Stranded Pupils Return Home -- Parents Mad And Relieved Over Delays

In the homes of more than 1,200 Seattle children - kept in schools overnight because of Tuesday's blizzard - there was both rejoicing and anger.

There was relief that the youngsters, some of whom didn't get home until yesterday afternoon, finally were safe - and there was anger that school officials didn't do a better job of keeping parents informed.

``I'm a totally freaked parent!'' said Gloria Hubacker, who waited at a school-bus stop on Eastlake Avenue East for more than 3 1/2 hours Tuesday. During her anxious wait, she made several calls to school offices, trying to learn the whereabouts of her 6-year-old daughter Hillary, a first-grader at Madrona Elementary School.

Hubacker, an alternative high-school teacher in the Edmonds School District, said the Seattle Schools transportation office ``should know where buses are. That isn't too much to ask even if we have a problem with the weather,'' she said.

It was late Tuesday night before Hubacker learned that Hillary's bus had turned back to Madrona, where the little girl spent the night.

Karlene Frederiksen of North Seattle is another of the angry parents.

Her daughter, Jessica, 12, was among 22 Meany students who spent 11 hours on a bus before being dropped off at West Woodland School - in the former Monroe Middle School building - in Ballard at 1:30 a.m. There, Jessica spent the night.

``I was so worried. We never got a call about where she was or where she wasn't. It was not knowing that was the worst. I still don't understand it,'' said Frederiksen. ``Why didn't the school call parents?''

The bus drove by Jessica's stop, but the driver wasn't letting off any students whose parents were not at the corner to meet them. Jessica said she was not allowed off the bus to call home.

Several students jumped out the emergency windows, but Jessica went the whole route - from the University District, to Greenwood, to downtown, to South Seattle, and finally, to Ballard.

But frustrations weren't limited to parents.

Colman Principal Ed Jefferson had to contend with three power outages during the night, tend to more than 80 stranded students and try to inform parents.

His biggest worry was a ``lost'' girl, who wasn't located until about 5 a.m. yesterday.

Jefferson said the little girl and two other pupils were left at Beacon Elementary School when their bus couldn't get through. Calls to schools with descriptions of the girl finally paid off for Jefferson and her worried parents.

During the going-home nightmare, parents reported some pupils had to walk long distances in the storm because buses got stuck. Many slid into ditches.

Some parents, drivers and teachers said the district should have closed schools at noon Tuesday in the face of the storm.

But Superintendent William Kendrick insisted that at noon he did not have enough evidence to justify an early dismissal.

``This district's been burned a time or two for making a decision to close when weather conditions have changed for the better,'' Kendrick said.

The superintendent said several factors made a bad situation worse:

-- Buses were frozen in the monumental traffic snarl caused by the storm.

-- Only 60 percent of the Laidlaw buses have radios.

-- A lightning strike took out the charter company's transmitter for a time.

-- And the computer at Educational Service District No. 121 Renton, used by area school districts to inform the broadcast media of school closures, went down.

Kendrick said he finally got through to two television stations himself late Tuesday to announce no school yesterday.

Kendrick said he is investigating an unsubstantiated report that a bus driver ordered pupils off a bus prematurely. ``That's absolutely a no-no,'' he said. If a driver can't deliver students to their stops, he or she is to take them to the nearest school where they will be safe, he said.

The superintendent said he will be reviewing several possible recommendations in view of the hard lessons of Tuesday's blizzard. They include:

-- Calling for all school buses to be radio-equipped in future contracts.

-- Dividing the school district into ``emergency zones'' for dealing with varied weather situations. Because the city is so large, different weather conditions strike different areas.

-- Obtaining a central supply of blankets.

-- Equipping the district with a few four-wheel-drive vehicles to deliver supplies.

-- Establishing an emergency communications network as a backup to the regular school telephone system.

-- Assigning administrators to the charter bus company's yards to handle calls from parents.

``I can't say too much,'' Kendrick said, about how staff members, neighbors, police, the Red Cross, the mayor's office and others responded to the emergency on behalf of children.

Weather-related closures had a ripple effect on some day-care centers. While a few have remained open, it is either with shorter snow hours or fewer staff members. Many followed the school system's example, closing their doors today and tomorrow.

That left some parents scrambling for replacements. The Salvation Army, for example, expected that one-quarter of its 20-member Christmas Center staff would not make it to work today.

``We had some of them say if the school and day care are closed they probably won't be able to come in,'' said Maj. Raymond Peacock, second in command of the northwest district.

``Parents probably feel their first priority is their children and rightfully so. As much as they would desire to work, they can't just walk away from that, can they?''