 girls on the two 8th grade basketball teams, I know for sure there are at least EIGHT girls that are not within walking distance to the school.

I hate being the parent that always raises a fuss, because I never see anyone else complaining. They just wiggle around their work schedules, and somehow their kids magically appear at practice. But what about those of us that not only don’t live in the same town as the school, but work in an entirely different town altogether?

Yesterday, I didn’t have anyone to watch my youngest daughter, so she had to snag a ride along to practice and go sit in the gym while her sister practices. She spent two hours with a DS, some books, a drink and a snack watching her sister have basketball practice. Today we will end up having to do that again. Because unfortunately, in the small town we live in, the only kids old enough to babysit are my daughter and her basketball-playing friends.

Upon further examining the sports schedule for January, they have also scheduled a game on one of the kids’ inservice days. This means that since the kids have no school, they cannot walk out of school and get on a bus to go to their game. I have to leave work, go home and pick up my daughter, and take her to the next town to get on the bus so she can go to her game.

I cannot for the life of me figure out why SCHOOL-related activities are scheduled on days where there is NO SCHOOL. While they claim that these practices are “optional” I would venture to say the playing time in future games will be dependent on who showed up to practice– at least thats what my daughter is worried about. So we’ve moved mountains to make it work this week, and it’s been a big pain in the ass.

In my gearing up for the new year, I am trying so very hard to stay organized and improve on managing my time. So these types of snafus that get thrown into the mix still tend to throw me off.

Am I overreacting about this? Would this bother you?