Slashdot Mirror
Federal Law Now Says Kids Can Walk To School Alone (fastcoexist.com)
An anonymous reader writes: There's some good news for "free-range" parents and fans of children being allowed to walk places on their own. A recently approved federal education law will allow students to take alternative forms of transportation to and from school with parental permission. Fastcoexist reports: "Relax, parents. Now you can allow your kids to walk, ride a bike, or take a bus to school, without you or your children getting arrested. The recently-signed Every Student Succeeds Act contains a section (858) that protects the rights of kids to walk or go out alone. The act was sponsored by Utah senator Mike Lee, who is a supporter of the Free Range Kids movement, and provides some hope for parents who feel that their kids should be allowed some autonomy to get by own their own." One can only hope that children will be allowed to go to the park on their own soon as well.
Bad phrasing in the summary:
So it is phrased according to what you can't do, rather than what you can.
No, if that were the case they would instead repeal the old law.
Which they're not doing. A recent case: http://www.freerangekids.com/m...
On Nov. 18, Maria Hasankolli of Wallingford, CT, came home in the early hours of the morning after visiting a relative at the hospital. She overslept while her 8-year-old stepson got himself ready for school — and missed his bus. The boy, Lucan, decided to walk to school on his own, two miles away, and was about halfway there when a business owner spotted him and called the cops. The cops drove Lucan to school, then went to his home, woke Hasankolli and clapped her into handcuffs.
She was driven to the police precinct, had her mug shot taken, and was given a $2500 bond. Her court date is this Wednesday. The charge?
Risk of injury to a minor.
http://harridanic.com
This law is a carve-out from previous laws that specify what you can not do. There's a very general law prohibiting parents from endangering their children. This one amends that law to clarify that letting your child walk to work doesn't constitute endangering children.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
This is just to be clear that a parent can't be charged with neglect for allowing their kid to walk alone.
No, it just means they can't be charged with a Federal crime, by the FBI, Secret Service, or other Federal agency. This does not effect state or local law enforcement, unless you believe that kids walking to school are engaging in interstate commerce.
, you need to see the general information, "walkers" section.
You need the parents to fill out a form to get a pass, replacement passes cost $5.00, but my kids tell me their friends who have passes said they had to pay for the initial pass, too. I wouldn't know, we live far enough away that walking is not a good option, although riding a bike would work if it were allowed at all (it's not).
Stupid sexy Flanders.
This part of the law is just designed to prevent isolated municipalities from nutty interpretations of existing law.
There have been a few recent examples of private citizens reporting unaccompanied children to the police.
I don't think you appreciate the scale of this problem. Yes, only "a few recent examples" probably reached the attention of the national media, but they are indicative of a much more widespread and more common problem. This site is obviously biased in one way, but it's dedicated to tracking stories like this. It's pretty common to see some rather outrageous intervention at least every couple weeks or so... somewhere in the U.S.
Generally, the kids are walking short distances (~1 mile).
Or an 11-year-old sitting alone in a car outside a store.
Or, ya know, an 11-year-old playing alone in his own yard unsupervised. Parents arrested on felony charges. Apparently your kid doesn't even need to be walking alone.
Once the police get involved, they often feel the need to charge someone, and generally find a way to fit "leaving your 8 year old child unattended for 20 minutes" into some form of neglect or endangerment. I'm not sure if any of these have resulted in actual conviction, but they have certainly resulted in handcuffings, arrests, and (perhaps most importantly) court fees.
This shows a gross misunderstanding of the worst issue for most parents. Yes, some parents end up held in jail for a day or something, and there are court fees.
But that's the relatively mild part and only the beginning of the nightmare that often follows. In many cases, Child Protective Services removes the kids from the parents, from anywhere to a few days to weeks to months in some cases. And even when parents fight to get their kids back, they are often subjected to various indignities -- mandatory parenting classes where they are taught how "not to neglect" their kids, periodic "check-ins" by CPS services at their homes, who have been known to find ridiculously minor "violations" or "concerns" (like a cluttered living room where kids have been playing -- too messy for CPS).
Poke around a bit and read the kinds of things that can happen. Also, keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of kids are removed by CPS to foster care in the U.S. every year, statistics compiled from CPS show that in somewhere around 1/3 of cases (about 100,000 kids), investigations eventually show that there was no credible threat at all to kids. That's not even covering cases where there was an "apparent" threat that was determined not to be significant enough to warrant removal -- these are thousands and thousands of cases where CPS takes kids and later says, "My bad. Turns out the removal wasn't really necessary." (Actually, of course, they never admit it that in those words. But they basically determine whatever evidence was used to justify removal was incomplete, a misunderstanding, or just a bogus report.)
And let's not even get into the stats on abuse and neglect in foster care, which tends to happen at higher rates than in homes with parents. So CPS is often removing kids from a safe house without investigating thoroughly and putting kids in places where they are more likely to be harmed. (Obviously, CPS also takes action in many, many cases every year where there IS serious abuse, and they should be commended for that -- but tell this to any parent whose child is taken away for no apparent reason.)
Perhaps this is getting a bit off-topic from TFA, but these are related issues. We have a culture that tends to assume any child alone (and by "child," states now often mean kids up to
Please show me where in the Constitution the federal government is given the power to address such things such as education or children walking to school. I seem to remember that if it isn't listed there, those powers ARE RESERVED BY THE STATES.
A closer reading of the Act (see pages 857-858) says that the parents can't be held criminally or civilly liable if they let their kids - with permission - get to school in an "age appropriate manner." It also says that the Act itself doesn't supersede any local laws.
So: if a state or locality has decided or later decides to specifically make a law specifically against "unattended kids going to school," that law would take precedence over this act. "States rights" are still in effect here.
And in the United States in the early 1970s I did similar things. Crime was WAY worse then than now. But nobody thought anything of it. We have become insane.
Outside of immanent violence, women walking alone must deal with the pervasive catcalling, ogling, etc. that is both intrinsically distasteful and implicitly unsettling, even threatening... a feeling somewhat like being a fresh steak lying in front of a clan of drooling hyenas (to paraphrase my wife).