Our beloved behemouth newspaper recently ran a story concerning my nearby metropolis school district. Said school district has withdrawn payment to the local transit authority for letting students ride public transportation to school for football practice and other such events.
I was appalled. Since when is the school district a transportation company? The price for these rides was over a half-million dollars. I nearly fell off my chair. It is not the business of a school district to transport children to events or nearly any regular classes as far as I'm concerned, at least not in a major metropolitan city. This isn't Podunctville that needs bus service on long rural roads. Nor is it the seventies when busing was mandated for integration (gosh, where did that get us) and children didn't attend a nearby school. The vast majority of students live within a few miles of the school they now attend. Where are the parents? Isn't it their responsibility to get their children to school for virtually every function their child wants to participate in? The outcry was Johnny has to give up football now because he has no way there. Boo-hoo.
My family growing up was able to provide our own transportation to every event we ever needed to go to. Our parents drove us, we hitched a ride with a friend or we walked. The citizenry cry twice a year every time a new school levy goes on the ballet. Oh, we don't have enough money. We'll have to cut sports, they cry. Do you wonder where your money goes? This is a prime example of a school district trying to be everything to everyone who has a whim.
It's time for school districts to get back to their primary focus of educating the child, not being the butler, maid, chauffeur and parent to everyone who walks through the door. If you can't get your child to school you shouldn't have the child. It's part of being a parent. Get off your *ss and be a parent; take your child to school and get involved.
Ramblings of a 60 Year Old Man - My thoughts on just about anything, in no particular order; Robert Thomas - author.
You should live in the land of fruit and nuts - parents went to the courts protesting the payment of participation fees for sports, etc. and get it written into law that they not only can't require a fee, they can't require them to purchase a uniform (gotta have ones on hand that you can loan to them without pay), can't require them to fundraise to offset the cost of playing (which would have let them afford the cost in the first place). THey do have to pay a transportation fee, becaseu somebody has to pay for the cost of getting the teams to the games! But even then there are waievers for those who qualify for free and reduced price lunches - we only qualify for not paying after the third sport is paid in, so BigFoot gets to skip the transportation fee for swim. Funny thing about all this is that the kids now get to do with less. All becasue somebody didn't want their precious darling to have to fundraise to cover the cost of the sport, which would have reduced their fee. Go figure!
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