Moo recently discovered that the local elementary school, the girls’ former elementary school, no longer allows walkers. Even the kids whose homes are literally across the street. No matter how close, no walking!
I imagine this has to do with safety, but how, I’m not exactly sure. I can tell you in Georgia, every year that Sassy finally got old enough to do anything independently, they changed it, like a cruel joke. She’d get old enough to walk to school by their former standards and they’d raise the minimum on the ‘appropriate’ age. Then they raised the age she had to be to walk Moo with her. At some point, their 15-year-old sister wasn’t even old enough to walk them home. They raised the age required to get off the bus without an adult present, and then they made it so that 18-year-old Bubba couldn’t collect them from the bus stop because he wasn’t a parent. He had to run back to the house to get me.
I find this new walking situation particularly humorous considering the bus driver shortage and therefore, bus shortage they’ve had since we’ve lived here, but like so many other things, why should this make any sense?
If we had a damned pedestrian bridge over the crazy busy street, we’da walked there plenty of days. So many days it would have been faster to walk as opposed to hoping a bus would show up. There were days I could have walked them there and walked home before the bus arrived.
They certainly could’ve walked home all the time.
Here I am, wishing for a more pedestrian-friendly city and the school is forbidding students to walk.
There are surely close to a hundred family homes surrounding the school. I imagine at least a dozen of those people bought their houses thinking, “Oh this’ll be great, so close to the school, the kids can walk!” I bet not even once did they wonder if they were on the bus route to the elementary school.
I seriously considered this when we bought our house. They can walk to middle school and high school. They may not need to often, but if they miss the bus, if they have afters and no one is available to collect them, they can walk.
I hope they don’t change that for the older kids. I will be all up in the school in raving lunatic mode.
I wonder if the church and charter schools within walking distance have the same policy now?
I saw walkers every single morning I drove in.
But now, some kids are walking away from the school to a corner where they can catch the bus to school. Absurdity.
I’m getting too old to have kids in school. I can tell because I’ve become critical of everything. Like, the sheer hypocrisy of pamphlets they sent home about proper nutrition and exercise! They say they want to fight the childhood obesity epidemic. That’s why they’ve banned the rolling bookbag, they say. Yet, have you seen what they feed the children for breakfast and lunch?!? Gone are the days of lunch ladies who cook nutritious food for an army. Now, it’s all prepackaged crap.
Breakfast could be any number of things you’d expect, but it could also be a Hostess-variety Honeybun, Dolly Madison danish, Donut Stix, or lunch leftovers. For lunch, they serve children food loaded with excess fat and carbs, consider pizza and corn vegetables, and sometimes the only fruit offered is a six-ounce juice. An entree might be one skimpy loaded potato skin, referred to as a baked potato, but it may be served with 1% milk and a cookie bigger than their heads.
Sometimes testing eliminates recess altogether for weeks. They sometimes take away the entire recess when students misbehave. They’ve made gym an elective.
Meanwhile, they pass out candy as reward.
Instead of encouraging me to give my kids more water and take up cycling as a family, they may as well write, “Due to the fact that we load your kids up on empty calories all day and deprive them of activity, we’re going to need you to become a health nut.”
But yeah, let’s have kids who could walk get on a bus instead. Bravo.
SoCS ‘bus’ is brought to you by LindaGHill
joeyfullystated 
That ‘no walking to school’ policy must be the most absurb thing I read since a while. Even more ridiculous when we know that walking is the easiest and cheapest way to keep in shape. And for kids, what a great way to wake up before being locked at school. Have you talked with other parents? Maybe the school administration would reconsider if you were a bunch of protesters. Maybe finding a walk monitor if they fear any danger? Doesn’t look like the issue when you describe your neighborhood. I would give it a try. Good luck.
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It is absurd. My kids don’t go there anymore, and I certainly can’t muster the energy to fight for things that don’t concern me. I’d love to know all the details, but I’m outta the loop.
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Glad your kids are no longer students there. At least they are spared another absurd idea coming from that place in the future. 😊
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Wow. So what do the families do who live right near the school? It seems crazy to take a bus when you live RIGHT THERE. Fight obesity–sit on a bus. Good gosh, how crazy is that? Can’t the PTA do something about this. Surely, the school board does not just dictate orders like this…?
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I have no idea, since my girls no longer attend. Moo found out because her friends who live RIGHT THERE have younger siblings who are forbidden to walk now.
The kids RIGHT THERE walk to a nearby corner to catch the bus to across the street.
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The absurdity is amazing. Gotta be glad your girls no longer attend.
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I am glad. Craziness!
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Wow! They should ban driving.
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If you ever figure out the mind of a bureaucrat I will give you a burrito as big as your head. So little of the group think makes any sense. No one seems to be able to actually think anymore. Phys. Ed. as an elective?! Preposterous.
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I had a burrito last night. Mmm burrito. It wasn’t as big as my head, but it was good. The Mister’s on his way back from Culver’s with a fish sammich for me, so Imma try not to think about a burrito as big as my head, because mmm, fish sammich…
But yeah, sometimes one could be led to believe the bureaucrats spend time actually tryin to think up stupid shit, hm?
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😦 Damn! It’s even worse than I’d thought. I wish there would be more parents than you.
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That does sound crazy. I walked to school and so did my girls, until the one they went to was too far away. Then we’d use the bus. And that about your older kids not being able to pick up the younger ones, even with your permission… I don’t get it.
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I know. The way they do things now, it’s like they WANT you to micromanage your children.
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I am so sick of what the public education has become. They don’t learn half as much as they used to, and the powers that be dictate all these rules to the parents. My own parents never once received a shopping list from a teacher. I’m so glad to be finished with all of that.
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I’m so ready to be done with it as well. Not in a hurry to rush my kids to adulthood, but sick of school crap.
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There is just so little common sense. Eliminating recess and phys ed was a very poor decision. And somebody should be looking at that food…ugh ! I always envied the kids who lived close enough to walk to school…and they got to go home for lunch every day.
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Oh that’s nice. We didn’t have kids goin home for lunch, but that’d be nice. It really is a terrible situation, and the rules are outgrowing common sense at an alarming rate.
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Wow – some of that, most of that, maybe all of that it nuts. Whatever happened to a crossing guard near the school? I just read where the FDA has admitted that they really screwed up on the milk thing. They are now starting to encourage whole milk. I remember the lunch ladies in elementary through 9th grade making pretty good food. My mom wasn’t a very good cook, so I liked school lunch. Our “modern” high school had closer to pre-prepared crap food. I don’t like hearing that you, as a parent, can’t let your kid walk to school. The crap they feed the kids in our school for lunch makes me wonder why they just didn’t turn the cafeteria over to McDonald’s.
Candy as a reward?
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Oh I could rant for days about the elementary schools’ rules and procedures and ridiculous suggestions.
Growing up, I had mostly good hot school lunches and if they served things I didn’t like, I always had the option of a large salad or a pbj and a piece of fruit.
That milk thing has ALWAYS bothered me. Always. What is so disturbing about it is that most of the admin had to take nutrition to get their education license, and we were all taught about milk fats in nutrition. Makes you wonder where the gap in knowledge came from!
I walked now and again, but mostly took buses. My buses arrived on time and in the same spot every single day. One would think that’s a given…Always had been with my kids, UNTIL we got here!!!
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Nicely ranted. Now, have you sent a copy to the school? I think they are the audience who really needs to read this!
That said, I’m guilty of being grateful that pizza and French toast sticks are on the menu. Finally, foods my kid will eat available so I don’t have to pack a lunch! (I’m nothing if not contrary.)
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Nah, I don’t care, since my kids don’t go there anymore 🙂
Most of us are contrary about a thing or two, you’re in good company!
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When I was in elementary school, there was no option about the bus, as the school was in the next town. The high school, on the other hand, was a 7-minute walk from our house. We rode the bus, though I did walk home if I had after-school activities. Funny, I don’t remember my brothers ever walking home after school.
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This does seem aggravating, Joey! I am happy there are walkers and bike riders to the schools in our town.
I was very sad, though, when a child on a bicycle not using a cross walk got struck and killed on Karl Road in Columbus. This used to be a rather safe area. Child should have gone a short bit farther to use the crosswalk but he was a kid.
As far as healthy food, my kids usually got packed lunches. I wasn’t very good except once in awhile carrot sticks, celery with peanut butter, an apple or tangerine thrown in. 🙂 I gave them good dinners, though!
I am sure I would rant more if I were a parent about music, art, recess and gym not being long enough or “good enough!”
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This entire childhood obesity issue is complicated and the lack of physical exercise such as walking to school certainly contributes to it. I imagine when you calculate the hours you and your hubby played outside, walked or biked and compared it to the stats for your kids it would be considerably different. If you calculated your parents outside activities, their parents would probably be reported to the FBI today for child abuse. Technology is a wonderful part of our society. It allows me to read this post and comment, but it also ties our kids to their devices and they have no interest in ‘playing’ outside. So, restricting walking to school and serving processed food really won’t help the situation at all. Keeping kids safe is critical, but we also need to contribute to their good health.
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Oh I’m so happy that mine are all done with that phase of their lives. We lived within walking distance from the middle school and high school. There was a road they could walk up and be right there. Then the neighborhood they walked through decided to put up a HUGE fence so that the kids wouldn’t walk in front of their houses. They had to go down and around the corner and walk up a street with no sidewalks. I couldn’t believe it. Not that the exercise wasn’t good, I just couldn’t believe a bunch of adults had to be so small minded that they felt the need to put up a fence.
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That is utterly bizarre.
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Some people….
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All the craziness is why I’ll be happy when they get out of school. My kids pack their lunches so I’m hoping that they’re slightly better than the sodas, chips, and fries that they would choose at school. The elementary school that my kids went to in Florida had a no walker policy. It was because there weren’t any sidewalks on the roads leading in. We didn’t live close enough for it to matter to me.
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Whaaat? If LM didn’t go to the charter school way across town, we’d be walking since we live 1/4 mile from his old elementary school. I’d be pissed as hell, since picking up kids requires a 45 minutes wait one way or another.
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Yesss, all that. Carline craziness instead of walking 1/4 mile. Bleh.
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Seems like, if there’s a big person to accompany them whom the parent signs off on, walking should be okay. Otherwise, my anxiety disorder is with the school on this one. Kids being snatched, kids being struck by hit-and-runners…. Old Mother Overprotective is getting her stomach in a knot, just thinking about it.
As for the food, that’s appalling. And so is all the nutritious foods the schools serve and the kids dump in the trash (yeah, I used to talk to school officials). MAN, I’m glad my kids are grown and struggling with their own!
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There is simply nothing that can be said about this. I’m shaking my head in complete bewilderment. Is the world going completely insane?
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To get into state primary or secondary schools here, you ideally need to be within a 15 minute walk of the school. There are no school busses unless it’s a private school. Everyone walks. Moreso because there is nowhere to park a car near the school (safety reasons)! DD’s school only allows chocolate, cookies and crisps on a Friday, as a treat. The rest of the time, their meals are cooked on site and pretty darn amazing. I’m feeling very smug and grateful now 🙂
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As well you should, sounds healthy and reasonable! 🙂
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