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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.
Land of the free my ass. It's a nation of lunatics ruled by fear.
Isn't law meant to say what you "can not" do, rather than what you "can" do ?
In most countries it's very common for children to walk to school in the mornings, especially when they get to 10/11 years old.
I understand the US is less pedestrian friendly as a general rule (outside of larger cities) but walking/cycling to school was one of my fondest memories, not to mention both healthy and social!
What is the motivation for having this banned in the first place?
Now there's one hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is!
Sudden, but moderate outburst of common sense.
In Finland kids walk to school from first grade, age 7. Like I did in the 80's and my kids are doing today.
Kids are also allowed to walk to the park alone.
When I was in kindergarten I walked to school every day, it was only around 3 blocks away. Going to the park alone was also normal. The sad thing is that it is a lot safer today than it was back then. I consider myself quite liberal, but I detest the whole nanny state. I've also read numerous articles about parents who are arrested for leaving young children in the car, in the shade with the windows open while running into the grocery store.
Hell, reading this article reminded me about how my mother would go into a local supermarket to do some quick shopping while I watched my younger sister in the car. Today my mother would have been arrested.
As a kid I ran around all over the place without my parents hovering over me every second. I got out and got exercise and explored, something many parents won't allow today. That was before the days of the Internet or before cell phones or bike helmets. The only difference I would have with my own kids is to make them wear a bicycle helmet when riding (due to experience with how it saved the life of a relative several times) and possibly a cell phone.
Kids need to be kids and also to learn responsibility, not be coddled like crazy.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Since when do federal laws permit things?
Whenever state laws forbid them.
If someone gets arrested for child neglect, what relief does this law provide? I doubt it would, but I would like to see it do two things:
1. Provide for both civil and criminal relief against the police.
2. Provide for civil relief against the anonymous caller, including a provision that allows the police to be sued if they don't take reasonable means to ascertain the identity of the caller.
Anonymous callers should not be anonymous. Many times, it's malicious people claiming to be good samaritans. They need to be sued into bankruptcy, not protected.
I see. When the Republicans see a law they do not like it is a federal abuse of power violating states' rights. When a Republican does not like how some state applies the law it is an overbearing local government. Sorry, but you cannot have it both ways. If Republicans really want a less intrusive federal government then they need to be willing to let local governments do things that they do not personally approve of. Otherwise it is just a matter of deciding in which way the federal government should intrude rather than less intrusion.
Seems to be normal in some areas of Detroit and Chicago.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
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.
"Alternative" methods? Uh, walking is the default method. That's the only one we're born with. Driving is the alternative method, idiot. (Is the idiot here the submitter or "editor"? No way to know.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In Switzerland (at least in my home Canton of Zurich), the children's way to school ("Schulweg") is pretty much sacred: Walking to school alone teaches the children to deal with the world around them, and it builds confidence. During the first year of Kindergarten you can bring them, but then they go alone.
When children live too far away from school, there is a bus service, but they make a point of letting the children off the bus some 1000ft from school, so that they still have their "Schulweg."
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I walked to elementary school every day until we moved farther away, at which point I alternatively either road my bike or took the bus (and occasionally walked anyway). That continued through middle and high school, and that was up in NY.
Now it's 40 years or so later, I live in GA, and my kids are not allowed to ride their bikes to school. Walkers at my daughter's middle school require permits that they have to pay a fee for.
It's ridiculous.
At the same time, for whatever reason, walking to Elementary school was just fine, and walking to the high school is fine... so it's obviously up to individual school. If you're planning on having kids, and can't afford private schools, do yourself a favor and DO NOT move to GA.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Since when do federal laws permit things?
You mean like free speech, right to bear arms, etc? Or laws that say to states: no you are not allowed to forbid that!
The constitution forbids laws that forbid things.
No it doesn't. Murder is forbidden and that is not an unconstitutional law. Lots and lots and lots of things are forbidden, many with good reason.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The utter irony is that the federal government has no legal basis for making a law like this.
Do you have ESP?
Yup... as I said as a part of another response, while our elementary and high schools "allow" walkers (now it has to be "allowed," apparently), the middle school charges a f@#king fee for a "walker permit."
The coddling has gone too far. We're waiting so long to let kids mature, a lot of them never make it.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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.
What is the motivation for having this banned
Expansion of the business of government, same as the motivation behind nearly all new laws. They have long passed the threshold where new laws bring improvement to society. They are now squarely in the phase where new laws merely bring more government. Of course, if that's your goal, then the new laws are working exactly as intended.
This will just enable children to be radicalized.
Dialectician. Archology.
Depends on your local laws. But this isn't about walking vs. driving, this is about letting your child walk alone. You can (and I do) walk your child to school.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
actually we do. not allowed to own a gun where i live.
Where do you live, inside the White House?
There are places in the U.S. that have some gun control laws, but you're always allowed to own a gun if you own your own home. If you rent, or sign an agreement with a coop not for, for example, you might not be allowed to own a gun contractually, but it's not illegal to do so.
Some places make it hard to own a gun--DC tries to, for example, and I'm not sure if any gun stores exist there at the moment. But you have a constitutional right to bear arms. Even when it's utterly absurd.
I suppose if Big Brother can set a blanket protection so that parents don't have to fear every local PD and child welfare bureaucrat it's a good thing. It still irks me when I see an article about how government thinks it has the power to tell us what we're "allowed" to do. Seriously? People need permission to exercise their own judgement when it comes to raising their kids?
Reality has obviously been turned upside down, but We, The People are supposed to be in charge and via The U.S. Constitution, we tell the government what it's "allowed" to do.
Yeah, those eeebull Rethuglicans are horrible when they say the federal government should keep its mitts off private citizens, and grant individuals more liberty. They are also terrible, and hypocritical, when they say the same thing about state governments.
> but you're always allowed to own a gun if you own your own home
That's not true everywhere. No state forbids ownership (though it's certainly more difficult in some states than in others) but certain municipalities deny ownership to many or most who seek it. Chicago did for many years until its laws were ruled unconstitutional. Same with Wahington, D.C., which changed its laws after losing in court.
In New York City it's still very difficult to own a weapon even just to keep at one's residence. It has high application fees and applicants can be denied for seemingly arbitrary reasons.
So there's no place where it's automatically forbidden for everyone, but it's certainly not true that a person is always allowed to everywhere in the US.
The constitution forbids laws that forbid things.
Is that not a paradox?
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Yup... as I said as a part of another response, while our elementary and high schools "allow" walkers (now it has to be "allowed," apparently), the middle school charges a f@#king fee for a "walker permit."
The coddling has gone too far. We're waiting so long to let kids mature, a lot of them never make it.
Wait, what? Your local school charges kids for tuning up on foot? That's just.......what the fuck? How much do they charge and how do they justify it?
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There's some good news for "free-range" parents and fans of children being allowed to walk places on their own.
If you refer to someone who gives their children the freedom to be out of your sight for more than 5 seconds as "free range parents" then you are an asshole. If you are someone who calls the cops on someone else because their kids are walking to school, then you should be in jail yourself for harassment. I spent my childhood roaming my neighborhood with my friends exploring and it was fine. We were perfectly safe where we lived and my parents knew that. It would be fine for most children in most places. I walked almost a half mile to catch the bus by myself every morning, year round.
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.
I'm not aware of ANY location where children are required by law to arrive at school escorted by an adult. I work in a school part time as staff and we have children coming and going on their own routinely. Maybe it's different in some other places but I see kids walk, bike and drive themselves to school all the time with nobody getting arrested or in a huff. Most are delivered by bus or by a parent but if a kid lives withing walking distance of the school why shouldn't they be able to go themselves?
This sounds more like a story from The Onion, it is that silly.
Statistically, children are far more likely to run into pedophiles in their family or in positions of authority than randomly on the street.
True but any teacher will be happy to provide all the empirical and anecdotal evidence you want. I'm on staff at a local school (part time) and I run into kids who are abused all the time to varying degrees. It is almost always from a parent or near relative. I had a kid I worked with just last year who had to go live with his aunt because his dad was an abusive drunk. (Fortunately the kid was 6'2", weighed 230lbs and a good wrestler and was capable of defending himself) Strangers rarely are the problem kids have to deal with. In most cases I'd worry more about certain parents being with some of these kids than the kids walking themselves.
Unlike the Democrats who believe there should be laws for EVERYTHING and folks should have NO, NO, NO freedom of choice.
When all children walk to school / play unsupervised, they are fairly safe as drivers know to look for them and, as a mixed age group, can hurt a would be predator or at least raise enough alarm for adults to show up. Now if you take your child by car everywhere, you are making him/her a little safer (at least short term - health/psychological effects are another topic). But if everyone does that, your child is in considerable danger every time they get accidentally separated from you or run on the road to fetch a ball.
I think we need more active measures to restore sanity, like parent volunteers on each corner around school start time to convince the rest of the parents to give independent walking a try.
Back home in India,millions of kids walk/cycle daily to school - maneuvering thru traffic, crossing roads and some walk as much as 5 miles to school. Few even more. Me and brother used to walk 2miles since I was in first grade. Now that we have our children in US, this seems rediculous that kids need to be dropped mere 3 blocks away.
Or as we used to be known as back in my day, kids. We used to go all over the place or be home all day by ourselves in the summer. Can anyone explain how humanity has managed to survive this far without the nanny state watching over us continuously?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Wen I was in 5th grade I used to walk to bus stop at the end of my street. I found out that I was missing important morning cartoon shows, and this aggression could not stand. So I started "missing" the bus, watching my toons, and then walking the 25-30 minutes to school, through a baseball field, cut down an alleyway behind a row of houses, and poof, I was at school. Not only this, but walking allowed me to get there in time to hang outside in the morning with my friends before the bell rang. Walking home also allowed me more friend time, as 3 of my friends all walked home and they lived on the way to my house. There were 2 incidents that made me stop walking alone and they both involved creepers. One such creeper rounded the block in his, slowly stopped to ask if I wanted a ride (thankfully I was only a short sprint from my front door by the time he stopped) The second creeper I encountered was hanging around outside a big yellow apartment building, I'll never forget his face. Greasy and curly black hair, half-tinted coke-bottle glasses, patchy beard. He started walking down the stairs and across his yard mumbling something at me. This guy was probably just a crack head, but I wasn't going to wait and find out. Bolted. Never walked to or from school again.
A tribe that suffers the loss of to many young women would be unable to propagate itself, efficiently.
At one child per year, a woman can give birth about twenty times. As the Duggars have demonstrated, a single woman can pump out well over a dozen children during her child-bearing years. So unless the tribe has lost 90 percent of its women, or the tribe's infant mortality is still high, it can rebound. Modern industrialized society has solved infant mortality for the most part. So what threat can cost it 90 percent of its women to the point where stranger danger hysteria is still justified?
I know of areas that I do not think a young person would survive if they walked there often. That includes high school age as well as younger children. And it is even more, true for female children. Obviously, there are places and neighborhoods where walking is pretty darned safe but to pass laws which shield parents completely is not such a great idea. There are areas in south Florida that simply must not be walked through by young people.
One can only hope that children will be allowed to go to the park on their own soon as well.
It is. The linked incident resulted in a policy clarification at the state level that made it clear that the family was not doing anything illegal and that CPS should not have been involved in the incident in the first place. Which isn't to say that it fixes the issue at a national level, but at least that family's problems shouldn't have a repeat with other families in the state.
In my grandfather's day, kids were let loose and they were far more likely to be targeted. Now that we have made a safe place for kids to grow up, people have become paranoid and refuse to leave them alone to play.
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Republicans totally want state and federal governments to keep their mitts off private citizens. Unless those citizens are gay. Or minorities. Or immigrants. Or they use drugs recreationally. Or they want to be in a union. Or...
I was a "free range" kid long before that term existed.
I think most of us who are adults now were. The constantly hovering parent phenomena seems to have been in the last 10-15 years or so. People have gotten weirdly over protective of their spawn even when it clearly doesn't matter.
Personally I think referring to humans as "free range" is pretty degrading. I'm guessing it was meant as a joke but it isn't a very funny one.
There are a number of upvoted posts on this thread stating "I used to (walk/bus/bike/etc) alone, and I was fine." That's survivor bias - only the people who weren't abducted will be able to post that. If you were one of the kids who walked alone and weren't fine, then whatever bad thing happened to you may prevent you from being here today to write a post (eg: those kids may be dead.)
I don't like having to post this, as I feel strongly that giving kids autonomy is important for building self-reliance, but flawed arguments only weaken our position.
[Walking The Walk] - Posting anon to avoid undoing moderations.
Here in the States, at least here in Wisconsin, kids go to school on their own all the time. My daughter is in 2nd grade and has been walking the whole block to school since she started 1st grade in 2014. As mentioned previously, I think this is more of protecting the act than actually allowing it.
Federal laws (including the Constitution do not "permit" things like freedom of speech (for example); they prohibit Congress from infringing upon rights that already naturally exist independently of government. That's why the First Amendment starts with "Congress shall make no law..."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well, and it works that way in many places in the US as well. But unlike Switzerland, the US is a huge country with many different regional cultures. What's OK in SLC may not be OK in Berkeley and vice versa. Imagine that.
How about, "not imprisoned", or maybe "not under parental police state control"?
mark, who a few times walked home from school, uphill, both ways, in the snow, by himself
We are a therapeutic foster home working with difficult children...
15 years ago I had a school therapist tell me with one child "if they can't behave in the car on the way to school, kick them out and let them walk the rest of the way." It's an effective tool.
I tried that again a couple of years ago. I pulled over 1/2 mile from school, and told the child to walk. I followed to make sure nothing happened. Someone called the police. I asked the cop "since when is it illegal for a child to walk to school?" He told me he could arrest me for child endangerment, but he wasn't going to bother because the DA would throw it out. Then he called DHHS, and they took the child from me because I "used bad judgment". A couple of months later they gave me the child again because no one else could handle her.
Most school districts don't provide transportation for students living within a mile of the school; some up to 2 miles. So how were all those students getting to school without putting their parents in legal jeopardy? This has been my argument in favor of free range parenting all along - why is it legal for the government to mandate that your child walk to school, but not legal for you to let your child walk to the park?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
But maybe we should pass a law protecting milk drinkers just in case. There are a lot of cops out there with nothing to do.
It's normal for kids (especially those going to a private school in another city) to take public transit to and from school starting at 1st grade. My commute was a 5 minute walk to a station near home, and about 40 minutes and 2 transfers to a train station where the school bus picked up the kids.
There was actual a recent article citing that - while major medical cases involving children have generally gone down - there has been a major increase in cases of panic attacks, anxiety, etc. Experts are starting to correlate this "over protectiveness" to a lack of social development, which later leads to issues such as anxiety or a generally poor ability to deal with stress, conflict, etc.
I guess once every facet of living a life is declared illegal, we need to wait around for Big Daddy Government to give us permission to do anything. Thank you Big Daddy Government for bestowing your grace upon us proles and allowing us to allow your children to walk to school. Signed Sincerely, another humble subject of the "land of the free."
After their big push to get flying drones registered, they were really not looking forward to requiring the registration of hovermoms and helicopter daddies.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
That would be even more suitable as South Park material.
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Students are EXPECTED to walk either 1 mile (K-5) or 1.5 miles (6-12) to school - districts that bus students closer to school than that are said to be offering 'Courtesy Busing'.
As I posted in a discussion on the eBay seller forums almost half a year ago (in a thread where someone was freaking out about some listings showing kids in the photos)
We are going to need larger trees soon, because what with every one having a child predator, a terrorist, a drug dealer, and a Commie hiding behind it, there won't be any room for the next media boogeyman that comes along to keep the masses in their permanent state of fear and distrust.
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It seems that most laws and regulations enacted in the past half century in the United States serve not to punish actual harm done, or the intent to do harm, but to punish the potential to do harm.
Stop it. Already. Unless you can show intent to harm or resultant harm don't punish people for excersising their liberties just because there is potential for harm.
It's like awarding the Nobel Peace Prize on the potential to go good. Or rewarding innovative designs before they are implemented.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.