Wow, the school district makes even the kindergartners adhere to the 2-mile walk area? That’s kind of harsh.
Where I live, kindergartners can take the bus if they’d have to walk further than one-half mile. It’s 1.5 miles for first through 5th, and 2.5 miles for middle school.
Unfortunately for my middle-schooler, when they say 2.5 miles, they apparently mean as the crow flies. We used to live two blocks from the school, now we live in an area that is still the “walk area” (i.e., no bus service). Like most middle-schoolers my kid cannot fly, and the shortest way he can walk to school is 2.64 miles, as measured by me in my car and by Mapquest.
Actually, the shortest route would be via highway–he can’t walk that, because in the great and expensive overhaul of this highway in the last few years, the PTB did not see fit to add a foot/bicycle path along with the light rail and the extra lanes. So that one’s out.
The walk problem is, he has to get across that same highway some way. Not every street crosses it. The streets that do cross it tend to be major streets, with access ramps, a stretch with no sidewalk whatsoever, the sidewalk right next to a six-, eight-, or ten-lane artery where it does exist, and other hazardous walking conditions. The safe way across it will take him almost a mile out of his way–which is no big deal in a car, but a slightly bigger deal walking or on a bicycle. So any way you look at it, if he walks or bikes, he will have to walk (or bike) further than 2.5 miles.
This has me really pissed off, actually, because when I considered this house I called the school district to find out if he’d be assigned to the same school and they said, “You betcha! But he’s right at the edge of the area.” So…if he’s at the very edge of the area…and he’s in the walk area…and they don’t provide bus service for kids who do school of choice…then where the hell are they bringing all those kids on buses from, anyway?
(I should add that bus service is something I would actually pay for. But the school board decided it would be some kind of bad precedent to allow that choice.)