If memory serves (and these days it doesn’t always) I walked to and from grade school on my own from second grade on. Well, “on my own” wasn’t strictly true, because most of the way I was walking with friends who lived nearby. It was about three blocks, with a crossing guard at the one busy street next to the school. And I did this four times a day, because I went home for lunch.
I walked to/from school beginning with kindergarten. There were multiple streets to cross. One major street had a crossing guard. I am 51 years of age. Then again, when I was in first grade my dad would send me to the drug store to buy him cigarettes and they never questioned me.
I would go over the woman’s head.
My workplace uses school buses occasionally because our employee shuttle service doesn’t have enough nice buses. These definitely have seatbelts, so at least one line of school buses in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs uses them.
(It’s bad enough I have to squish my knees into the seat in front of me because the seats are packed so closely together, but I also have to try to clear a spot so I’m not sitting on an errant belt buckle the whole ride.)
Right, seatbelts are becoming more prevalent on school buses. BTW, here is an Cecil article from '98 about the lack of seatbelts on school buses.
FWIW, everything in this post is true for me as well, and I’m 25.
Sadly, I don’t see much chance of reversing this overprotection trend anytime soon. I have to wonder whether the people passing this shit were ever children. They want to complain about “kids these days” not doing anything but sitting inside and playing video games; well, that’s because these stupid motherfuckers took away everything else that was any fun to do! I’d insert a joke here about a ban on [fishing/climbing trees/hiking/etc] coming down the pike, but fuck knows I don’t want to give anyone any ideas.
If it were me, I’d raise holy hell, and in the meantime go with magellan01’s advice…assuming you have the time and energy to fight the ensuing cascade of bullshit.
Honestly, I get a bit frustrated with a lot of the overprotection outrage that always pops up in these types of threads. I don’t necessarily think the comparisons to what we did in our day are apropos.
Obviously, the OP should be able to decide if her child is ready to walk home. It is annoying that her first attempt at getting permission failed. But hopefully, she will be able to resolve this with the school. Good schools are often conservative about letting you deviate from the norm, but then again hopefully they are run by intelligent people capable of accepting logical, non-emotional arguments.
How enforceable is a school policy off the school grounds anyhow? What law or controlling authority mandates that the assistant principal can tell your kid when and where he can walk on a public street? What are they going to do if he dares to walk - call the cops?
Well the issue is getting the child off of school grounds first. It seems the policy is to gather the kids in the gym and have them wait for someone to pick them up. If this is the policy, then the kid won’t be able to leave the gym alone and get to public grounds.
Put the blame where it belongs- The fucked up legal system that allows “victims” to sue the shit out of anyone and everyone right into bankruptcy.
The school is just coverin’ it’s ASS.
I apparently walked about 0.2 miles in K-3 and then–well, I’m not sure because Google Maps can’t handle the little pedestrian alleyway that goes between the school and two other streets but it’s definitely less than the 0.6 miles they say if you were to go to the main road. I’m not sure how I survived those harrowing walks in the desert every day.
I wish it was the gym, CaveMike. It’s the aud, where everyone has to maneuver around 600 tiny metal chairs bolted to the floor. And yes, just like everyone else here, I walked to and from myself. This school goes up to fourth grade, and I know a kid on our street walks home by himself. Not sure what grade he’s in, but I know he’s a doofus. I think the thing to do is calm down a little then make an appointment with the principal to present him with rational reasons for my request, and ask for an explanation of the rules. Not very Pit-like, but it might work. If not, then I’ll make a stink. You know, if we could sign them out at their classrooms, I might not bother, it would take ten minutes out of my day, but this is ridiculous, and it’s time for me to do it again.
1-3rd grade I had to bus, as it was almost 4 miles, 5-8th it was 1.1 miles each way and I walked (or rode my bike) the entire thing, every day. The OP is right, the AP is wrong. Period.
That sucks, and I’d be peeved. At our local elementary school, the only kids that are required to have their parents there at dismissal are the kindergarteners. First grade and up can walk or bike home with no supervision. I don’t know if the parents have to sign a form or anything. Due to weird gerrymander-style districting, we actually live 7 miles away from the school, so Whatsit Jr. takes the bus. (Although he walks unsupervised to and from the bus stop, which is about 200 yards away and is not within sight of my house. I have not been considering this a big deal.)
From what I can see in this neighborhood and other surrounding neighborhoods, the trend is swinging back towards less overprotective parents, in general. Kids playing outdoors in summer from sunup to sundown? Check. Kids riding bikes in every direction? Check. Maybe it’s a geographical thing, though, or maybe our neighborhood just isn’t high-rent enough to experience this phenomenon. Regardless, I’m happy with things the way they are. With every other kid in the neighborhood out playing unsupervised, I don’t have to worry about someone calling the law on me if my 5-year-old is outside sidewalk chalking by herself.
This is still the case here, in Israel.
Most primary schools don’t have buses. Period. The one my kids went to did, for a few of the classes, because they were a catchment class for a specific need, city-wide.
Basically, at the end of the day, either you better damn well know which bus you’re getting on (if you were part of that program,) or you got shoved out the gate. Actually, you got shoved out the gate regardless, since the buses waited **outside **the gate, and **across **a busy city street (with 6th graders as cross guards,) anyway.
Or you told a friend who was on your bus that you would be getting home on your own today…
When I was a kid, I lived right opposite my primary school, but plenty of my friends walked from up to 2 km away, crossing a busy street (guarded by 6th graders who were trained to be cross guards. That much hasn’t changed here in 40 years.)
To the OP – this is ridiculous, and I agree with you that this policy is harmful to your child’s proper development. I say fight it, or even just sent a signed note to school saying that at the end of the day your child will be leaving, and that you will consider them as abducting him if they don’t let him go…! 
BTW, whoever originally came up with the idea of training 6th graders as cross guards was brilliant. Israeli drivers (think Boston with worse driving skills,) who would blow past an adult waving a stop sign at them if they were in a bit of a hurry or just felt like it, behave like **angels **around these kids.
That’s a damned good idea. Send Junior to school packing heat to protect himself. Surely even the school couldn’t find a way to complain about that, could they?
boston drivers have skills?
I always thought they got their drivers licensing out of a crackerjacks box:dubious:
I walked to & from school… granted, it was three blocks, but were that not the case, I’d’a still walked.
And if for some reason they won’t let the kid walk, they better damn well not hold him for Security Theater every day for half an hour.
Well, I walked uphill both ways in freezing rain wearing shoes made of razor blades through a crack-infested neighborhood and right past a halfway house for not-yet-reformed pedophiles.
And I’m just fine.
(Actually, the walking-through-the-ghetto to school part was true. Google maps reveals my walking route to school was 1.3 miles. This was for middle school, however, and therefore, barely relevant to this discussion.)
Why not? What has changed, other than the perception that pedophiles lurk behind every bush? If anything you would think more kids could walk home from school now. When I was walking the couple of blocks between school and home, I didn’t have a cell phone.
Well, I could see them calling Child Protective Services (or whatever does that in your neck of the woods).