DD sometimes comes home on a school bus service called 'Mybus.' Sometimes she doesn't come home on it because:
- She is staying late to do an activity.
- She is going to out of school club because DH and I are both still at work.
- She is going to a friend's house for tea.
- She is off school ill.
- We are going for an icecream/doctor's/dentist's etc rather than going straight home.
- It is a nice day and she wants to walk or cycle home.
Every single time she isn't getting the bus, which is at least twice a week, I have to phone a call centre in a city 30 miles away, go through an automated system, go through a series of security questions to prove my identity, give my child's details which are then looked up on a database covering the whole county, and the call centre then phones the driver. I have to do this even if I am outside the school collecting DD, and I am talking to the bus driver in person. I phone them and they phone him even though I am standing there with him making the call.
Apparently me telling the bus driver, or (if I am putting DD into out of school club/she is ill and I have phoned the school) the headmaster telling the bus driver that DD is not getting on the bus is a 'security risk.' This is because I may not be the parent and the headmaster may not really be the headmaster and it is not in line with Metro's 'closed system' (even though the bus driver sees both me and the head every day during pick up and drop off).
On Wednesday, DD was ill, and I informed the Head, who told the bus driver. Today I have been phoned by Metro, who have told me that I am 'breaching my contract' as I did not phone the call centre. The bus driver says that social services are called if someone 'breaches their contract.'
So I have said I no longer want to use their service.
AIBU? Or is Metro?