(no subject)

[randomness]

Do they let second graders walk over a mile alone to and from school nowadays?

I just Googled my walk to school in first and second grade. 1.1 miles through suburban subdivisions. (I don't remember walking to or from kindergarten.)

Comments

[contrariety.livejournal.com]

So it's not exactly recent at this point, but I'd be surprised if they've changed it; in my town if you were beyond some limit (might have been one mile, might have been two) you got picked up by the bus, but within the limit you were on your own. I don't think this was necessarily because they felt it was appropriate for kids to walk one or two miles alone; it may have been that they assumed that within a mile or two parents could easily drive kids in before work, but at more than one or two miles it became to difficult to do so.

It so happened I lived a block from my elementary, though, so I never got to test how my mom would have dealt with this. By junior high she was definitely happy to send me off on my bike, however. :)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was mostly asking about what policy is today. For the purposes of the question, your experience and mine are both from another generation... :)

[donnad.livejournal.com]

Nope, they don't let sixth graders walk across the street to school without a parental escort around here.

One of my coworkers has a 12 year old that isn't allowed off the school bus if a parent isn't waiting at the bus stop. I'm told this is the norm for all children.

A lot of parents drive their kids to school instead of letting them take the bus and some school make the parents actually come into the school when they drop the kids off or pick them up.

I lived too far to walk. In my town growing up, the elementary school was about 3 miles away on roads with no sidewalks and the high school about six miles. If you lived less than 1.5 miles you had to walk. When I was in HS, I would ride downtown with my father as he was on his way to work and walk the last 3 miles to school.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I'm told this is the norm for all children.

Is there a cut-off at 16, at least, so they can drive? :)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Brilliant town planning at work, I see. :)

[tamidon.livejournal.com]

it all depends on sidewalks,town budgets,local weather, and attitudes towards kids. The usual is 1 mile requires a bus

[spinrabbit.livejournal.com]

I believe the policy at Small's school is that 3rd graders and up can walk home from school on their own if they have parental permission. Kids who are being picked up wait outside the school with their teachers until the teacher sees the whites of the designated adult's eyes.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Until the end of 8th grade my preferred walking route to school included cutting through a series of back yards, which shortened my walk by nearly half, from seven-tenths of a mile to about four-tenths. It was a fairly popular route for kids from my neighborhood. No one seemed to mind.

Insofar as that neighborhood was almost entirely devoid of sidewalks, it was probably also much safer than the road.

Note:

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

(Different neighborhood from the one referenced in the original post; we moved at the end of second grade.)

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

in somerville they do, they have done a large-scale thing with crossing guards and all to encourage kids to walk to school. it's part of a citywide fitness program for children.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I've seen that! I like the crossing guards, even as a driver, as their mere presence seems to make drivers less crazy.

Perhaps they should have them all day long, all over the city, as a traffic calming measure. :)

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i agree, anything that humanizes the use of the road is a fine thing.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

New regulations now mandate that at least one way has to be down hill, and there can be no bears.



(When *my* mother went to school, they had to walk uphill both ways in the snow being chased by wild bears. Or so she told me.)

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

:)

The only local fauna I remember were some dogs who were noteworthy enough to this seven-year old that they're still a mildly frightening memory.

I don't remember the walk being at all a hardship, other than the dogs. It was pretty flat, and the neighborhood I lived in until the end of second grade was a newly-built subdivision, with sidewalks on both sides of the streets wide enough to bicycle down (which, as kids, we did).

Perhaps I'll go try it out again next time I'm down. I haven't really seen the place since I went to school there.

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

Our school district will provide transportation to all students, upon request, regardless of distance to the school. We're across the street from Amy's elementary, actually the closest house to it, but if I wanted, I could have her ride a bus -- although she'd have to walk further than the distance to the school, in the opposite direction, to where they'd put the bus stop. :) When Rob attended the same elementary and we lived a few blocks away from our present house, though, he was picked up by bus, and it was only just over a half mile by street.

As a practical matter, they don't route a bus to pick up a particular student unless that student has requested it, and in fact none of the dozen or so elementary-aged kids who live in the small subdivision we're at the mouth of have requested it, so no bus comes down our street. All the kids in here walk, or are driven by a parent who's on the way to work. Most kids who walk are walked to school by a parent, but some of the older ones go solo, and sometimes I let Amy (who was in kindergarten this year) walk with Rob (whose school starts later, so he's still home when she leaves) or walk by herself since I can see her the whole time from my back porch.

In the afternoon, kindergarten students have to be collected by somebody, and those who walk are dismissed separately, first, before the older kids. Kids older than kindergarten can walk or bike solo (although a lot of them, especially the 1st and 2nd graders, seem to be collected by parents), and they're the second dismissal from the classrooms, before the kids who are being picked up by cars are dismissed to the front-porch car line or the bus kids are dismissed to the bus lines, which gives them a chance to clear the vicinity before the traffic starts moving. We also have temporary stop signs that are rolled out by the crosswalk each morning and afternoon, and a crossing guard on duty there, and another at the intersection between the small street the school's on and the nearest big street.

Part of the equation might be that Texas law won't let you leave a kid younger than 8 in a home alone. So for the kids younger than 3rd grade, a parent or other caregiver has to be available, and if you're available, you might as well walk over and meet the kid.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Texas law won't let you leave a kid younger than 8 in a home alone.

Yeah, my parents would have violated that law for nearly two years. Well, assuming they got away with it for that long.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

My parents didn't, but often my twin and I and my older brother were alone together....(he is 3 years older).

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I was glancing at a blog (free range kids) the other day that was passing along how some parent somewhere was infuriated by a school whose rule was that kids younger than 3rd grade could not ride a bike to school *even if they were with a parent*. I believe there are a lot of schools that require a lot more parental intervention to get kids to school and won't let them walk in the door unescorted or leave the building unescorted.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yah, I've heard of Lenore Skenazy's blog, but I haven't read it.

I was a latchkey kid for most of my childhood starting sometime between first and second grade. I remember it being that young because at one point in those two years I lost the house key and there was much resulting drama.

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Hee! we were always losing our housekeys, we became experts at breaking into our own house without breaking anything.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I *think* my parents might have carried keys to the house, when we were growing up, but man, on a farm with a lot of kids you don't end up locking up except when you're away on vacation or away at relatives on Christmas day. We finally started locking it up after dad moved out and mom started working regular hours. I remember that fall my siblings did a lot of learning how to break into the house for lack of keys, I'd already moved out pretty much permanently.

[allyphoe.livejournal.com]

Busses here are available to kids who live a mile or more from school. Kindergartners aren't released on their own recognizance, though, no matter where they live. As a practical matter, parents drive their kids - my kindergartner is an abberation as a bus-rider.

[cerebralpaladin.livejournal.com]

As I recall, my school had a rule in elementary years that below a certain year (3rd grade? 5th grade?), you had to be dropped off and picked up by an adult. Above that age but before junior high, you could bring in a permission slip to be allowed to walk to and from school unaccompanied. Junior high and up, anything went.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Im my 11 year old neice's suburban district (in New York State), the school bus stops at every kid's house, and a parent or guardian has to walk across the lawn and meet the kid at the door of the bus. It's insane, and hell on families wher both parents work, and single parent families.