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(Des Moines Register)   Public school system refuses to bus a student who lives 1.35 miles from school, making her continue to cross a busy interstate and dangerous roadways   (desmoinesregister.com) divider line 34
    More: Fail, school districts, public bus, Code of Iowa, Iowa Department of Education, refuses, school bus, roads, budget constraints  
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9030 clicks; posted to Main » on 17 Jun 2012 at 11:39 AM   |  Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook   more»



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Archived thread
jaytkay
2012-06-17 11:53:14 AM
3 votes:
"Madison will have to find some way to get across Interstate Highway 235 from a high-traffic area near her home on 64th Street on the west side."

Maybe she could use the bridge with marked crosswalks and traffic lights at 63rd street.

Just a thought.
buzzcut73 [TotalFark]
2012-06-17 12:27:59 PM
2 votes:
Honest Bender: Have you considered taking a public bus to school?

FTA, it seems the bus does not cross the interstate either. She'd have to ride one bus to a central transfer point, and then get on another bus that would drop her off somewhere near the school. Considering the types of folks that populate city buses and central transfer points, I'd be a bit leery of letting my 11 year old do that daily.

/Bus people are an interesting lot
//Was one until I moved to a different town with less transit options.
Moodybastard
2012-06-17 12:21:48 PM
2 votes:
saloman: She can't walk a half-mile away from the school (presumably a safer journey) to catch the bus?

Nope, apparently there is a school bus pick up about three blocks away that they say she can not walk to and get a ride.

And this is one of the definitions of stupid
namegoeshere
2012-06-17 11:48:30 AM
2 votes:
My district has the distance rule, but they also have a dangerous road exception. Which is why my kids have the option to bus even though we live quite close to the school. No one on our street chooses to take the bus, but school schedules work out so that the youngest kids are able to walk with older, responsible kids. And yes, when it's arctic or pouring, I drive mine.

She should insist that the district provide crossing guards at the busy intersections.
robbiex0r
2012-06-18 12:43:09 PM
1 votes:
There's a bike path which takes her almost the whole route.....
PsiChick
2012-06-17 05:11:24 PM
1 votes:
lemortede: Once again we have someone who expects society to take care of her problems with her crotch fruit. Parent up and take care of your own mistakes.

Yeah, how dare she not personally install all the needed sidewalk and pick up the interstate bare-handed to move it out of her daughter's way!
mesmer242
2012-06-17 04:12:12 PM
1 votes:
herrDrFarkenstein: Looked at Google Maps. She could bke safely over to 56th and cross the interstate on an overpass. Sidewalks all the way. There are city streets running over/under the interstate in several spots.

No neighborhood kids want to carpool? No friends to walk with?

The mom responds in the comments that all the other kids her daughter's age that are nearby are able to ride the bus as they are outside the 2 mile limit or they don't attend the school (do they have charter schools in Des Moines?)

I looked at the map and it looks like they are five blocks from the edge of the school district, and according the article, three blocks south of the 2 mile limit which probably puts them in a sliver of no man's land that no one wants to deal with.

Our school district has a dangerous exception (they either bus or have a crossing guard). One high school is so poorly positioned past busy roads that they bus everybody. Despite that, they still had a seven year old die in traffic a few years ago.
FizixJunkee
2012-06-17 04:03:37 PM
1 votes:
DarkVader: FizixJunkee: Abner Doon: I wonder if she considered dropping Madison at the school just before her job starts at 7 a.m. and picking her up after she gets off at 4 p.m.

/ who needs editors

School won't allow it.

Our neighborhood school has a similar policy. There's a very tiny window in which you can drop off your kid in the mornings and an equally narrow window for picking him/her up. The school will NOT allow you to drop them off any earlier, even if they're playing outside and aren't inside the building.

So drop the kid off a block away, and tell the school the kid is walking. Problem solved.

They won't let your kid on school premises before that designated time. They won't let them just play on the playground until school starts, which is what we did when we were kids.
FizixJunkee
2012-06-17 03:54:32 PM
1 votes:
dywed88:
Her best bet, if she wanted to break the rules, would be to change her official address to a friend's house that she can walk to. I know a people that gave the wrong address to get into another school and I assume the bussing would be the same. But I don't know what any penalties may be.


Our neighborhood school verifies the address of every student at least twice during the school year. When you enroll, you have to submit current utility bills, copies of your lease (if you rent), etc. The school won't take your word for it. And the school will double-check a few months into the academic year to make sure you still live in the school boundaries.
vice_magnet
2012-06-17 03:29:59 PM
1 votes:
Well it's no wonder the school system is being run without any thought for the girl's safety. After all, they lost their superintendent, remember? Link
clkeagle
2012-06-17 03:22:46 PM
1 votes:
Des Moines area resident here.

-Public bus isn't a viable option for kids. Our public transit system is a complete joke, probably because our fuel prices are among the lowest in the country. But using MTA, it would probably take this kid 2 hours to get picked up, ride downtown to the only transfer station, then ride a different bus to within 1 mile of the school. Assuming there is a compatible route at all.

-Those intersections are very dangerous, especially during thunderstorms and in the winter. My biggest complaint about living here is that there are horrible, horrible drivers everywhere.

-If you think the website is bad, try the print version. I've seen higher quality newspapers from high schools. The local TV stations have much better news sites... never figured out why the Register gets all the links on Fark.

That said... yeah, it's on this woman if she can't find a way to flex her job schedule, work with other parents at that school for carpooling, etc. Not only does it eliminate sympathy, but giving an 11-year-old this kind of media exposure isn't going to do her kid any favors. To an adolescent, this will probably have the same amount of social damage as a defamation or sexual harassment lawsuit would to an adult.
dywed88
2012-06-17 03:14:06 PM
1 votes:
JWideman: So, the school won't let her drop the kid off at school before 7 or pick her up at 4, but they have no problem with her walking 2 miles each way?
Drop her off and pick her up a block away.

The school won't allow her to wait on school property before 7 or after 3. If they did, they would have to provide supervision and be wide open to liability.

Everything I have seen makes it seem like the mother is just whining. "It is cold" of course it is, you live in Iowa, but kids are walking just as far in a lot colder places, get her a good coat, hat, and mitts. "It is far" boo hoo, it isn't excessively far and shouldn't be more than 30-45 minutes. "There is a busy road to cross" there is a farking traffic light.
If the girl had to cross the highway without a traffic light (say the nearest crossing point took her well over the District's two mile limit then there is a real safety concern and something should be done. But, by all appearances, that is not the case and if the mother wants special treatment she can arrange it and pay for it herself the taxpayers should not be footing the bill.
JWideman
2012-06-17 03:01:09 PM
1 votes:
So, the school won't let her drop the kid off at school before 7 or pick her up at 4, but they have no problem with her walking 2 miles each way?
Drop her off and pick her up a block away.
dywed88
2012-06-17 01:22:38 PM
1 votes:
buzzcut73: Honest Bender: Have you considered taking a public bus to school?

FTA, it seems the bus does not cross the interstate either. She'd have to ride one bus to a central transfer point, and then get on another bus that would drop her off somewhere near the school. Considering the types of folks that populate city buses and central transfer points, I'd be a bit leery of letting my 11 year old do that daily.

/Bus people are an interesting lot
//Was one until I moved to a different town with less transit options.

I see public school kids on the city buses around here all the time. It is a biatch when you have to take a bus at the wrong time and it is just packed with them.


saloman: That may be the rule, but I'm not sure how they would enforce it in practice. Perhaps they issue bus passes that the bus driver checks? I don't know how it works today but when I was a kid everyone at the bus stop just got on the bus.

Around here bus drivers have lists of the kids and they do enforce it.
Her best bet, if she wanted to break the rules, would be to change her official address to a friend's house that she can walk to. I know a people that gave the wrong address to get into another school and I assume the bussing would be the same. But I don't know what any penalties may be.

But if her biggest concern is an intersection with a traffic light, then if the Mother is too paranoid she can deal with it. not the city or schoolboard.
Bathia_Mapes [TotalFark]
2012-06-17 01:20:23 PM
1 votes:
CasperImproved: saloman: She can't walk a half-mile away from the school (presumably a safer journey) to catch the bus?

I was thinking the same thing. In the article it stated she was three blocks away from the two mile mark. So why doesn't she walk those three blocks and get picked up at someone else's stop?

Jeez... much ado about nothing,

FTA: Bilotta also offered to have Madison walk a few blocks to the neighborhood behind hers, where busing is allowed, and was told she couldn't do that.
Bathia_Mapes [TotalFark]
2012-06-17 01:03:55 PM
1 votes:
Sim Tree: Why can't the kid walk 0.65 miles in the opposite direction and board the bus at the 2 mile limit mark with whomever lives over that way? Sure, it's a walk plus a bus ride, but at least it avoids the interstate.

FTA: Bilotta also offered to have Madison walk a few blocks to the neighborhood behind hers, where busing is allowed, and was told she couldn't do that.


Nope. They shot her down on that as well.
Sync9
2012-06-17 01:00:25 PM
1 votes:
Bad_Seed: The "dangerous intersection" has traffic lights. What's her problem?

Uh, she's a whiny biatch with what she thinks is a point to prove? No story here folks. Annoying lady gets upset because her precious snowflake has to follow the same rules that the rest of the entire school district follows, and annoying lady doesn't believe her kid has the intelligence to stand at a crosswalk and wait for the indicator that it's safe to walk. Not only are there lights, there are sidewalks and all in all it looks like a pretty nice intersection for pedestrians.

Nothing to see here folks, move along.
Chinchillazilla
2012-06-17 12:36:25 PM
1 votes:
monstera: The biggest failure if our society is the lack if sidewalks. I DNRTFA but if my life lived 1.35miles from school, they couldn't walk to school because there are no farkin sidewalks.

My neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks. I used to walk my dog with no problems, but in the past few years, drivers here have gotten worse about speeding and coming close to pedestrians. I came within about six inches of being hit the night before last. Son of a biatch had his brights on and I was blinded and couldn't tell where he was. I ended up bailing into my neighbor's yard, and he was much closer than I had thought.

/this is the thread where we biatch about stuff, right?
namegoeshere
2012-06-17 12:32:10 PM
1 votes:
Sim Tree: Why can't the kid walk 0.65 miles in the opposite direction and board the bus at the 2 mile limit mark with whomever lives over that way? Sure, it's a walk plus a bus ride, but at least it avoids the interstate.

Covered in TFA.
Steve Zodiac [TotalFark]
2012-06-17 12:29:54 PM
1 votes:
1) The administration is acting like an idiot. There is no way that this is going to look good in the press, even if they were 100 percent right.
2) They are not 100 percent right.
3) They should have looked at the problem in a context based manner: walking 1.x miles to school in an area with low traffic is one thing, doing the same in a high traffic area is asking for an accident.
4) They should let her ride the bus from one of the 2+ mile pickup locations and charge a nominal fee for the service, to prevent lots of 1.x milers from doing the same. Maybe you should also need to prove traffic justifies the exemption.

If you try to enforce inflexible rules across a situation without taking different conditions into consideration then you end up looking foolish and costing the school system money in lawyers. If you say that the rules give you no leeway then you could be replaced by a simple computer program, which also would be much cheaper than whatever the Des Moines School district is paying you for your knowledge and discretion . Use the training you supposedly have had and the administrative and political skills you said you possessed when you applied for and got the job to figure out a workable compromise. At the very least, had you tried to do that the press would not be as bad as it is under the 'but its the rules that make me do this' defense is making you look now. Even if the mother still tried to make a public case of it you could show that you tried and that it is the mother that is being unreasonable.
RDixon
2012-06-17 12:27:19 PM
1 votes:
When I was in school if a student had to walk one mile or more to school or to catch a bus the board of education paid the kid.

We had one kid in our class in grade school that walked 1 and one half miles to the bus stop and he got a check twice per school year in his name for $4.50.

In the 1960s that was a lot of cash for a kid.

He never once complained about the walk even when he had to trudge through a foot or more of snow.
namegoeshere
2012-06-17 12:25:55 PM
1 votes:
LoneWolf343: And the parents can't drive her because...

Because mom would have to drop her off a few minutes before 7 and pick her up at 4. The school will not allow students to be there before 7 or after 3.
FizixJunkee
2012-06-17 12:25:18 PM
1 votes:
Abner Doon: I wonder if she considered dropping Madison at the school just before her job starts at 7 a.m. and picking her up after she gets off at 4 p.m.

/ who needs editors

School won't allow it.

Our neighborhood school has a similar policy. There's a very tiny window in which you can drop off your kid in the mornings and an equally narrow window for picking him/her up. The school will NOT allow you to drop them off any earlier, even if they're playing outside and aren't inside the building.
namegoeshere
2012-06-17 12:20:53 PM
1 votes:
Abner Doon: I wonder if she considered dropping Madison at the school just before her job starts at 7 a.m. and picking her up after she gets off at 4 p.m.

/ who needs editors

She tried it twice, apparently.
KingVJ
2012-06-17 12:12:59 PM
1 votes:
Bad_Seed: The "dangerous intersection" has traffic lights. What's her problem?

HEY YOU, stop that. NO doing adequate research.

I also see a sidewalk there.
namegoeshere
2012-06-17 12:11:53 PM
1 votes:
proteus_b: find out who the closest neighbor who is farther than 2 miles away from the school is.

have the kid walk to her house and just get on the bus with that kid.

she might have to walk half a mile or a mile, but not cross a freeway.

idiotic, but when hampered by bureaucracy, you have to be clever sometimes...

Mom tried - it was not allowed.
MadCat221
2012-06-17 12:11:31 PM
1 votes:
Bad_Seed: The "dangerous intersection" has traffic lights. What's her problem?

Assholes who think traffic lights are only a suggestion.
CruiserTwelve [TotalFark]
2012-06-17 12:08:35 PM
1 votes:
Buy the kid a bicycle.
namegoeshere
2012-06-17 11:49:23 AM
1 votes:
saloman: She can't walk a half-mile away from the school (presumably a safer journey) to catch the bus?

Mom thought of that. The district said no.
Bad_Seed
2012-06-17 11:47:31 AM
1 votes:
The "dangerous intersection" has traffic lights. What's her problem?
One Bad Apple [TotalFark]
2012-06-17 11:46:15 AM
1 votes:
orangejuiceblog.com


Just have the parents walk her to school and put up a few signs on the interstate
saloman
2012-06-17 11:46:13 AM
1 votes:
She can't walk a half-mile away from the school (presumably a safer journey) to catch the bus?
namegoeshere
2012-06-17 11:44:09 AM
1 votes:
She should totally get hit by a car. That'd teach 'em!
cmunic8r99 [TotalFark]
2012-06-17 11:43:56 AM
1 votes:
Website needs an editor.
 
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