The bus stops here

What on earth would compel a good kid - an honor roll kid, a show choir kid, a kid who has never been in trouble - to step out in front of a school bus and just stand there, even after police are called and tell him to step away?

Iowa City City High Junior Calvary Tutson says he just wanted a ride to school, like he's entitled to under district rules.

Instead, he got a ride downtown, arrested in a bizarre incident you might call civil disobedience or plain-old teenage blockheadedness. Or maybe, a little of both.

It all started on the second day of school, as Calvary tells it, when he went out to the bus stop, and the driver - new to his route - shook her head, pointed at her watch and drove away.

Calvary ran to the next stop, hoping to catch the bus there, but still the driver wouldn't let him on, he says. Confused, Calvary ended up taking the city bus to school.

It happened again in those first few school weeks, he says (neither the school district nor the bus company would give me their version of events), and then again.

And on that third time, the frustrated, wiry 16-year-old stepped out into the street, in front of the bus, and just stood there.

He says he just wanted the driver to let him on the bus; instead, she called police.

Now Calvary is charged with disorderly conduct and interference with official acts - both misdemeanors, sure, that can be wiped from his record if he keeps his nose clean, which he probably will - but why?

The issue seems to be a rule that says students must be standing at the bus stop 10 minutes before the bus is scheduled to arrive.

I can see wanting routes to run smoothly, but to just shut the bus door in a kid's face? That seems cold. Colder, still, the way Calvary's mom says the district handled her complaints.

She had been trying to resolve the issue for weeks by the time her son staged his little protest, but school and bus officials just passed the buck.

I got the picture when I tried, myself:

“We don't run the buses,” a school official told me. “The district sets those policies,” Durham's local manager said when I called over there. Round and round we go.

This isn't the first time a parent has complained to me about getting the runaround. Iowa City School leaders have been promising better communication for decades.

Now the district is collecting citizen input about how they might improve operations. You can access the survey, open until midnight Monday, at http://tinyurl.com/IowaCitySurvey

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net