I could certainly see this happening, but I cannot imagine that CPS would give a call like that the time of day; they have far, far more pressing and voluminous matters to take care of and would likely not waste their personnel’s time responding to a call like that given the circumstances.
If it were me, I’d just instruct the kid to quietly leave school amongst a throng of other parents and walkers and just walk home every day. Who would notice? And even if they did, really, what is the school going to do? Kick him out? I mean seriously.
When I was in first grade, six years old, I actually had to change buses to get to school. Not city buses, either–all the buses would congregate in a bus yard for ten minutes or so while a bazillion children, ages six to eleven or so, would frantically dash to make their bus connections. Somehow we all managed to make it to school and home again despite the Bus Yard, and I don’t recall anyone ever getting hit by a bus, either.
I would bet you ten dollars they can’t do that anymore because someone got on the wrong bus and some parent somewhere flipped shit.
And even if they aren’t, as one of MY busdrivers told me, when I asked her the very same question: “I have enough trouble getting you guys to behave – do you think I could manage to get you to put on seat belts TOO?”
As for the OP, I don’t know what to tell you. Are there some other kids who live near, perhaps they could walk in group, if you could talk to their mothers.
When I made that statement I was thinking about my own 0.9 mile walk in First grade. In the last 32 years, the area has grown quite a bit: the busy roads are wider, and there is a lot more traffic. I think these are significant enough changes to consider when comparing my walk to my kids’ walks. I chose ‘necessarily’ because I know many people’s areas have not changed that much.
I also think this tends to be an emotional issue, so I am not automatically convinced by people’s childhood anecdotes (even my own).
There are other arguments that could be made, including the overblown pedophile argument, but I don’t agree with these as I am not a particularly protective parent.
If you grew up in the late 70s or later, violent crime is probably lower now than it was when you were a kid (of course, YMMV depending on where you live now and where you lived then). Kids being kidnapped or molested by strangers is very rare now and was very rare then- it was and is much more likely that your kid will be kidnapped or molested by somebody he or she knows.
I agree with DianaG. Teaching him to break rules is not my style. Teaching him responsibility is. When I picked him up today, I told him I would make an appointment with the principal to find out why the rules are the way they are.
I also wanted to clarify what I mean by “very nice neighborhood”. It’s not rich, just solid middle class, lots of working families. But it is very nice. People are neighborly, keep up thier properties, shovel for one another, and generally feel safe. I think President McKinley was the last person shot around here.
If may rant a little more (this is the Pit, after all), this chaps my ass because I’ve got another child to get to/from another school. There wasn’t room for her at the school around the corner, so she goes to another more than a mile away. That means she takes the bus. I take her to the bus stop at the corner at 7:30, turn around and hang out at home for about 15 minutes before I take her brother to school. (To answer ahead of time why we don’t just go right to school, we’d be standing outside far too long. Last year her bus came at 7:45, so it didn’t make sense to go home. We had to stand outside til 8, even in a blizzard or driving rain, “for insurance reasons”.) Then at the end of the day I go through the Security Carnival, walk him home, then turn around 15 minutes later and go to meet her bus. (Yes, I let him play video games for 10 minutes with nobody watching him. ZOMG!!eleven!1! Call the police!) It’s only inconvenient now, but in the winter, my ass may actually get chapped from all the outside time.
Are you guys just eyeballing this and comparing it to the scale at the bottom of the screen, or this there a way to actually draw a line on the screen and have Google calculate the distance?
An interesting article that Roger Ebert wrote says that the one thing that has changed immensely is how crimes are reported. His article claimed that the stats for crimes against children have not changed significantly He said the biggest difference in his experience, is that when he was a kid the word “rape” was not used in the newspapers, but today, the victim’s name and photo may well be plastered all over the front page internationally. The world is about the same, but now the picture painted is a more frightening version.
That was easy to find, thanks. Just never noticed it before. The other day I was trying to figure out the shortest way to get somewhere. I actually had a ruler pressed to the screen and I was plugging it into the calculator as I turned each corner. Then of course I had to unit convert from inch fractions to the arbitrary scale on the Google map. I actually wanted to use it to measure hiking trails, though. So I can use the mouse to trace the trail, I assume? I’ll play with it and see what I come up with.
My neighbors slam (inject) crystal meth and they have two minor children in the house. CPS told me that there was nothing they could do, or were even willing to attempt to do. At least they were honest with me on that latter point, which astonished me. In fact, at first they were hesitant to even take my report.
Wait, you live near here in Buffalo? I think there have been a few more shootings in Buffalo since 1901.
FWIW I am now somehow part of the local PTA board at an elementary school in a Buffalo suburb (I’ll take “Things you never imagined doing ten years ago for $500”, Alex), and our 2nd-to-5th graders who live in the adjoining neighborhood walk home from school just fine.
Er…you’re not in Clarence or Amherst by any chance, are you? That sounds like those districts would pull.
'83 baby here. When I was seven, I was allowed to walk to the nearest grocery store by myself, about four blocks away, which also involved crossing a fairly busy street. I never walked to school (about 3.5 miles away if you took the route involving a diagonal street), but on days when my mother, father, or grandfather couldn’t pick my brother and me up, we’d take the bus home, starting when I was probably not much older (my brother is about three years younger). We lived in a neighborhood that sounds a lot like yours–very solidly middle class. The school, however, was in a not-so-nice neighborhood; think, “eventually condemned house across the street, bloodstains on the sidewalk more than once.”
My city even offers a “By public transit” option, which is so insanely miles better than the previous method involving maps and timetables, both of which had a very coarse degree of granularity.
I’m one of the younger snowflakes here, so I’d like to offer my more recent experience with being an elementary schoolkid, but I dont think anybody at my school wasn’t driven by their parents or siblings. It was a private school, with elementary, middle, and senior high all in the same building. No busses.
I walked home from my public high school all the time, and saw many middle schoolers doing the same. Elementary, I’m not sure.
Like others, I think if you try another conversation with staff, perhaps principal or superintendant, perhaps getting the testimony of the crossing guard (both that they can see your kid most of the time, and that you can see the kid the rest of the time), you should have better luck. Offering upfront to sign anything should help, of course.