So was the girl in SF walking home from school?
I know families who have to try and send their child farther away from home than they’d like, because they cannot take time off work to walk them to school.
They are more comfortable with them riding the school bus.
Yes, I have been wondering about the issue of walking to school. I have not seen any articles addressing the legalities of allowing a 7-year-old or several children of that age to walk a few blocks to school without a 13+ year-old person accompanying them. My sons rode the bus, as we were too far to walk, but I am sure many are technically violating this law by allowing their kids to walk to school.
I guess free range parents should move to South Dakota where you can get a drivers license at the age of 14.
Even walking to and from the bus stop alone would be illegal if the law didn’t only cover children inside a building or car.
I’m kind of surprised that these kids didn’t have a cell phone and couldn’t call home to let the parents know the police were picking them up. My kids would have been considered “free range” but they had a kiddie cell phone that had three or four numbers pre programed and 911, that they took with them. It was rarely used, usually just to ask if they could stay out longer. I think giving a kid that travels without parents a cell phone is a reasonable precaution.
Elementary students in Seattle walk at least one mile to school or to a bus stop. I thought that distance was standard for a city.
Generally the rules requiring children to be supervised, don’t apply when walking to or from school.
Kind of like how religious rules may not apply in emergencies.
You pick and choose.
To quote Pirates of the Caribbean, " the code, is really more like a guideline".
The ‘rule’ about walking 1 mile to school for elementary school or 2 miles to high school is not really a rule or law in most places, it is what the federal government will supplement to school districts for bus transportation. There are exceptions for dangerous areas, no side walks, etc., but if the student lives outside the 1 or 2 mile rules, the district can get $$ for providing bus service.
Where my kid went to school, there were crossing guards at every intersection, all 1 mile apart, for the grade schools and middle school, and still most parents walked or drove their non-bus students (so all under one mile) to school. A student in a neighboring school district was kidnapped and killed a few years ago as she was walking home with her sibling and the neighborhood kids, so no one let their kids just free range. In that totally ‘Stepford Wives’ planned community, with playgrounds at all the schools and the rec center, I would have called the police if I saw two unaccompanied children because it is so rare to see. Very suburban, no homeless or street people, but experience showed that young children aren’t safe when unsupervised.
Really? One child is tragically kidnapped, so that means no kids are safe and you’d call the cops on kids alone?
Well, a few years ago several women in my city were tragically nurdered by a serial killer. I guess the shows I’m not safe alone. Someone better alert the authorities.
Who pays for the crossing guards?
The police dept used to cover it years and years ago, because I remember my grandfather doing it after he retired.
We don’t have crossing guards at the local school anymore since the economy has picked up.
When I was in school, crossing guards were 6th graders.
Because our district does not have enough space for students, they keep redrawing the boundaries.
We live four blocks from an elementary school, and they changed the zone so that kids on our street will attend a school over a mile away so they take the bus, and need much more time on either end of the school day, to wend their way through the neighborhood.
My dad was a crossing guard for a few years. Paid by the district.
The school district pays for the crossing guards, and they are all dressed identically with several different options - rain coats, khaki shorts, long pants, hats. I don’t know if they are reimbursed by the federal government or not. There are also Public Service Officers who have police cars (that say PSA on them), at least 2 at every school. Three or four crossing guards at every intersection along the main road where there were 3 schools (5? intersections). At the high schools, just the PSA cars (maybe 5 of them?) Yes, quite an expensive operation for safety.
How many kidnapped kids would justify parents deciding free ranging wasn’t a good idea? One was enough for us. I’d call the cops if I saw kids just walking around because it is so unusual. Kids going to school travel at the same time, almost always accompanied by a parent also riding a bike or pushing a stroller. Sure, one or two parents might have had a group of 20 they were escorting, but you just didn’t see a solo kid walking 40 minutes after school closed. On a Sunday night? Never. The schools locked their playgrounds when school wasn’t open. Most of the neighborhoods had small common area parks and playgrounds.
Our crossing guards are paid for by the district as well, but because the economy has picked up, they can’t find workers. It’s very odd scheduling, standing in all kinds of weather and it is frankly dangerous compared to what they are paid.
http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Lack-of-crossing-guards-has-Seattle-students-dodging-traffic-168992116.html?mobile=y
Sometimes retired folk do it, but the ones I know are always on cruises or visiting their grandchildren in California.
In my old district, we had a retired NBA player and hall of famed as a crossing guard. He did it for the health insurance he got as a benefit even though he only worked 1 hour a day! He was in my neighborhood. I have to say that the crossing guards, mostly women, had to be very resolute to stand in front of three lanes of crazy rush hour traffic.