Responsibility

Ok, first off let me state this for the record. I am all for taking responsibility for your actions. Owning up. In fact, in my humble opinion, that is what is wrong with a lot of people. No one can take responisibility for thier own actions. That is the reason for the lawsuits, the stupid warnings everywhere, the overly concious Political Correctness that permeates every syllable of almost every conversation. Anyway, to my point. My oldest child, age 12, wanted to goto a friend's house to play some basketball after school. I said ok, after asking all of the important questions about homework, the ride home, what time, etc. Ok, now he is on the school bus and he and a couple of other friends, depart the bus at his friend's house. Here is where it gets a bit muddied between stories but the gist of it is this....he gets off and is told by the bus driver that he is suspended from riding the bus for 5 days for getting off at the wrong stop. Ok, there are a couple of problems with this. First of all, I was unaware that you had to have a note to get off at a different stop. Another bus or maybe a ride home with someone else I can handle, but a note to get off at a different stop on the same bus? So why did the bus driver let any of them get off the bus if they are not supposed to? I understand that she cannot police every student's every move while they are there but surely after knowing my son, and she does because I coached her son at baseball several years ago, she would stop him and say something instead of waiting for him to get off then yelling out to him that he is in trouble. Ok, I own up to the fact that this is my fault. I don't fault Justin for not knowing the "note" policy. I didn't know it either. I did know that picking a student up early or them riding a different bus requires a note but not the same bus and a different stop. So ok, this is my fault. So then I call the head of the transportation and ask to have the punishment set aside since I was the errant party. Then I get an argument! Why? If I own up to it and apologize then why it is necessary to keep up the punishment. I did try the "why did the bus driver let him off" angle but to no avail. It is the bus driver's job to drive the bus and see students acting up or doing wrong, they can even hand out the punishment but God forbid they do something simple like stop him and say, Hey you can't get off here without a note, sit back down. It would have taken 10 seconds and avoided several parents having to get off work a half day for a whole week. There is something wrong with that policy.