Posted on 01/20/2005 4:49:01 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
SYRACUSE NY--When Lynnee Westbrook thinks about what her son went through her eyes well up. She says her two children take the school bus everyday, so she can't understand why the vice principal at McKinley Brighton told her 5-year-old son to walk home.
Under school policy, students must live more than a mile and a half to be bused. School spokesperson Neil Driscoll says Kevin is listed as a walker and lives on Newell Street, a block away from the school. Westbrook says they actually live on West Brighton Avenue and she doesn't know how the school got that information. She says her son walked several blocks to his daycare, where he gets dropped off after school.
"My baby who is 5-years-old who never walked anywhere a day in his life has to cross over major intersections to get to school to daycare. I felt that was very unacceptable," Westbrook said.
Westbrook says when she contacted the school, the vice principal had no knowledge of her child and said her son may have gotten confused with another conversation she was having with an older student.
"What's the need for him to walk? Why wasn't I informed? If he if missed his bus or whatever, you know that was my point. Nobody contacted me or they didn't contact emergency contact," Westbrook said.
"It was cold and my stuff was falling down, and I had to put my gloves in my book bag. I put my hands in my pocket," said Kevin Jennings, 5-year-old forced to walk home.
Kevin's mom says she wants to get to the bottom of what went wrong. Westbrook says she plans to get to the bottom of this during a meeting with the vice principal of the school Thursday.
Reading this thread, is that surprising?
Did you have to pick up the coal along the train tracks along your way, or did you really have extra coal at home your mom would let you take to school?
You know, I oppose public funding of education. There should be no such thing as taxpayer-funded kindergarten. BUT, I don't envision a solution wherein, say, schools are shut down at this very moment, 9:25 AM EST, the teachers and bus drivers stop in the middle of whatever they're doing, and abandon the kids to their own devices.
If the state is going to mandate compulsory education, and accept custody of very young children in loco parentis, then they can't just throw up their hands and say "Hey, it ain't our kid" as though they bear no responsibility in the matter.
Is everyone with me on this? Quit coddling these animals and start the executions on these predators? And have each execution widely telecast.
'If there had been some bad outcome, I'd probably think it was worth being upset over. But there wasn't.'
Shhh--you're making sense here--can't have that now :)
Classy.
Would the child be less worthy of your concern if the Father was not involved in his child's life?
"She says her son walked several blocks to his daycare, where he gets dropped off after school.
And now she demands that the State transport her kid all over the place.
Where is she? Couldn't she walk with him, or arrange for a relative to pick him up?"
I assume the mother was at work and it was prearranged that the bus would drop her son off at daycare, rather than at home. Sadly, this is more common, than not, today.
I certainly wouldn't call it 'having the bus transport her kid all over the place.'
As far as the child having to walk to the daycare, I too would be very upset as a parent.
There are too many perverts out there to think about letting your child walk around in a city without a responsible adult, let alone traffic concerns for a 5-year-old.
What "responsibility"? All she did was go on TV, cry and goad her kid into crying too.
The article says she has a meeting scheduled with the Vice Principal for later this week. Why wouldn't she go to the meeting and see if she can resolve this without parading her five year old "baby" on TV first? With all due respect, do you really think the other boys in kindergarten aren't going to give her son holy hell for being referred to as a "baby" on TV?
A critical life lesson is accepting the responsibility for and facing the consequences of life's missteps.
A lesson she patently refuses to teach her son, based on the article.
Times of war you must have deficit spending. Times of war and recession you must have even more deficit spending, and tax cuts to prime economic growth. I think most conservatives understand the need for the government growth that can be dealt with after the issues that prompted this growth are resolved. Sorry to digress. Wrong thread, let's meet on the proper thread.
Come on people, you are both acting like 2 feuding Baptists...Remember Christ wants us to love one another even if we disagree!
And Luckily, from the sound of it, it was a mature 5 year old.
I take the kids to school whenever I am off, and I guarantee you as small as my town is 1.5 miles long, about 6 blocks wide) Half of the kids at 5, would not make the trip accurately.
If you live in some lovely Bucolic setting, where kidlets are free to wander before they are even in school that is one thing, but in most suburban climes there is far too much car traffic for 5 year olds to be out wandering around.
"Big government" only happens if we let it happen.
The people here demanding action are, in essence, demanding more government intrusion.
I judge situations by the actions of the parties, not their affiliations.
If the private citizen is a screw up or an ass, in a given case, I call them on that, regardless of what government agency is on the other side.
Here, the mother is overreacting and her overreaction is right out of the whole Hillary Clinton "It takes a village" playbook.
40-50 years ago when you were a kid they used to put the "mentally unstable" in facilities where they weren't a harm to society. Nowadays they are free to roam the streets. It's definately a different world out there and a 5 year old, who has NOT been prepared to walk alone from school to home should not have been put in that situation.
Numbers please, not assertions.
When you learn to read for content, you'll see I never said not to keep an eye on your kids.
Actually, I only demand that the LAW be followed. If I leave my 5 Y.O. locked in a car, while I run into the 7-11, for milk, that constitutes Child Endangerment, the Principal should be charged accordingly.
In Our district, Children are not released in the lower grades, except on SIGHT of the appointed adult.
My point is, each year 27 children die in a school bus related accident. Of those 27, 7 are passengers and 20 are pedestrians. That's 27 deaths out of 8.8 billion passenger trips each year. If you ask me, that's a pretty good safety record.
All the kids are "safely" ensconced with their boob tubes and play stations.
LOL, one of those "fun" moments. Yikes, br-r-r-r.
And for the record, my daughter's the "old" one (21). My sons are 5, 9, and 18.
Dan
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