cooker

Are you saying walking school buses will give pedophiles an opportunity?

Dave Cutter

When you send your kids to school.... even a crappy government run school. Every person they come in contact with, the administrators, teachers, aids, janitors, lunch ladies... everyone is background checked. Still pedophiles slip through the system. Who checks the walking bus adults? You tell me... is THAT an opportunity?

I am not against parents sending kids off to school... or walking with them.

But the last thing our children need is some "program" that endangers them in the name of environmental concerns... or bicycle friendly ideology. My God people. They're children not dogs that need "a walker".

cooker

Wouldn't they be more at risk walking on their own?

Dave Cutter

I don't know... you tell me. Kids without parents have a tough time of it... I know. So... I don't know exactly what you/I should do to help those kids left behind by absentee bio-parents.... if that is what you mean.

I know my wife and I grandparent a couple of drug babies that started out life with some bad luck. Overdosed Dad... imprisoned Mom. We do what we can. It isn't always easy. I don't mind the time and expense as much... as the heartbreak that sometimes accompanies such situations.

I sure hope you don't mean... normal parents with jobs that the parents believe are more important than they're little rug-rats. Or maybe a greater interest in free time... or long term environmental concerns (or short term fashion)... than the health and safety of their own off spring. THAT... would really be sad... for the kids.

Seattle Forrest

Well, we've been given a taste of the paranoia that's in the heads of all the helicopter parents now.

Dave Cutter

Paranoia is a mental health disorder.... is that your medical specialty?

Helicopter parents? I was never accused of that... and neither was my wife(s).

I think name calling is generally a little uncalled for. But if it somehow soothes your feelings of guilt.... let me assure you... I doubt that your guilty of anything. Parents bring to parenting whatever limited skills they have. We all just do the best we can. We only truly fail.... when we make raising our children the responsibility of others.

jon c. 

Among folks I know, many had levels of freedom in youth that would result in legal sanctions against parents today. And they're all very glad of that. But they follow modern trends when it comes to "protecting children." Some freely admit that there is no logical basis for this social change, but they remain committed to it nonetheless. They basically tell me they know if doesn't make sense, but their fear trumps their common sense.

I'm very glad I grew up in an era where I had few limits. And having no children I don't personally have to worry about the impact of these societal changes. I do fear it isn't really good for children to never function without adult supervision, but time will tell and one way or the other it won't really matter to me.

Dave Cutter

And none of this has a thing to do with cycling of LCF.

Society will always have really great parents... and piss-poor absentee parents... and everything between. It doesn't matter when you grew up... or where... how wealthy or poor your were. Or if you walked, rode bikes, or owned cars.

cooker

I was trying to understand your comments about walking school buses. It sounds like you agree that kids nowadays are suffering due to being driven everywhere - eg. less exercise, less chance to develop independence. So getting them walking or cycling to school would in some ways be good for them. It would also be a potential step towards LCL or LCF, or at least the removal of a barrier - one less reason to have a car or more than one car in the household.

So parents who decide not to drive their kids could do one of three things - let the kids go on their own, walk or cycle with their kids, or have the kids go with other people. Are you saying the last choice is the worst one, and a sign of bad parenting?

FBinNY 

loky1179

My question as well - until I moved to the 'burbs and had a kid.

When I was a kid, I walked a 1/4 mile to school, starting when I was 6 years old - all by myself.

Now I'm 52, and my kid has been taking the bus to school for the last four years - all of one mile. EASILY in walking distance - BUT - there is a major suburban thoroughfare, 1/8th of a mile from my son's school. I know this intersection well - I cross it every day on my 22 mile bicycle commute from downtown Minneapolis. And it is the MOST dangerous intersection in my entire 22 mile commute.

A small residential street crosses a 5+ lane major thoroughfare. There is a stoplight / signal at the intersection - but the thoroughfare has priority over the residential street -meaning the signal length for the residential is MUCH shorter than the signal length for the thoroughfare. The drivers know this as well, so when they approach that intesection from the residential streets, they are in a BIG hurry, so as not to be stuck at the intersection for multiple minutes.

I don't work Fridays, so I try to bike to school with my son as many days as possible. But this intersection is dangerous for adults, let alone school kids. We walk our bikes across the intersection, and my head is on a swivel. It is one thing to tell your kid to look both ways before crossing the street. It is another to explain that, even though you have the right of way, you'll have to watch out for left hooks, right hooks, and red light runners.

Kids who live 1/4 mile from school, but would need to cross this road, are bused to school. Such is the (SAD) story in most of suburbia.

loky1179

And, just a comment on my previous post, and to emphasize that this fits squarely in the "LCF" realm, the fact that my son's SCHOOL believes it is too dangerous for kids to walk 1/4 mile to school because of our suburban infrastructure, means that we've built a world that is hostile to walking and biking, and EXPECTS that you are driving a car.

A very sick prioritization, IMO.

Rowan

I should point out amid the disruptive rhetoric, that one of the reasons for the introduction of the walking bus concept was to reduce the congestion and hence dangers of vehicles dropping kids off within the school zone.

Machka has numerous tales of the drivers of the buses on which she commutes having extraordinary difficulties negotiating the "drop-off zone" around another nearby schooll that doesn't participate in the walking bus concept. These parents have absolutely no clue as to the disruption they cause, blocking marked bus stops and creating impossibly tight pinch-point for manoeuvring the bus.

Significantly, this is an independent school where parents pay fees for an "exclusive" education. They obviously think that also buys them the right to disrupt everything around them as they usher their kids to and from school.

The other school that runs the walking bus program is a state one. It doesn't mean that parents don't drop off their kids in cars -- as they do with a similar primary school right opposite our house. But at least there is an effort to offer an alternative.

I think there also has been a movement in some areas to limit access around schools, so kids are dropped off further away. But the essence is still to reduce the congestion around schools; the physical activity that results is a side benefit (and selling tool) to the overall strategy. School buses also do operate here, which helps decrease the traffic load.

Another observation that linkes the Rural LCF thread... in the small town where we used to live, there were three or four schools, and again we lived opposite on of them. The volume of cars dropping off kids was less than in the urban area where we now live. The majority of kids walked or biked to and from school. Those being dropped off were likely from outying properties, although again, there were school buses that went in each of the four directions each day from the schools.

FBinNY 

See my earlier post where I told the story of someone accused of being an unfit parent because he accompanied his daughter to school by bike rather than buy a car to drive her. I don't know the outcome, the last I heard he was about to give in.

Meanwhile some school jurisdictions are prohibiting children in the lower grades from walking or biking to school (I assume that means unescorted, but I don't know)

Dave Cutter

No. Parents aren't limited to.... (or in some cases afforded) 3 options. Different situations afford parents different solutions. Don't forget... parents could always lobby for state run school barracks. That way kids could be housed right at the school.... right? Certainly... SOME parents would see that as a viable option as a way to raise kids.

Good (sane, sober, and financially stable) family's who live in safe neighborhoods, with good schools would be ideal.

But most of the world doesn't live in an ideal situation. Some who could... no longer see ideal as even possible. And that is sad.

I don't feel myself (or anyone else) as qualified to decide or suggest options for their children that are less than optimal. ALL children everywhere should be loved, nurtured, protected, cared for, and educated. I am NOT willing to surrender to discussions of good enough... when it come to children.

Rowan

I don't know Cutter, maybe you should take the advice we give to others and leave your personal agendas at the door.

Machka 

OK Dave, we get that you're adamantly opposed to the well-established walking school bus program. Thank you for your concerns. Duly noted. Now please stop disrupting a thread about a LCF option/tool for families in various parts of the world.

Machka 

Do any of you have walking bus programs in your area? The second link I posted in my OP was a US link so I know that these not only exist here in Tasmania (and have done since 2004), but they also exist in the US.

Dave Cutter

You mean... I shouldn't reply to posts that other people address to me? I think I am every bit as much a member of this forum as anyone else. I am sorry if you... or you wife don't like my opinions. But they are on topic... and valid.

Rowan

You've stated you and your wife are grandparenting kids from drug-affected parents. Then you want to discuss "namecalling" and posters' guilt, and a host of other unrelated stuff to walking buses. You stated your personal agenda about the woes of some people's parenting ability. We get that, but it is SOME people, not all. Your opinions are valid, but not really germane to this discussion.

Dave Cutter

Community educational programs are not germane to LCF. Crappy government, ineffective law enforcement, unsafe neighborhoods, have everything to do with walking buses.... and NOTHING to do with LCF.

This would've been a great P&R topic.

cooker

I live right between a private school and public school - the parents are equally annoying.

cooker

I really don't get what you are saying. You seemed to object to walking school buses. What do you see as a better option?

cooker

I've heard them discussed in my community but my kids are all adults now and I don't know if they have caught on. I haven't noticed caravans of students walking in military columns to the schools near me, even though some days I start a bit late and am biking out as the kids are arriving. The traffic congestion seems as bad as ever, though.

On thing I have noticed in the last 4-5 years is that they have a pre-school running activity some mornings, although I haven't noticed it this fall, now that I think about, so maybe somebody got it going but it has faded out.

Rowan

It's not a community educational program -- it's an option for transport of kids to and from school.

You might live in the middle of crap and feel obliged to tell everyone about it, but there are many of us much more fortunate.