As a teacher, I never had drop off line duty. (Pick up is a different story, and I definitely had to tell a kid who was waiting for his mom that he couldn’t pee on the side of the school.) And as a parent, I do everything in my power to avoid it (to the tune of walking my daughter to school every day, rain or shine). But I thought at the most I was missing out on a long wait. Was I ever wrong! We asked our WeAreTeachers readers to share their tales from the drop off line, and just … wow:
Parents behaving badly
A parent flipped off our teacher, who does the crosswalk duty, when she waved the stop sign at her to stop while kids were crossing. —Alex P.
A parent tried to run over a teacher because the teacher told her she couldn’t drop off there in the middle of the street. —Courtney G.
Parent drove up from the back of the line over the curb and over cones because they were tired of waiting. —Karen C.
A parent was angry at the school secretary, and when she dropped off her little boy in the morning, she lifted her dress, pulled down her underwear, and mooned the secretary through the large window in the office. —Sue S.
Dropped off their kid and covered up with a sweater because they had no pants on. —Miranda F.
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Distracted driving
A parent drove off with their kid still holding the handle of the open door. The kid (a second grader) was dragged behind until I caught up to it and pounded on the car to stop. —Shannon D.
A parent fell asleep while waiting in line to drop off the student. —Teresa P.
I almost got hit once because the parent arrived after the parking lot was closed and only buses allowed in. —Jennifer B.
Animal planet
The school nurse got bit by a family’s dog when she reached in the window to take the temperature of a child. —Christine Z.
Once, a huge swarm of bees came out of nowhere to form a dark cloud (probably like 500+) and swooped down to the car pick up line. We screamed and rushed all of the students back into the building, but the teacher who was directing traffic was stuck and had to just freeze perfectly still with her stop sign until the swarm flew away. Thankfully, no one was stung! —Tara B.
A HUGE rat jumped out of a car’s engine and was running all over trying to figure out where to go. It jumped into the engine block of the car behind it. Many of the car duty helpers were running and screaming!! —Tiffany S.
A mom was transporting her kids’ pet snake. A very large snake that terrified her. It managed to escape its box during car line. She was hopping around screaming, and I’m trying to find a snake in an SUV to get her car moving. —Scottie S.
Child was dropped off on horseback. —Kathy K.
Problematically punctual
A couple of parents kept arriving earlier and earlier (to be first in line, apparently). Since they sat there and waited so long, they brought a picnic! Got out of their cars and found a place on the sidewalk, and put their spread out! Had a nice leisurely lunch before anyone even noticed! —Joni L.
Parents arriving 3 hours early and sitting and visiting in camp chairs in the parking lot every day. —Carol A.
Our parents used to line up really early for pickup. A mom and another dad got REAL friendly in the guy’s truck IN OUR PARKING LOT. The principal caught them. Six years later, the parking lot love child came to the school where she was conceived and attended K-5 there. It was hard not to think of that pickup line whenever I saw her. —Ann B.
It’s been a rough morning
A mother changing her kid out of their pajamas and into school clothes. —Angela S.
I saw a parent show up in her bra and underwear. She got out of the car, opened the back door, grabbed her robe, and put it on. They got there right after the bell rang and she walked her kid in. She ended up getting arrested because she was intoxicated. This was at 8 a.m. —Cindy W.
A student of mine didn’t want to get out of the car when her mom tried dropping her off at school one day. So mom got out of the car to walk around and open her door to get her out. My student locked the car doors and locked out mom. She refused to unlock the doors … it took the cops showing up before she would unlock them! —Natalie A.
Utterly unbelievable
We had a kid who arrived by dogsled. —Chase N.
A pickup truck with the bed filled almost halfway with dirty diapers. And yes, it stunk! —Jane D.
“I had someone pull up and park so they could play Pokémon Go! I had a ton of cars behind them, but they seem a little confused why they couldn’t park there.” —Jaryn M.
As a van pulled up, I could see a child was hopping around between seats. As it stopped, I saw two dogs sitting, strapped in with seatbelts. I had to rub my eyes to check if I was seeing things. —Lee Ann N.
During summer school one year, a hot air balloon full of people landed between two school buses in the parking lot. Students were still on the buses. —Mariann D.
The grandma that had to do a puppet show for her granddaughters … held up everyone and refused to stop and just let the girls out. —Cassandra T.
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