playdates for 4yo

Hillary Israeli wrote:
In ,
bizby40 wrote:

*5 and beyond is school age. It's incredibly rare for a parent to
*stay (at least, I've never had it happen). Generally the kids ride
*home together on the bus, and it's quite possible that the first
*time the parents even meet will be when the visiting child's
*parent picks them up.

I remember riding the bus with a friend as a child. Does that still
happen? My kids are still pre-bus-age, but I downloaded the pdf file about
bus-riding-rules from our local district over the summer, and it was
explicit and emphatic in the section covering which kids can ride which
buses - THERE IS NO BUS-CHANGING ALLOWED! If you are signed up for Bus 42,
you ride that bus, or no bus, end of story.

Our kids (in elementary school) just have to have
a note in order to ride a different bus than usual. By
middle school or high school, I don't think they check.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Hillary Israeli wrote:
In ,
bizby40 wrote:

*5 and beyond is school age. It's incredibly rare for a parent to
*stay (at least, I've never had it happen). Generally the kids ride
*home together on the bus, and it's quite possible that the first
*time the parents even meet will be when the visiting child's
*parent picks them up.

I remember riding the bus with a friend as a child. Does that still
happen?

Some districts don't allow it if their ridership is already at
capacity. But I think it's still common in many places to allow it if
the kid has a note from the parent.


My kids are still pre-bus-age, but I downloaded the pdf file about
bus-riding-rules from our local district over the summer, and it was
explicit and emphatic in the section covering which kids can ride which
buses - THERE IS NO BUS-CHANGING ALLOWED! If you are signed up for Bus 42,
you ride that bus, or no bus, end of story.

Having sat through innumerable transportation committee meetings, I'd
bet that this refers primarily to families wanting the kid to ride the
bus home on T TH when an adult is home; for the kid to ride to a
sitter's house on MWF, when that adult works late; and for the kid to
ride a third bus to Scout meeting at a leader's house on the second W
of every month.

Lori G.

Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Hillary Israeli wrote:
In ,
bizby40 wrote:

*5 and beyond is school age. It's incredibly rare for a parent to
*stay (at least, I've never had it happen). Generally the kids ride
*home together on the bus, and it's quite possible that the first
*time the parents even meet will be when the visiting child's
*parent picks them up.

I remember riding the bus with a friend as a child. Does that still
happen? My kids are still pre-bus-age, but I downloaded the pdf file about
bus-riding-rules from our local district over the summer, and it was
explicit and emphatic in the section covering which kids can ride which
buses - THERE IS NO BUS-CHANGING ALLOWED! If you are signed up for Bus 42,
you ride that bus, or no bus, end of story.

What about the kids that are in care before and after school and would
have to ride another bus? Surely there is some way to deal with that.
I just don't believe that they can afford to be that dogmatic. This
sounds like another time when they've had kids and parents abusing the
privilege, and so they've killed a gnat with a hammer.

Our kids (in elementary school) just have to have
a note in order to ride a different bus than usual. By
middle school or high school, I don't think they check.

My kids rode different buses all the time. Of course I was a teacher
and my kids were riding to the home of another teacher/friend.

DD#1 and DD#2 have been in a situation where they have no buses
because their kids were in parochial schools. They provided the
transportation. And dd#2 picks up other people's children fairly
frequently, and v.v. DD#1's youngest now rides the bus to public
school but I don't know that he rides other buses. I think in the
morning he sometimes is dropped off at another mom's home and gets the
bus from there when his parents both have to be at work before he
leaves.

DD#3's oldest child walks to school. DS's children ride the bus,
except his oldest is in a G&T middle school and has to take two buses,
so sometimes his parents pick him up at school because the ride takes
so long.



grandma Rosalie

Rosalie B. wrote:

What about the kids that are in care before and after school and would
have to ride another bus? Surely there is some way to deal with that.
I just don't believe that they can afford to be that dogmatic. This
sounds like another time when they've had kids and parents abusing the
privilege, and so they've killed a gnat with a hammer.

Most school systems *ask* parents where the kids
are to go after school and assign them to the appropriate
routes. Most after school programs send busses or vans to
the school to pick up the kids. If a child is going to
home daycare, the parents notify the school system where
the child is going to daycare and the child is assigned
to that bus.
The problem is not parents abusing the system.
They have these rules because the school is responsible
for delivering the children safely to the bus stop. If
they allow the children to hop on whichever bus they
want, how can they guarantee that? Parents don't like
it when the system loses their kids. The only way the
system can keep track of the kids is for the system
to know what busses they're supposed to be on and
make sure they get on the proper bus.

Best wishes,
Ericka

In article ,
Rosalie B. wrote:

I remember riding the bus with a friend as a child. Does that still
happen? My kids are still pre-bus-age, but I downloaded the pdf file about
bus-riding-rules from our local district over the summer, and it was
explicit and emphatic in the section covering which kids can ride which
buses - THERE IS NO BUS-CHANGING ALLOWED! If you are signed up for Bus 42,
you ride that bus, or no bus, end of story.

What about the kids that are in care before and after school and would
have to ride another bus? Surely there is some way to deal with that.
I just don't believe that they can afford to be that dogmatic. This
sounds like another time when they've had kids and parents abusing the
privilege, and so they've killed a gnat with a hammer.

Perhaps.

I know in some districts, their position is that they provide
transportation to and from *home* -- and that's all there is to it.
Parents are responsible for everything else.

Education funding being what it is, I can understand some of this. If
nothing else, they may not have enough staff to try to supervise bus
changes at a larger elementary school: much easier to just have a
single list, and not have to cope with changes.

Having said that, I grew up in the country, where everyone rode yellow
school buses. In elementary school, we could ride home with a friend
with a note from our parents, and it was fairly common. By high school,
I don't think folks paid much attention to what we did -- if I jumped on
a different bus to go home with a friend, I don't recall anyone even
caring. (In fact, after I started college -- just a mile or so from the
high school -- I shagged a ride on the public school bus once or twice
when my car broke down. The benefits of rural/small town life!)
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

Ericka Kammerer ) writes:
Catherine Woodgold wrote:
Ericka Kammerer ) writes:

You further raise my hackles a bit by the
couple of comments you have made along the lines of
"people will have these suspicions until society
no longer values marital fidelity." That strongly
implies (so strongly that it's more a statement
than an implication) that you believe that valuing
marital fidelity (and living by those values) is
incompatible with a policy allowing married men
or women to be in private with members of the
opposite sex, or at least those who haven't attained
the status of close family friend or tradesman.
Since many of us here live lives where marital
fidelity is valued and achieved despite not giving
a hoot about being scrupulous about being alone
with members of the opposite sex, that is naturally
going to rankle a bit.

I think there's a middle ground that you're missing.

There's a middle ground in terms of *actions*,
but not a middle ground in *theory*. If you believe
that society valuing marital fidelity is associated
with not allowing married people to be in the company
of those of the opposite sex in private, then that's
what you believe. If you don't, you don't. Circumstances
may cause you to *act* in accordance with those beliefs
or not, as might competing values, but it was the
assertion that the two were related that I was
challenging.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Well, the approximate quote you gave was
"people will have these suspicions until society
no longer values marital fidelity." I don't
see that the other things you said necessarily
follow from that at all. The middle ground I meant
was that one could believe this approximate
quote and at the same time not believe that
people should not be allowed to be alone together, etc.

The phrase "take a button and sew a vest on it"
springs to mind.

Do you disagree with the approximate quote? That
is, do you believe it's possible that there will
be a society in the future that values marital
fidelity but in which people don't have "those
suspicions"? (I'm just trying to clarify what
is or is not being argued about here.)

--
Cathy Woodgold
http://www.ncf.ca/~an588/par_home.html
We are all Iraqis now.

"Hillary Israeli" wrote in message
...
In ,
bizby40 wrote:

*5 and beyond is school age. It's incredibly rare for a parent to
*stay (at least, I've never had it happen). Generally the kids ride
*home together on the bus, and it's quite possible that the first
*time the parents even meet will be when the visiting child's
*parent picks them up.

I remember riding the bus with a friend as a child. Does that still
happen? My kids are still pre-bus-age, but I downloaded the pdf file about
bus-riding-rules from our local district over the summer, and it was
explicit and emphatic in the section covering which kids can ride which
buses - THERE IS NO BUS-CHANGING ALLOWED! If you are signed up for Bus 42,
you ride that bus, or no bus, end of story.

At our school you can ride home with a friend if you have a note
signed by a parent. If you forget to send a note, you can call
the school. It's pretty lax, but I'm glad it is. I'd hate to be tied
into *never* having them ride home with someone. There have
been a couple of times when I've needed them to go home
with someone else because I wasn't going to be at home for
some reason.

Bizby

"hedgehog42" wrote in message
oups.com...

Hillary Israeli wrote:
My kids are still pre-bus-age, but I downloaded the pdf file about
bus-riding-rules from our local district over the summer, and it was
explicit and emphatic in the section covering which kids can ride which
buses - THERE IS NO BUS-CHANGING ALLOWED! If you are signed up for Bus
42,
you ride that bus, or no bus, end of story.

Having sat through innumerable transportation committee meetings, I'd
bet that this refers primarily to families wanting the kid to ride the
bus home on T TH when an adult is home; for the kid to ride to a
sitter's house on MWF, when that adult works late; and for the kid to
ride a third bus to Scout meeting at a leader's house on the second W
of every month.

I think even that would be allowed at our school. I don't know if
anyone has taken it to that kind of extreme, but we do have kids
that ride the bus home some days and go to afterschool on others.
And we have kids that stay with grandma some days, and go home
on other days.

Rosalie B. wrote:
Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Hillary Israeli wrote:

I remember riding the bus with a friend as a child. Does that still
happen? My kids are still pre-bus-age, but I downloaded the pdf file about
bus-riding-rules from our local district over the summer, and it was
explicit and emphatic in the section covering which kids can ride which
buses - THERE IS NO BUS-CHANGING ALLOWED! If you are signed up for Bus 42,
you ride that bus, or no bus, end of story.

Here, there's no 'spur of the moment' bus changing allowed for the
elementary (k-5) busses, but changes -- or 'inconsistent ridership' is
okay. So if you're riding bus 1 to school on Mondays, you're riding bus
1 to school *every* Monday. If you're taking bus 3 from school on
Monday, you're taking bus 3 from school *every* Monday. You can then
take bus 2 to school on Tuesday, but that's *every* Tuesday, and then
take bus 1 from school *every* Tuesday.

This is set up mainly because they wanted to both allocate the
ridership between bus routes (all 4 of them), and also be flexible
enough to accomodate kids' activities, custody arrangements, and
afterschool care.

What about the kids that are in care before and after school and would
have to ride another bus? Surely there is some way to deal with that.
I just don't believe that they can afford to be that dogmatic. This
sounds like another time when they've had kids and parents abusing the
privilege, and so they've killed a gnat with a hammer.

I think the policy here is both flexible and, well, inflexible enough
so that the bus driver has a list of who is on her bus for every route,
every day, as does the child's teacher. Our school district is small,
but I could see how kids could get lost, or fabricate playdates.
Likewise, for K & 1st grade, kids need to be put *on* the bus with an
adult present, and must be met at the stop *by* an adult or the bus
just takes them back to the school (for afterschool care).

Our kids (in elementary school) just have to have
a note in order to ride a different bus than usual. By
middle school or high school, I don't think they check.

By middle/high school, they don't check (ridership also drops off, as
there's no free bus from 6th grade forward). In elementary, kids also
need a note if they're going to be picked up (instead of their usual
dismissal route), or going to be walking (instead of usually being
picked up or riding a bus). And walkers for K-2 need to be signed out
by their 'walker partner' (older sibling or parent or nanny, etc.).

Caledonia

Catherine Woodgold wrote:

Well, the approximate quote you gave was
"people will have these suspicions until society
no longer values marital fidelity." I don't
see that the other things you said necessarily
follow from that at all. The middle ground I meant
was that one could believe this approximate
quote and at the same time not believe that
people should not be allowed to be alone together, etc.

But even the *notion* that the two are
related presupposes a relationship I don't agree
with. It is not necessary for a society to
value keeping married people out of private
situations with members of the opposite sex
in order for that society to value marital
fidelity. If you tell me that a society allows
men and women to work and socialize together
without chaperones, even when married, I can't
make any conclusion that the society doesn't
value (or practice) marital fidelity any more
or less than another society in which married
men and women are kept apart from temptation
or the appearance of impropriety. So, to make
that statement as an argument for why a position
of separating married folk from temptation is
is inaccurate in my opinion.

Do you disagree with the approximate quote? That
is, do you believe it's possible that there will
be a society in the future that values marital
fidelity but in which people don't have "those
suspicions"?

Absolutely I believe that. I think many
people feel that way right now, much less in the
future. I know very few people who find ordinary
socializing between married folk and opposite sex
friends to be suspicious, even if they're not
accompanied by chaperones all the time. Therefore,
I do not think that this sort of separation
is not at all necessary in order to promote or
achieve valuing marital fidelity.
I do not deny that some groups *both*
value marital fidelity *and* "avoidance of
temptation." I simply do not believe it is
necessary, or even particularly worthwhile.

Best wishes,
Ericka