Unable to go to school & no school bus?

[gtachampion]

I searched for this topic because I swear I read about before but came up with nothing, so here goes...

I have a family that had 4 toddlers and a baby. When the first toddler aged up, he went to the school on the other side of town but about 25 children/teens stand outside and don't go in. I had read somewhere that you can create a lot with a second school and the children will go to the closest school to their home. So I made a new school lot (and it does show as a school with the option to take a painting class) at the end of their road so they have to pass it to go anywhere. The first child still goes across town to school. When the next 3 aged up (twin girls and a boy) they went to the new school. However only those 3 are there and they stand outside the school and keep cancelling going to school from their queue. It shows they are skipping school and after a couple days their grades are dropping. I keep telling them to go to school but it keeps cancelling out of their queue. So I decided to delete the new school from the neighborhood and make them all go to the original school. Now the oldest continues to go there and the other 3 don't go to school at all. As fast as I click "go to school" it drops from their queue. They are all down to a "D" for grade and I'm afraid the social worker will come get them. What can I do about this?

Also I get the message that the bus is coming in an hour, but I have yet to see a school bus in the game ever. Is there one? All my kids always ride bikes to school, no matter how far it is. I only get the message about the bus for the oldest boy who will actually go to school still.

I am using Awesomemod and Awesome Story Mode. I have other mods but I haven't added anything new since school working fine for one family and being screwed up for this family.

Any suggestions would be appreciated or any leads to a forum with the answer.

[coconnor]

I tried placing a second school in the past.  Placing the school worked, but I never noticed that the kids in the town were actually using both.  Rather, they all transferred to the new school and the same situation existed in having to manually force them in each morning.  I have found that when this occurs it is most likely time to start a new town.  I have managed to keep my main family by moving them (with their lot) into the library bin and then replacing them in the new town, thereby at least being able to play the same main family.

[R. L. Yatch]

I have experienced a similar issue with my "child sims" in that, if they are ever doing anything before school they willn't go to school when the time comes (in fact, in my game, the bus doesn't even come - I am playing in Riverview, mayhap this problem is unique to that map?). That is to say, that when one has a sim doing action x, y or z, and the carpool for work comes, the "go to work" action jumps to the top of the queue following the current activity, yet, when a child is performing action w, v or u, they simply continue as if nothing urgent were going on and happily miss school without a second's though. It's as if children in <i>The Sims 3</i> are to be waited on like some sort of child-like simulacra - requiring one's constant attention and vigilance. It <i>is</i> something of a nuisance, but I've learned to deal with it, since I've no other option, at present.

I have yet to encounter the previous posters' particular problems, but am curious as to whether or not they are using the "Riverview" map ("Free With Purchase: How Gracious of Wee") as I did not experience the issues with tardiness that I am currently encountering with the "Sunset Crevice" map, so I am somewhat intrigued (though not particularly so) as to the source of these childhood delinquency issues. Mayhap it is a problem with "The New .World"...

Alright, enough of me, presently.

[gtachampion]

I have yet to encounter the previous posters' particular problems, but am curious as to whether or not they are using the "Riverview" map ("Free With Purchase: How Gracious of Wee") as I did not experience the issues with tardiness that I am currently encountering with the "Sunset Crevice" map, so I am somewhat intrigued (though not particularly so) as to the source of these childhood delinquency issues. Mayhap it is a problem with "The New .World"...

Yes this did occur in Riverview. I have yet to play a family in Sunset Valley so I don't know about the school bus there. I have not seen a school bus in TS3 yet at all. I reset the lot I was playing on and now all the kids go to school but for the first week or so (sim time) I had to direct each one individually to go. Then suddenly they started going on their own but still riding their bikes. I get a message for each one that the bus is coming but alas...no bus. 

Also their relationship panels are a little borked since I reset the lot. Every member of the family had only a few individuals showing in relationships and every one of them showed  the last relationship as a big red square. I use AM with debug on and can raise and lower relationships but not on this red square. Don't have a clue what that's about.

I will eventually try a family in Sunset Valley just to see if a bus actually does show up but haven't gotten to it yet.

[coconnor]

I have not really played Riverview, so no.  I did not have a problem with the school bus coming, but rather that when the town gets larger, I think, there are too many children attending school and thus zerg swarms form in front of the school along with associated other problems.  Last time this happened, Sims would pass out on the ground and I saw an increase in deaths from hunger as well.  My solution has been to back up my legacy family to the library and start a new game.  Not ideal, but at least I can keep my main family.

[R. L. Yatch]

Yes this did occur in Riverview. I have yet to play a family in Sunset Valley so I don't know about the school bus there. I have not seen a school bus in TS3 yet at all.

I think this may be an issue with Riverview, then, as when I started playing The Sims 3, I played Sunset Valley and had no problems with the school bus or sim-kids skipping school; it's only after starting a new game in Riverview that I have experienced the tardy sim-children issues.

[ElviraGoth]

I played Sunset Valley for about a week.  I've been playing Riverview ever since.  I always have the school bus show up for the family I'm playing.  Kids in other houses ride their bikes.  And I don't have to switch lots to tell them to go to school.

The only time I have to worry about someone not getting to work or school is when some stupid sim decides to visit at 6 am and the sim that isn't leaving for work/school is chatting with the visitor.  They don't seem to want to quit talking and leave!

Maybe you need to try the fixall cheat.  I don't know if it will work for the bus problem, but it helped me with another problem I was having, so it's worth a try.

[gtachampion]

Thanks ElviraGoth...I hadn't heard of the fixall cheat. I used that resetlot cheat at someone's suggestion and all the kids in my family started going to school again but still no bus. They all rode their bikes and then when teenagers and I assigned them cars, they drove those. However that cheat seemed to bork the relationships panel. When I click on the relationship panel, it doesn't necessarily show me the relationships for the active sim. When I click on family, sometimes the active sim is there and I can tell by who's missing, who's relationship panel it is. If I click back and forth between all and family it eventually shows me the panel for the active sim. Also every sim in the family seems to have lost many of the relationships they had but the last square in every family members panel is a solid red square with no relationship and can't be adjusted positive or negative.

Also "move out" is borked. As each teen becomes a young adult, I wanted them to move out so eventually I'm left with the one child I decided to actually continue on with. If I select "Kick out", the sim disappears and never shows up again. When I tell them to move on the phone, I get the usual screen but it wants to give the sim moving out ALL of the family funds leaving nothing for the rest of the family and I can't accept it unless I make the sim moving out the active household.

coconnor - I thought about saving the family to the bin and putting them in a restart but the story that was playing out was too good and I doubt I could "force" some of the things that have occurred autonomously. I also figured they would lose relationships, skills, etc. So I am suffering through since this was the first time ever in Sims I was trying to play through several generations. It's frustrating at times but I' managing.