At the end of the day, we take the students to the gate, and we wait for the buses.
We have a locked gate and a fenced in waiting area, although half the time we'll leave things unlocked as there are staff around and about supervising. Someone stands at the gate to make sure no one wanders off.
While most of the students travel to and from school via bus, a few are picked up and dropped off by their families.
On this day, I was manning the gate. The buses had not yet arrived. A woman approached the gate.
I recognized her. She's Pizza's mom.
Usually she waits in her car. Pizza looks out for her car and lets us know when he sees it. But Pizza's class hadn't been dismissed yet.
Apologizing, she asked if she could be let in to use the restroom. Of course I let her. Another teacher went about finding a key to the closest restroom (as we did not have one--we usually use a different restroom).
It was at about this time that Pizza arrived at the dismissal area. And he saw his mom's car. But he didn't see his mom.
I pointed her out and told him it would be a couple minutes.
He accepted this explanation.
But then he was looking out at the car again. Pizza has a tendency to get anxious about things. He couldn't understand why his mom's car was out there but his mom was not.
I repeated that she was in the restroom and would be out shortly.
He expressed palpable relief when she reappeared to claim him.
There's a reason these students are at this school. Many times they can seem quite normal. But then something like this occurs, nothing major but a change to the routine, and it throws them for a loop.
Luckily, Pizza is one of the more "advanced" students, so he can cope better with these sorts of things. Of course, "better" is relative, and at this school, that meant that it made for a couple anxious minutes for Pizza.
