For those of you who live in Rural areas...

[kdonnel]

I don’t live in a rural area and school buses don’t always pickup close to the students home.

When my neighborhood was under construction the bus only came to the pool parking lot at the front of the neighborhood. Once construction started to wind down the bus started going through the neighborhood.

Just down the road there is another neighborhood built much denser with narrow streets in an attempt to slow traffic. Despite that neighborhood being done for a couple years the bus still picks up and drops off at the main neighborhood entrance. Some of the kids have just over a mile from their home to the bus stop.

 

[china mom]

k-12 ride the same bus in our district, only difference is drivers will not permit students under a certain grade/age to exit absent an adult being present for their pickup.

Funny story. I didn't realize this was a rule until one day they called me to say that the driver was in front of my house and would not let my doughtier off the bus until there was an adult present. They had been letting my son and daughter get off the bus without an adult for years even though they were both (as I found out later) "too young" but because DS was so big, they didn't seem to have a problem with is. Then one day, he stayed home sick and suddenly it was an issue with my teeny, tiny daughter (they are two years apart in age but, at the time, 100+ pounds apart. It turns out that she did make the grade cut off at the time (third grade) but the driver assumed that she was younger than she was.

The irony is that the county deemed it perfectly safe for small children to wait, unattended at the end of the road, where anyone could have snatched them up. But it was too scary to let them walk home from the bus stop. Also, walkers were allowed to walk home without an adult meeting them - what is the difference?

 

[Moliphino]

k-12 ride the same bus in our district, only difference is drivers will not permit students under a certain grade/age to exit absent an adult being present for their pickup.

We have K-6, 7 & 8, and high school at different times. We also have the requirement for kindergarteners and first graders that an adult or older sibling needs to be there to get them off the bus.

 

[dez1978]

Would they drop off on the other side of the road (when they normally pass coming home) if there was an adult there? With 8 kids, maybe the families would be willing to take turns.

There isn't anywhere for anyone to wait over there. the road doesn't have any shoulders, so it's pretty much white line, ditch, fence. maybe 5 ft between the fence and white line. I guess an adult could stand over there and wait, but I don't think they would do that.

I hadn't thought about asking the school board. 3 of the members are just dads that like to be involved, and 2 of them are wrestling coaches, so I've gotten to know them pretty well. I may try to talk to them.

 

[barkley]

I don’t live in a rural area and school buses don’t always pickup close to the students home.

When my neighborhood was under construction the bus only came to the pool parking lot at the front of the neighborhood. Once construction started to wind down the bus started going through the neighborhood.

Just down the road there is another neighborhood built much denser with narrow streets in an attempt to slow traffic. Despite that neighborhood being done for a couple years the bus still picks up and drops off at the main neighborhood entrance. Some of the kids have just over a mile from their home to the bus stop.

the neighborhood i grew up in wasn't what i would consider rural but it was at the furthest outskirts of the county the district i attended was located in-our area totaled just shy of 8 square miles and we had how many bus stops????? 3 unless you were lucky enough to live right by one of those stops you were in for a loooooooooooong walk.

walkers were allowed to walk home without an adult meeting them - what is the difference?

the district we live in permits NO walkers (or bike riders). students must be transported by bus or private vehicle-NO EXCEPTIONS. this is b/c of the roads that boarder the one and only campus that houses the only 3 schools in the district-one is a highway and the other is technically some kind of 'farm road' that massive farm equipment uses, neither of which legally permit pedestrian or bike traffic (at least for minors).

We have K-6, 7 & 8, and high school at different times. We also have the requirement for kindergarteners and first graders that an adult or older sibling needs to be there to get them off the bus.

our k-8th share the same physical buildings on campus, 9-12 are in separate. there is a 5 minute time difference between the start and end time of the 2 locations but only to facilitate the busses moving from one area of the campus to another.

i felt so fortunate that the district kept all the kids on the identical schedule, it made it so much easier with days off/minimum days. i had co-workers back in the day who had kids in different schools all within a single district but attending different days and hours, with different days and breaks off my bff and her dh worked in the same district their 2 kids attended-they NEVER shared the same schedule over the time their kids were in attendance (had a few random single weeks per year off together).

 

[dez1978]

ur k-8th share the same physical buildings on campus, 9-12 are in separate. there is a 5 minute time difference between the start and end time of the 2 locations but only to facilitate the busses moving from one area of the campus to another.

i felt so fortunate that the district kept all the kids on the identical schedule, it made it so much easier with days off/minimum days. i had co-workers back in the day who had kids in different schools all within a single district but attending different days and hours, with different days and breaks off my bff and her dh worked in the same district their 2 kids attended-they NEVER shared the same schedule over the time their kids were in attendance (had a few random single weeks per year off together).

That is pretty much how ours is. 3 buildings on 1 campus. Just under 700 kids K-12.
Our school has random breaks that don't coincide with any other school around us except T-giving and xmas break. Like we never, ever have a real spring break, just a 3-4 day weekend over Easter weekend. But we had an extra 3 days off last year before Halloween for some random reason. Next year we don't even have that. But we get out of school mid may so there's that lol. My kids last day was yesterday,

 

[barkley]

That is pretty much how ours is. 3 buildings on 1 campus. Just under 700 kids K-12.
Our school has random breaks that don't coincide with any other school around us except T-giving and xmas break. Like we never, ever have a real spring break, just a 3-4 day weekend over Easter weekend. But we had an extra 3 days off last year before Halloween for some random reason. Next year we don't even have that. But we get out of school mid may so there's that lol. My kids last day was yesterday,

yeah-our district schedule doesn't match up with the other districts around us either. we also end up ending earlier b/c despite the rural routes being much more challenging during the snowy winter months the largely farmer bus driving staff is hard pressed to not be able to get through so we don't have to make up for a bunch of snow days like the cities and towns around us (i think one ends up ending over 3 weeks after us but starting back up at the same time).

 

[Funfire240]

In our Rural area K-8 stops in front of the house without the need to cross the street for k-4. Schools are broken down k-4, 5 & 6, then 7 & 8, then high school 9-12. K-4 will be in front of the house with no need to cross. 5-8 they still stop in front of the house but not necessarily where they don't have to cross.
High School is different. Both stops we were offered are 1 mile from our house. After some back and forth I was able to get it changed where DD was on a bus to the 5/6 school and would end up on the same bus as my 7th grader. Otherwise she would be expected to get picked up at the stop or walk along roads with no sidewalks that are 55 mph. Granted she will have her driver's license near the end of 10th grade but until then it was a very stressful situation until we got it fixed.

 

[Moliphino]

our k-8th share the same physical buildings on campus, 9-12 are in separate. there is a 5 minute time difference between the start and end time of the 2 locations but only to facilitate the busses moving from one area of the campus to another.

i felt so fortunate that the district kept all the kids on the identical schedule, it made it so much easier with days off/minimum days. i had co-workers back in the day who had kids in different schools all within a single district but attending different days and hours, with different days and breaks off my bff and her dh worked in the same district their 2 kids attended-they NEVER shared the same schedule over the time their kids were in attendance (had a few random single weeks per year off together).

The schools all go by the same district calendar for days off, just the start times are staggered (I think so they don't need to have as many buses). Middle/high school starts about an hour earlier than elementary*.

*ish. There are two towns in the district. The high school is shared. The larger town has 3 elementary schools and a middle school (7/8), the smaller town has one school for K-8. The high school and middle school are at about the same start/end times, then the elementary schools and the K-8 have the same start/end times. All of them have the same days off and early dismissal schedule.

 

[tvguy]

i'll speak to this only b/c my youngest is special needs and i had ALLOT of experience with school transportation that involved engaging public advocates very versed in federal and state laws-

not all special needs kids qualify for transportation. even those that do have no right to any altered transportation access beyond their traditional bus stops except within VERY LIMITED situations, per federal law-

Transportation decisions are made at IEP meetings on an individual basis. If a student with an IEP cannot get to/from school the same way as non-disabled students for a disability-related reason, then the district must provide transportation for the student. This generally means door-to-door transportation, both ways, between home and school. If the student needs transportation to benefit from education, the district supplies that transportation.

in the case of rural districts where busses do not go down private roads or have miles in between bus stops the legal presumption is that non disabled students are being privately transported to the bus stops SO it is therefore presumed that a disabled student can be transported to the identical bus stop in the identical manner even if they are going to ultimately be transported on a different bus (the type that have lifts, accommodate wheel chairs...).

You clearly have more experience with this than I do. We had two students on my street who qualified. They lived at the end of a cul-de-sac and the bus picked them up and dropped them off at their house, then had to try and navigate the cul-de-sac to get out. Usually the bus driver need to back up 4 times to get out and some neighbors raised concerns about the safety of the bus having to back up multiple times to get in and out. Highway Patrol investigated and the school district said the law (not sure if Federal or State) required "door to door" bus service. Mind you, the bus could have dropped them off safely at the inlet to our street, and the two children could have walked less than one block to their house, but the school district said that wasn't within the law and their hands were tied. These students had no physical or mental disabilities, they were ESL students and that is what qualified them for bus service.

 

[OneOftheB's]

We live in the suburbs, but on a strange little road that was once very rural. The county still has it listed as a "rural route" because it is only about 15 feet wide (think land and a half, so you have to pull over or drive in someone's yard if you meet another car). There is no turn around and it's a dead end road that is about a mile long in total. My son and all of the other kids on the street are picked up at the front of the road.

I grew up in a very rural area and while the school transportation department intended for all the students to congregate at a community club house for pick up, that wasn't an option for many of us latchkey kids. I would have had to walk along the side of a busy state road that had no sidewalk and a steep shoulder with deep ditch, so the bus picked a few of us up along the busy road at the end of our driveway. I do remember waiting for the bus my first day of middle school and seeing the bus blow by and having to call my grandparents when it was obvious I wasn't catching the bus that day. I was fortunate that the lady who drove my bus lived nearby and understood the county plan wasn't reasonable, so I really wonder if Ms Southern took it upon herself to change the policy. She was also my much older brother's bus driver when he was in school.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

My town is a lot less rural than it used to be, and I live in a housing plan now, but even here the buses don't stop at each person's house. The kids have to walk to a bus stop and there's only a few stops in the plan so some of the kids have a big hike. When we lived on our farm my son was dropped off at the main road and had to walk up the long road to our house.

 

[sasywtch]

When my older kids rode the bus in CA, we were lucky that the stop was right at my driveway. About 20 kids got off because there was a housing tract behind us with an alley to walk to back there. My younger kids, when we moved to OK it was so different (but I see by here, it's not so different but they do not do this in CA). our town had a K-2, 3-5,, 6-9 then high school. Each school ended 5 minutes after so the bus would start at school 1 then make it's way to each one ending at the high school. The little kids sat in front so forth. We lived on the outskirt of town with the cows. That bus left the last school, went over the river, down two miles and then went down 2 streets. All the kids on the bus lived down those two streets. I lived on a dead end street so each kid on our street got dropped off in front of their house and then the driver turned the bus around, dropped them off on that side and went back to the bus barn. 15 minutes that bus driver was done for the day. Here, you get the elementary bus, the junior high bus and then the high school bus (if you live where there is bus service).

 

[jimmymc]

We lived on a loop, and while the bus specified a few stops, the driver knew everyone and would stop right in front of all the houses.

 

[tvguy]

When my older kids rode the bus in CA, we were lucky that the stop was right at my driveway. About 20 kids got off because there was a housing tract behind us with an alley to walk to back there. My younger kids, when we moved to OK it was so different (but I see by here, it's not so different but they do not do this in CA). our town had a K-2, 3-5,, 6-9 then high school. Each school ended 5 minutes after so the bus would start at school 1 then make it's way to each one ending at the high school. The little kids sat in front so forth. We lived on the outskirt of town with the cows. That bus left the last school, went over the river, down two miles and then went down 2 streets. All the kids on the bus lived down those two streets. I lived on a dead end street so each kid on our street got dropped off in front of their house and then the driver turned the bus around, dropped them off on that side and went back to the bus barn. 15 minutes that bus driver was done for the day. Here, you get the elementary bus, the junior high bus and then the high school bus (if you live where there is bus service).

Interesting. I didn't think they wanted High School students mixing with First Graders, for example. Like I mentioned no more buses here in the San Juan Unified school district since they went to open enrollment. No way to set up a route since few if any students go to their neighborhood school anymore, and quite a few go to the school closest to their parents work.

 

[dez1978]

Interesting. I didn't think they wanted High School students mixing with First Graders, for example. Like I mentioned no more buses here in the San Juan Unified school district since they went to open enrollment. No way to set up a route since few if any students go to their neighborhood school anymore, and quite a few go to the school closest to their parents work.

Heck, my 3rd grader was sitting with high schoolers this year. He learned many things on this bus this year...

I don't mind my kids walking at all. It doesn't bother me that they don't go door to door. I am just irritated that they pass by the drop off at the start of the route, like 15 min after school lets out. But they won't drop them off then because they'd have to cross the road, so they have to ride the bus an hour longer than they should have to. We live 7 miles from the school, it's stupid for them to be on the bus for more than an hour.

 

[tvguy]

Heck, my 3rd grader was sitting with high schoolers this year. He learned many things on this bus this year...

I don't mind my kids walking at all. It doesn't bother me that they don't go door to door. I am just irritated that they pass by the drop off at the start of the route, like 15 min after school lets out. But they won't drop them off then because they'd have to cross the road, so they have to ride the bus an hour longer than they should have to. We live 7 miles from the school, it's stupid for them to be on the bus for more than an hour.

Wow, that is a long ways. Our school district WAS well laid out well. They built schools in a grid. Every elementary school student was no more than 1/2 mile from their school. Every Junior High School student was no more than one mile from their school. And Every High School students was no more than 2 miles from their school
So if I missed the bus in Elementary School or High School, it was an easy walk home. Junior High Schools had no bus service. But due to drastically dropping enrollment, schools have closed and in 2000 we went with open enrollment where few students attend their closest school so putting together a bus route was impossible so buses went away.

 

[dez1978]

Wow, that is a long ways. Our school district WAS well laid out well. They built schools in a grid. Every elementary school student was no more than 1/2 mile from their school. Every Junior High School student was no more than one mile from their school. And Every High School students was no more than 2 miles from their school
So if I missed the bus in Elementary School or High School, it was an easy walk home. Junior High Schools had no bus service. But due to drastically dropping enrollment, schools have closed and in 2000 we went with open enrollment where few students attend their closest school so putting together a bus route was impossible so buses went away.

7 miles is a long ways??? I seriously doubt there are more than 20 students within a mile of our school lol. There are probably more cows within a mile than students. I can't believe you even had buses if you were less than a mile from school. Most districts around here you have to live more than 1.5 miles away from school to even ride the bus.

I grew up easily 20 miles from where I went to school at, so 7 miles doesn't seem bad to me. It's funny to me how different the perspective is from someone who's lived in a big city for most of their life vs someone who's always lived in the country.

 

[tvguy]

7 miles is a long ways??? I seriously doubt there are more than 20 students within a mile of our school lol. There are probably more cows within a mile than students. I can't believe you even had buses if you were less than a mile from school. Most districts around here you have to live more than 1.5 miles away from school to even ride the bus.

I grew up easily 20 miles from where I went to school at, so 7 miles doesn't seem bad to me. It's funny to me how different the perspective is from someone who's lived in a big city for most of their life vs someone who's always lived in the country.

My mom grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan Canada. She attended a one room school house. Yup, one mile walk through the snow. At least it was flat. No buses. Oh, did I mention the school was on the corner of her dad's farm and that he donated the land for the school? Oh, and no cutting school as my Grandparents rented a room to the teacher so the teacher lived with my mom and her siblings. School only went to 8th grade. For High School you had to go 100 miles to a boarding school.

 

[barkley]

My mom grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan Canada. She attended a one room school house. Yup, one mile walk through the snow. At least it was flat. No buses. Oh, did I mention the school was on the corner of her dad's farm and that he donated the land for the school? Oh, and no cutting school as my Grandparents rented a room to the teacher so the teacher lived with my mom and her siblings. School only went to 8th grade. For High School you had to go 100 miles to a boarding school.

both my kids attended 1 room school houses through 8th grade-they still exist in the united states, i have one near my current home and lived near one in your neck of the woods.