Crunch all you want, we’ll make more!
Smiled politely and then did whatever I wanted anyway.
As for your situation, it’s a little trickier. When the administration is doing it I don’t know what your options are. What if you offered to walk over to the school and see him home the first couple weeks to make sure it all goes according to plan? To play devil’s advocate, perhaps there’s a concern about the crossing guard’s ability to watch one child all the way down the block at the busiest time of day.
But then that brings to mind another question-- what’s the point of a crossing guard at this place if they’re not guarding the children’s crossings?
I got in trouble in kindergarten for walking home. We were supposed to be picked up by someone’s mother. After she hadn’t shown up (my mother tells me she was about half and hour late), I got up and said “I’m walking” and walked.
Now here is the kicker…I didn’t need to cross a street - the school was in my backyard. (The playground was probably 100 yds from the property line - maybe).
After that my mother had it out with the principal and said I was a walker and I walked for the rest of the year. This was - 1973 or thereabouts - so helicopter parenting and stupid “rules” are nothing new. (I believe her logic was 'if parents are going to be on time to pick up, that isn’t a problem. However, I was worried sick when she wasn’t home and no one called).
I did it again in fourth grade - this time it was a mile and a half and I was a bus child. But there was a shortcut that made it only about a mile. The bus was late. We sat around for 40 minutes. I left and walked home (we had big plans I was worried about missing - a movie or something that is REALLY IMPORTANT when you are ten). I beat the bus home. And got in trouble again.
Well, you should be able to have your kid walk home. In the meantime, just show up at the school grab your kid and walk out. Fuck the lines, the hive, everything. Let them try to stop you from leaving with your own kid.
Yabbut that little girl who was kidnapped was within her stepdad’s sight when she was abducted and kept as a captive “wife” and omg!!! head explodes
Sorry, I’m better now.
These days it is 1.5 miles. Both of my kids went the whole 12 years in Fairfax county schools and never set foot on a bus. They walked 1.45 miles each way to and from high school. Of course, they didn’t walk that when they were 1st graders.
To the OP, I would say 1st grade is a little early to walk, IMO but the choice should be up to the parent. We live right behind the school and I see very young kids walking to school every day, maybe not first graders but they could be. I would probably have gone for second or third grade, if our kids hadn’t been in afterschool care. Maybe the assistant principal doesn’t understand that you would be waiting at home for your child?
When I was in elementary school in the late 1980’s all the kids would be just be let out when the last bell rang. Hundreds of kids just milling around, most trying to make their way to the buses lined up out front. (And you damn well better know what number you were supposed to get on.) The walkers would start out in all different directions, and no one really seemed to care as long as there were no fights. There was always a small crowd of kids congregating around the front of the school, up to a half hour after the day was officially over. Some were waiting for rides or socializing or doing homework or who knows what else.
This idea of gathering kids in auditoriums, lines and permission slips just to leave seems positively alien to me.
I won’t let my kid walk to school when he gets to be 6-7, but I’m unapologetically over-protective.
I DO believe that a parent knows their child better than the school system, and if you think that your child is ready to start walking the short distance to school then that should be the final word.
shiftless, I’d think it was too early if the distance was bigger. But less than 200 yards?
Completely unrelated anecdote:
my eldest paternal uncle was born in 1936, the same year that the Spanish Civil War began. His pa was at home on leave for a week or so when the kid was 3 years old. Pa leaves, and the kid asks where’s Daddy. “Daddy’s at the war, honey.” “Oh.”
The kid thought hard for a bit and then said “can I go see him there?”
“No you can’t! It’s very far, the war!”
“But I’ll go without leaving the sidewalk!”
70 years later, when anybody in my family tries to jaywalk, we say “but I’ll go without leaving the sidewalk!”
Reminds me of when my 2 youngest were VERY young - I’d guess about 3 and 4. I rode the train from a station maybe 3/4 of a mile from our house. The first 1/3 of a mile from my house to the train was a straight shot along one street before you reached a corner. But the sidewalk was not complete - there was one lot about 1/2 of that way that did not have a sidewalk. So the kids would always be free to bike and whatever up to where the sidewalk ends. The final stretch of the walk required crossing an intersection of 2 pretty busy streets, controlled by stoplights.
One day my kids asked my wife if they could walk to meet me on my way home from the train. My wife said, “Okay, just don’t go any further than the corner.” I’m not sure whether she meant where the sidewalk ended or up to the next corner. But I was certainly surprised when I got off my train, came up to the busy intersection with the stoplights, and saw my 2 little kids on the far corner holding hands and waiting for me! 
To get there they had to turn at least 2 corners, cross at least 2 streets, and walk at least 1 block along a pretty busy street.
When I was WALKING to kindergarden, a bus hit a kid crossing the street [he lost an arm] and there was no major outcry, no descent of therapists on the school population, nothing. I understand they even found the driver not at fault because the kid was running to cross the street and ran in front of the bus from between cars.
What is it nowdays with every tinly little thing needing a whole school population therapy deal? We had kids die, teachers die, famous people die and nothing … nowdays if a kid gets a skinned knee they are traumatized and need a therapist :rolleyes:
No kidding. I still remember my mom shoving me out the door telling me to be home by dinner and that if I stayed and complained there was nothing to do, she’d give me something to do.
To the OP - that’s absolutely ridiculous. I’m assuming they must let some kids walk to school. Why on earth would they employe a crossing guard otherwise? I hope you get the school to reconsider. Like you said: you’re the mom, you know your kid and you’ve offered to take the burden of responsibility off their hands. What more could they ask for?
One of my older friends once told me, “It’s amazing how protective people are of their kids today. When I was raising children, we raised them to go play by themselves. When some people raise them now, they seem to raise them to be incapable of doing anything for themselves.”
I walked as well not only first grade but kindergarden as well, granted the school was only 100 yards away.
I would ask the school at what age do they consider the kids old enough to walk home. Find out the policy, and ask for it in writing.
If is is just First Graders - it might not be worth the battle. If it goes through 5th/6th I would request a meeting with the Principal and the Superintendent or a School Board member. I would even consider going to a School Board meeting for their open mike time and make a statement that the school district is not teaching the children personal responsibility.
Good luck.
Both of my kids ride the bus. It is 2.5 miles to the elementary school, and requires crossing a good sized intersection with morning commuters and college students - a bit too risky for my tastes I admit. My older son is in Junior High and it is just under 4 miles, and he rides the bus as well. Except when he misses it, and walks a girl home, and walks home instead.
I was five when I started the first grade. My parents bought me a bike so I could get myself to school(about 1 1/2 miles). Like some of the others, I was expected to occupy myself outside as applicable, only coming in for lunch.
What horrible parents you all are! Don’t you know how many satanist pedophile childmolester atheists there are lurking around the streets near elementary schools? The second they see a kid without a parent holding their hand, they snatch them and stuff them in the back of a white panel van. Someone brazen enough to abduct a child in the middle of a neighborhood in broad daylight would surely be foiled by a frail, 90 pound vegan mother wearing Crocs. I hope you all go to parent jail.
Do school buses have seatbelts now? If not, then don’t you think that’s the supreme irony, falling all over yourself about school bus safety, yet I’ve never heard of a school bus with seatbelts. However, it has been a really long time since I was last on a school bus.
They don’t have seatbelts, but supposedly the seats are constructed to prevent kids from flying all over the placeif they’re in an accident.
Almost makes me want to have kids, just to piss off the upper class. 
As for me, I was walking home, with a crossing guard, pretty early too. I don’t remember when. However. I do remember getting lost once, and still it wasn’t a big deal - I just took a left instead of a right, and even then my mom bitched me out and just asked the crossing guard to remind me to go right.
And I was a daydreamer kid.
Couldn’t you placate the school by getting junior a concealed carry permit?