Coming home this afternoon I got stuck behind a schoolbus. That in and of itself wasn’t so bad, but it stoped at every fucking house! This was in a rather dense housing area :mad: . These looked like elementary kids and at every stop there was a parent waiting outside. Wouldn’t it make more sense (not to mention be quicker) to stop one place in the neighborhood or at least limit stops to every 4th or 5th house? No wonder American children are turing into fat veal.
And don’t even get me start on their speling! It’s terible!!
Q: Did the wheels on the bus go round and round?
All through the town…? 
I can only speak for my area (NYC), but children must wait at a street corner for their school bus…unless they are in Special Education. These students are entitled to front door pick-up and drop-off. Perhaps that’s the case for the children you saw being picked up today?
It seems a little odd that every household in a given neighborhood would have special ed children.
Someone should test the water.
The driver of the bus goes start stop start, stop start stop, start stop start, the driver…
Were there posted signs that said “SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY”?
When it became apparent that this was not going to work to your advantage, did you turn down a side street, go parallel for a couple of blocks, and emerge on your chosen road?
We have this same phenomenom here. Little Johnny is so SPECIAL that he cannot walk 200 feet. I inquired one time and the district school board basically said, we get so many requests for special consideration that our policy simply became if the parent asks for it, give it. If you get behind on a bus on some roads, your in for a long haul.
If that were the case wouldn’t it be the short yellow bus? 
Damn, beat me to it…
There where no side streets. When I was in K-12 the bus never stopped at my house. It was always a neighbors or the parking lot of the local gas station. Oh and my mother never stood outside waiting for me or drove me to the bus stop. This was in the 90s to the early 2000s.
WhenIwasAgirl…
…there were no elementary school buses. We just had schools every 10 blocks or so. If the area had a population density where a bus stopping at every kids’ house would bugger up traffic, there would have been a school 3 blocks away, tops. Either you have really large central schools or really lameo kids in this town
whenIwasAgirlweWALKEDtoSchoolDammitandhadTowalkBehindTheFuneralhomeTogetthereAndthey
usedTothrowAwayBrokenheadstonesBackthere grumblegrumble
A co-worker today was commenting that, in her neighborhood, many parents drive their pwecious snookums to the bus stop. Often it’s less than a block away.
And the parents wait until the bus arrives.
And then they follow?! the bus in their car.
ALL THE WAY TO THE SCHOOL.
I mean, I understand that school just started and it’s a big, new, scary experience. Separation anxiety is tough. But you’d think the parents are old enough to handle it. Especially since not all of the “offending” parents have first-graders. My co-worker said she recognizes the same people from last year. And a few of them do this all year long.
If they can’t even let the kidlets out of their sight until they’re in the school… why don’t they just drive them to school themselves? Strange concept, I know. :rolleyes:
::deep sigh::
Yup, SPED (we got acronyms for everything) kids get door to door, but it’s pretty rare for that many to be on one block.
I actually have a written policy on my district’s website that spells out just why you are not going to be able to get curb to curb stops, stops you can necesarily see from your home, or stops every 1000 feet. It’s because buses stopping disrupt traffic and yes ma’am, your kids CAN walk up to 1/4 to 1/2 mile to a bus stop.
Damn.
The only significant exception to this policy is in areas where we have new subdivisions/home construction and there aren’t sidewalks, but there are lots of construction vehicles and such. We don’t make kids walk through those areas, and get them door to door.
School started last week, and right now I have a file of at least 35 requests for stops to be changed to:
-
“where I can see it from my front window because I can’t walk little Cade to the stop”
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“my driveway so the neighborhood kids can stay dry in my garage when it rains”
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“someone else’s corner so they don’t trash my lawn”
I say again: Damn.
My district’s policy says kids can walk up to .5 mile to their bus stop. 90% of them walk less than half that, and it’s not good enough for half the parents. The kids? They’re cool, let me out the door mom, I’m off to the bus. The parents?
Don’t start me.
The bus stops in my neighborhood are set up so no child has to cross a street. Even if the kid is in high school, it’s much too dangerous for them to cross a street.
Now, I live in a development with a cul de sac just about every other house or so. So the bus stops and starts and stops and starts and stops and starts. Plus, the cul de sacs have maybe 5 houses in them. There’s just not a lot of traffic coming out of them–very little chance a kid will ever have to stop for a car let alone run in front of one and get hit.
I don’t mind it so much for the little ones. I do think that high school kids should know how to look both ways and cross a street that gets only a handful of going down it every day.
There are no side streets I can use to avoid the bus route unless I want to go 10 miles out of my way–sometimes it’s worth it.
My mom used to drive my youngest brother to the bus stop (about 2 blocks away) until he finally asked her to stop (he reached the age when, apparently, it was embarassing to even have parents let alone those who would drive you to the bus stop). I think it was because she had returned to work and was feeling guilty about the time she didn’t get to spend with him.
There was just an article in our local paper about this very issue. A first grader and her older sister, a third grader, have to walk 1/4 of a mile to the bus stop…on a very busy, 4-lane divided highway with no sidewalks and a 55 mph speed limit.
The City’s response was that if the mom would have chosen to send her kids to the public school that services her neighborhood, she would have bus service right in her neighborhood. Since she has chosen to send her kids to a magnet school, then they have to deal with whatever bus stops are available.
I would be scared to death to allow my small children to walk on the edge of the highway. What will mom do when winter snows make the berm a sloppy, dangerous mess?
That’s a little rough IMHO. I wonder how much of that is a result of general animosity towards magent schools, charter schools etc… Especially with soem districts starting the whole voucher thing.
But, Wae, that would deprive their precioussses of the wonderful and heavily socialising experience that is the School Bus!
(The Bro and SiL just moved The Nephew into his own room last weekend and are terribly surprised that they haven’t heard a peep from him… my side of the family has the theory that the poor kid was just dying for some Me Time)