Sometimes around here they aren't allowed to let them off the bus unless someone is standing there waiting for them. I can understand that if they are in kindergarten or in the middle of nowhere, but when you're 3 houses down from the bus stop in the middle of a patch with 4 other parents around and the kid is 9 yrs old?
Found this out after I got really sick one year and couldn't make it up to the bus stop, all the time I'm watching thru the side window for my kid to get off...luckily I was friends with the driver and my son told him what happened...and he dropped him off in front of the house until I got better, otherwise they would have taken him back to the school.
I could see the bus stop from the house...WTF.