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.
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
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.
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...' "
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....
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?
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.
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.
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.
glad someone else GETS it!
"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.
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.
'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.
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?
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.
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?
Yes, that's a relevant point, too :-).
When does his mother see him?!
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