Syracuse
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.
Get over it.
You're absolutely right. My wife is a teacher in a small town school system. They Re forced to bus a kid that lives directly across the street from the school. (a small two lane road).
Never did like those vice principles. They live by the rule of law. Sending the youngster out in frost bite weather to find his way home. Enough already.
i am sure your wife would never dream of changing a child's going home routine without informing that child's parents. taking the bus versus walking, IS NOT the point here. the point is that the parents were not informed that their child's normal dismissal routine was being changed on the spot.
The most recent statistics I could find:
Approximately 203,900 children were abducted in 1999 by family members.
Approximately 58,200 non-family abductions occurred in 1999.
Non-family abductors are as likely to be known by the family as to be strangers.
Only 115 of these abductions were the most serious type involving a child taken by a stranger and kept for ransom, held overnight, or killed.
http://www.family.org/cforum/fosi/pornography/facts/a0026315.cfm
Sorry, I can't find any statistics on injuries. See my comments on post 218 to put things in perspective.
It sounds like this school is as inept as my niece's. In kindergarten they put her on the wrong bus and had no idea where she was for over two hours. The bus driver wasn't that bright and had no phone. This year, the same stupid inept principle and staff did it again. The bus driver had a phone but was too stupid to bring the children wrongly assigned to his bus back to the school. He was emphatically told more than once to bring them back to the school. They were two hours late. What if he would have just told them to get off at the last bus stop? This was in a city with horrible traffic and other dangers. Syracuse isn't a small town where everybody knows everybody.
I remember an article about a five year old being forced off the bus even though the child kept saying that he did not live their. He was miles away from his home on a busy busy street.
Where's common sense in all of this? Oh yeah, it's been affirmatively actioned out.
Not even. It is unacceptable in this day and age to release 5 year olds period.
Schools generally have before and aftercare for working parents, and I find it unimaginable that a 5 year old would be sent out alone in any circumstance.
For some reason, the mom in this article reminds me of Kyle's on "South Park."
What is being left out, is what the schools policy regarding Kindergarten students is.
In our school, they do not release primary school (k-2)students without an authorized adult.
'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?'
If she had gone to a meeting with the school first and the school did nothing, I might see her point, but it was easier to run in front of the TV cameras first. That's where my sympathy for her was lost.
Safety #'s should include injuries as well. Otherwise, it's not a safety record. It's a fatality record.
Get real! My "baby", now 42, walked about 5 blocks to school when she was 7--35 years ago. No busy intersections to cross, but she usually walked with her older brother and sister who went to the middle school across the street. One day, for forgotten reasons, they didn't come across to the elem school for her, so she started home alone. A pervert in a car tried to snatch her, she screamed and started to run, and a construction worker ran to her rescue and scared the perv. off. That was 35 years ago. I would have a heart attack if any of my grandchildren had to walk alone even one block in today's world--it just takes seconds to get snatched.
In my husband's hometown, a sleepy little nothing of a Texas town, about 20 years ago a man in a pickup truck stopped, grabbed a 10 year old off his bike and carted him off. Luckily hey caught him--but he did that in daylight--threw the kid in the truck and his bike in the back.
A friend of mine was standing in a cash register line with her daughter who was holding a baby and a beautiful three year old standing by them, when a woman grabbed the three-year old and ran through the store. They found her in the back under a rack of long clothing, changing the child's clothes and covering her hair so she would not be recognized. Grief!!!!--
And you wouldn't be p.o'd about this fiasco of a 5 year old crossing busy streets and walking alone? THE WORLD IS FULL OF PREDATORS!
vaudine
I agree. She should have run to the school first, and pummeled the a#$$#*le that let her child wander off. The TV cameras would have come anyway.
BLL, FWIW, I wouldn't let a five year old walk home alone, either.
Yeah, but I bet you wouldn't parade him on TV as you "baby" either.
You're obviously male...did you ever see one of those nature shows where the momma lion would do anything to protect her cubs? Yeh, it's just like that for most momma humans too. Just get over it already.
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