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5-year-old told to walk home (and his mother, of course, has a nervous breakdown)
Copyright © 2005 TWEAN d.b.a. News 10 Now ^ | Updated: 1/20/2005 7:07 AM | By: Carmen Grant, News 10 Now Web Staff

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.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: lazy; twerp
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To: Strategerist
And kidnapping by strangers is still incredibly rare.

The White House issued a grim press release in August of 2002, stating that that each year."More than 58,000 children are abducted by non-family members" and "Many of these children are returned home quickly, but some are not." There are heartbreaking horror stories of children abducted and murdered, seemingly by random, at the hands of strangers. Yet too many times children are abducted, molested, or killed by a neighbor or someone else known to the child or the family.

http://www.whoishe.com/PressReleases/children04152003.html

41 posted on 01/20/2005 5:19:14 AM PST by Netizen (jmo)
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To: exnavy
There were predators in 40's as well, but usually there was only one car in the family and the mom was at home.

My children walked home from school when they were in Kindergarten.

Children today are carted everywhere. True there are few neighborhoods where you can walk to the schools, stores, ect. We are lucky to live in one.
42 posted on 01/20/2005 5:19:23 AM PST by Coldwater Creek ('We voted like we prayed")
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To: xsmommy
Mommy, thanks. You said what I was going to. Whether the Mom lets the kid walk anywhere is not the point. The point is that the kid's routine, what the parent expected, was changed with no notice.

In a perfect world, she would have been told her child was expected to walk, and then she could have made her mind up about the options.

We conservatives gripe about the nanny state, and that seems to apply here. The school decided what was best for the child and it acted, without regard to the parents.

43 posted on 01/20/2005 5:19:39 AM PST by TontoKowalski
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To: Strategerist
Strategerist said: "Actually it's not that different a world and that stuff happened in the "good old days" too. It just gets more publicity now..."

That's an interesting reflection, Strategerist. Just curious, did your home community ever experience the following?

[ Snip ]"...When detained at Eubank Elementary on Tuesday, Banshefsky had a box cutter, Swiss army knives and traces of both methamphetamine and marijuana.

'It looked like he had marijuana and other drugs on him,' said Chief Lovato. 'There was no question: He was on drugs himself...' "

Naked man found roaming elementary school

44 posted on 01/20/2005 5:20:22 AM PST by bd476 (God Bless those in harm's way and bring peace to those who have lost loved ones today.)
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

I don't know man. between the drug dealers, the pervs and the murders that walk our streets every day, you wouldnt want YOUR kids walking the streets, much less some other people's kids....


45 posted on 01/20/2005 5:20:47 AM PST by MikefromOhio (DO I need a new screen name? I am no longer in Iraq :) 18 to keep 8 to change so far)
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To: pettifogger

exactly! my kids are in private school also. it snowed in DC yesterday and traffic was abominable. it normally takes me 20 min to get to my 10 year olds school at 3pm for pickup. yesterday it took me 2.5 hours. i was in bumper to bumper traffic going no more than 5 mph the entire way. i called her school to inform them. they let her use the phone to call me after the first hour and a half to see what progress i had made. i also was able to call my husband to get my other daughter from the subway so that she wouldn't be waiting hours in the cold. who knows what i would have done if my kid were in public school, would someone have stayed with her the 2.5 hours past dismissal til i could get there?


46 posted on 01/20/2005 5:21:13 AM PST by xsmommy
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To: CharacterCounts

again, you totally miss the point. the point is this school screwed up and altered this child's routine without the parent's knowledge. that is unacceptable.


47 posted on 01/20/2005 5:23:04 AM PST by xsmommy
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To: CharacterCounts
The hysteria on this thread is enligtening.

Yes, even if you think a child should not walk home unchaperoned, when so-called conservatives get this bent out of shape over a mistake that resulted in no harm, and see no problem with a mother so overprotective that she calls in a TV news crew over it, you see why government keeps expanding.

If this is what "Small Government Conservatives" do the minute "the children" need something, no wonder "our" side keeps losing.

48 posted on 01/20/2005 5:23:17 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
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To: Publius6961
It was a mistake. He's fine. The school knows about it. It will be fixed. Why literally make a federal case out of it?

That's the way it sounds to me too. But wait it will probably turn out the principle is white and the child is black and it will be spun as a racial crime.

49 posted on 01/20/2005 5:23:27 AM PST by foolscap
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To: TontoKowalski

glad someone else GETS it!


50 posted on 01/20/2005 5:24:04 AM PST by xsmommy
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To: CharacterCounts
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.

How you get from this to the insinuation that the mother is part of a wrong address scheme is beyond me this early in the morning.

51 posted on 01/20/2005 5:24:19 AM PST by EllaMinnow (The horse is dead. Stop beating it!!)
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To: AppyPappy
My question is why would anyone put a 5 year old in a government school. IMO it borders on child abuse. The schools are full of predators and perverts and liberals that are going to damage your child way more that walking home. This kid was pretty smart to know the way to the daycare.
52 posted on 01/20/2005 5:24:50 AM PST by Coldwater Creek ('We voted like we prayed")
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To: Tax-chick
Tax-chick said: "And they wonder why kids are obese these days."

Better: "And they wonder why kids are obese these days"parents enroll their children in a multitude of sports and after school activities at personal risk of earning the dreaded "soccer parent" moniker.

53 posted on 01/20/2005 5:25:28 AM PST by bd476 (God Bless those in harm's way and bring peace to those who have lost loved ones today.)
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To: SouthernFreebird

'You're not only cranky but not in touch with todays news. No 5 yr old should be out alone ever! it's unthinkable in this day and age for anyone to allow a child to go off walking by themselves. I too would have had a 'mental breakdown' if it was my 5 yr old. '

You are right. And if it was the mother who made the child walk to school, she'd be in jail on charges of child abuse and the boy would be with social workers. But when a school does it, they're quite innocent. 'Tis because they and the cops and the social workers are all part of the same secular humanist mindset that kids belong to the gov't and parents are there as caretakers only.


54 posted on 01/20/2005 5:26:25 AM PST by wiley
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To: xsmommy
No you missed the point.

The kid was only required to do what every other kid in the school district must do if they live within 1 1/2 miles of the school.

What makes this mother's kid so special. If attacks are happeny, why aren't they happening to all the other kids who already walk to school?

55 posted on 01/20/2005 5:26:56 AM PST by CharacterCounts
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To: xsmommy
again, you totally miss the point. the point is this school screwed up and altered this child's routine without the parent's knowledge. that is unacceptable

Geez, lady, the school said it was a mistake, not some sort of "final solution" here.

The mother is supposed to be meeting with the school. THe article says that a meeting is going to happen. She hasn't even gotten the other side of the story yet.

However, rather than act like a responsible parent and get to the bottom of things before flying off the handle, mommy here goes on television, sobbing her eyes out, and parades her kid out there for the world as some sort of victim.

Basically, this "mother of the year" just told her kid "when something goes wrong, blame everyone else, go on TV and declare yourself a victim."

Way to teach some character and conflict resolution there.

Sheesh.

56 posted on 01/20/2005 5:27:18 AM PST by Behind Liberal Lines
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To: Behind Liberal Lines

the "hysteria" as you call it, is just outrage that incompetent administrators made a potentially dangerous snafu. yes, the kid is fine, so why cause a ruckus? i mean no one died, no one was maimed right? yes, there should be no repercussions of any sort. we are only discussing incompetent decisions regarding people's children, what harm could possibly come of it?


57 posted on 01/20/2005 5:27:21 AM PST by xsmommy
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Comment #58 Removed by Moderator

To: bd476

Yes, that's a relevant point, too :-).


59 posted on 01/20/2005 5:27:47 AM PST by Tax-chick ("The short, gray-haired lady, with all the kids.")
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To: Behind Liberal Lines
She says her son walked several blocks to his daycare, where he gets dropped off after school.

When does his mother see him?!

60 posted on 01/20/2005 5:29:05 AM PST by kcvl
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