Part 1: School memories from Renee Foose, superintendent of Howard County Public Schools
On her first day of kindergarten, Renee Foose was not so worried about the unknowns of school. She had another concern nagging her.
“One of my biggest fears was that first step of the school bus,” Foose admits.
Foose was convinced she would trip or fall backwards, or completely miss the step all together. It was intimidating.
In the Pennsylvania town where Foose grew up, kindergarten was housed in a different building than the other elementary school grades, so kindergarteners had to ride two buses. One took all the students to the main elementary school, and then the kindergarteners transferred to a different bus to ride to the smaller school.
It was on the way home when Foose actually encountered trouble with the steps. Getting off the last step of the first bus to transfer to the bus that would take her home, Foose became nervous.
“I had a lot of anxiety about stepping down. I was afraid of the steps,” Foose says.
She jumped down with no problem, but then a teepee craft she made in class blew away. Foose ran after it, caught the teepee, but almost missed the second bus.
“When I came back, I was thinking about the first step. I stuck my arm in and got my arm stuck in the door,” Foose says. Frantic, the bus driver, raced down to help a distraught Foose, who would never forget her first day of kindergarten.
“I was traumatized by that. I remember telling my mom all about how I got my arm stuck in the door.”
