@ Tantrums &Turf Wars: The School Car Line Is Chaos

[neverfstop]

Anybody have a subscription to share the full article?  Always a fun topic around here.....

www.wsj.com/us-news/guns-lawsuits-school-transportation-dropoff-ffd7ce06?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top

Highlights per axios


School pickup lines have turned into a real Lord of the Flies situation, replete with shouting matches, lawsuits and even threats of violence, The Wall Street Journal writes in an A-hed feature.



More parents are driving their kids to and from school, creating long lines and short tempers.

🚗 Police in West Melbourne, Florida, had to remind parents that prolonged goodbyes and drunk driving both hold up the line.



Some parents are driving through people's yards to try to jump the line. Others have resigned themselves to hundreds of dollars in parking tickets to idle in no-parking zones.

One innovative school auctioned off prime parking spots — the winning bid was $560 for the school year.

💥 Sometimes it gets heated. Two women in the drop-off line at a South Carolina school pulled guns on each other after one of them nudged her car in front of the others.

[glw]

Apr 17, 2024 15:51:55 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

Anybody have a subscription to share the full article?  

Gift link: www.wsj.com/us-news/guns-lawsuits-school-transportation-dropoff-ffd7ce06?st=jiwjbltxnonfadb&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

[pixy0stix]

I have an innovative solution for *waves hands* all of this...

[pixy0stix]

OMG. I hate every single person in that article. The mom suing because she was publicly embarrassed for being a dumbass? Perfection.

Also, Windsor, CO isn't very big. Why the fuck were they waiting 45 min for pick up, and why did they pay that much money? Also, I'm going there, those eyebrows went out of fashion a while ago. Were they drawn on by marker?

[bugandbibs]

Our elementary school has become much more regimented in the last couple of years as a result of this type of behavior. Kids now line up under the covered blacktop and someone with a walkie talkie radios for parents to pull along numbered cones and kids are released to go to the numbered spot. Each school does it differently though. It does help keep things moving and avoid parents driving recklessly through the lot. My son takes the bus home usually, but our busses have been a mess for the last couple of years and if we were at the end of a route I might not use them.

The middle school next door is a free for all, and I pick up my girls from a walkway behind the school to avoid it. Yesterday a car sped up as it approached 2 kids crossing (responsibly) the street. The kids darted in front of my car, but it was close. I don't know what that was about, but it was scary.

[bugandbibs]

Article is blocked at work, but...

They changed all the start/stop times in my district this year and it has been a giant cluster. We have parents lining up for over an hour after they pick up their elementary kids while waiting for their middle school kids to get out. It's making an already overloaded system so much worse. The thought of staying in my car with my younger kids for an hours everyday just waiting sounds awful- I would be a giant stress ball if it were me.

[mrsslocombe]

I'm just a childless adult so what do I know...

But both my parents worked growing up, pretty much everyone I know now with school aged kids are working, no stay-at-home parents. How do people even have the ability to pick their kids up from school?

[lilac05]

My kids ride the bus when possible (on non-band or sport days, as those are before/after school), and I’m SO thankful for it. Carpool line is where my hope for humanity goes to die.

There are almost 200 kids on my middle schooler’s track team, and no activities bus, so I have to go pick him up. I hate every second of it. The way people just drive right past everyone, making 2 lane roads into 4, nearly taking off the mirrors of parents waiting in line. It’s ridiculous.

People wait FOREVER in line. Some of it, I get, if you’re set on being a car rider. Middle school gets out at 2:35 and elementary isn’t until 3:15, so some people drive straight from one to the other. But the other day, I drove by an elementary at 1:45, and there were already people there!

My friend has told her kids not to worry…she’s coming, but she’s bringing up the tail end. She cab arrive right when school lets out, wait 5-10 min in line, and leave…only a few minutes after the people who sat there an hour.

[erbear]

Apr 17, 2024 16:47:26 GMT -5 mrsslocombe said:

I'm just a childless adult so what do I know...

But both my parents worked growing up, pretty much everyone I know now with school aged kids are working, no stay-at-home parents. How do people even have the ability to pick their kids up from school?

Because so many people work from home now.

[pixy0stix]

Apr 17, 2024 17:05:29 GMT -5 erbear said:

Apr 17, 2024 16:47:26 GMT -5 mrsslocombe said:

I'm just a childless adult so what do I know...

But both my parents worked growing up, pretty much everyone I know now with school aged kids are working, no stay-at-home parents. How do people even have the ability to pick their kids up from school?

Because so many people work from home now.

This has been going on for a long time, even before work from home took off. We saw major issues in my community decades ago when they started letting parents choice into schools.

[taratru]

Apr 17, 2024 16:36:38 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

OMG. I hate every single person in that article. The mom suing because she was publicly embarrassed for being a dumbass? Perfection.

Also, Windsor, CO isn't very big. Why the fuck were they waiting 45 min for pick up, and why did they pay that much money? Also, I'm going there, those eyebrows went out of fashion a while ago. Were they drawn on by marker?

Oh, I think you know why. Those Water Valley moms have to fill their days with something.

[zarapipe]

I live in a rural area and it’s even nuts here. People start lining up 2 hours before dismissal!! Who does that? We also have three spots the PTO auctions off and I think they went for about $150-$200 each.

I wfh 2x so on those days I pick up kids but I time it so I arrive about 15 min after school dismisses and I have hardly any wait.

[lilac05]

Our school deliberately chooses not to sell off parking tickets because it only further privileges the already privileged. I agree with this decision.

However, putting that aside…if you would ask me if I’d be willing to donate $500 to the school’s PTO and completely skip all things car pool for an entire year, I would absolutely consider it. I definitely hate it $500 worth and the money goes to a great cause…but I would absolutely hate the drive past everyone else who is waiting their turn, so I probably wouldn’t actually do it.

[Velar Fricative]

Apr 17, 2024 16:47:26 GMT -5 mrsslocombe said:

I'm just a childless adult so what do I know...

But both my parents worked growing up, pretty much everyone I know now with school aged kids are working, no stay-at-home parents. How do people even have the ability to pick their kids up from school?

1) Stay at home parent
2) Grandparent or other relative (this is what I see most on the rare occasion my kids don’t go to aftercare)
3) Parents with non-traditional work hours (like hospital workers, police, etc.)

[Velar Fricative]

Apr 17, 2024 16:26:50 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I have an innovative solution for *waves hands* all of this...

Would this innovative solution happen to be…yellow?

[SusanBAnthony]

I don't remember elementary (I think I never picked them up?) But I have my kids walk a block to a nearby park now when I need to pick them up. So much faster than the line!

I only pick up if for example they have a doctor appointment right after school. Who has time for this even if you work from home? The WORK part should be preventing this nonsense lol.

Also. They leave their engines running!

[sent]

I thought $500 was low for the prime parking spot.

[nsl]

Apr 17, 2024 17:04:32 GMT -5 lilac05 said:

My friend has told her kids not to worry…she’s coming, but she’s bringing up the tail end. She cab arrive right when school lets out, wait 5-10 min in line, and leave…only a few minutes after the people who sat there an hour.

Same. Our middle school has no parking lot, and because it's on a busy city street parking in front of the school is extremely limited. The #1 complaint in the parent Facebook group is about people who double-park during drop-off and pickup, followed closely by people complaining about parents who park across the street and let their kids jaywalk through heavy traffic. They're not wrong. School lets out at 3:00, and it's chaos, but by the time I arrive at 3:20 there's virtually nobody there. The school has a gated yard, and the teachers have no problem letting kids hang out inside the building if their rides are coming later because they know how awful the traffic is.

It's hardly better at the high school. Kid 1 and I decided on a pick-up spot in the neighborhood two blocks away because the school parking lot is full of both teen and parent drivers who are all acting like idiots. No thank you.

[Velar Fricative]

I started a new position last month with a longer commute, so I enrolled my kids in morning care at school. It starts super early but I only need to bring them about 30-45 minutes before the doors open to everyone. I was shocked to see people waiting on the car line already. Like, the idea of waking my kids up earlier than I need to wake them up just to stay on line for a long time sounds like torture to me. What’s worse is when I did dropoff with everyone else, the other sane parents and I would just park two blocks away and walk. There’s no reason for anyone to wait like this. It’s crazy.

I also have to remember that much of the country has giant school campuses that don’t exist in my neighborhood. And probably no sidewalks to safely allow for families to just park and walk even if they’d rather do that. Then there’s the whole bus thing. Oddly, DD1 is finally eligible for a school bus in September…when she starts 6th grade lol.

[Patsy Baloney]

We utilized the bus until post-covid school. The amount of drivers dwindled and routes are now beginning before 6am to get all the kids. We have the privilege to not have to utilize the busses, so we drop off and a grandparent picks up.

Basically, I wish our district could crack the code on the bus driver shortage.

[macmars45]

Parents start lining up for drop off 30-45 minutes before school starts and an hour before school ends. It's nuts. Before I worked at the school DS attends I'd go 'late' right after the bell to enter the school rang (ten minutes before school starts) and leave my house when school ended because we live 3-4 minutes away. I missed most of the craziness in the parking lot that way.

[rachers]

Our line is crazy the first few weeks but then it gets easy. We have a single line and someone from the school has a walkie talkie. Most of the kids are already gathered near the end under the walkway.

Dismissal at 2:55
I leave my house at 3
1-2 minute drive to line, depending on stoplights
7-8 minutes of waiting in line
Home no later than 3:15

I have passed by an hour before dismissal and there is usually a line. Seems super silly.

We do get people trying to turn left onto the road the schools on and that backs it up sometimes but it’s never awful.

I WFH and for myself. When I worked for someone else I wouldn’t likely be able to pick DD up, and we used after care.

[InBetweenDays]

Are kids not allowed to start walking to be picked up at a less busy spot? We live in an urban neighborhood so maybe it's different in the suburbs, but even in elementary school many kids walked to school in groups or on their own. If parents wanted to pick them up they could stop a few blocks away from school.

There are no pickup lines at any of the schools I know.

[penguingrrl]

I live in a walking town and the “car line” thing is absurd. 98% of our district lives within 2 miles of school (our district is one 2.5 square mile town) and our town doesn’t have any 4 lane roads or roads with a speed limit over 35. Yet I got a lot of strange looks for making my kids bike to school in elementary because somehow a 1 mile bike ride alone is too much for a 3rd grader. The middle school is literally across from my house, so close that if the weather is bad my son hangs out in our foyer until the bell rings and is still in time for home room.

We don’t have a “pick up line”, and up through 1st grade the teachers have to see the designated grown up or older sibling to release the kid, but somehow that translates to needing to be parked an hour before pickup to get a good spot. Because not only can’t kids walk less than 2 miles but parents/caregivers can’t walk at most 1/4 mile from the car.

[icedcoffee]

I walk my child across the street to the school and then walk over to pick him up after school. It is glorious!!!

My younger one goes to a daycare in an elementary school and I refuse to pick or drop him off during start or end times for the older kids. It’s fucking chaos.

[AAM2012]

This reminds me, I live near a small elementary school and I feel like the old lady in the rocker yelling “GET OFF MY LAWN!!”

The parents line up in the bike lane to avoid blocking the traffic lane, which I’m ok with (sorry bikers, you have the actual lane this time..). It’s in a very residential area, 1 lane each way type of area.

Morning isn’t normally as big of a deal as it’s faster going but in the afternoon these people line up ahead of time 30-60 minutes and either block or greatly reduce my ability to safely get out of either of the 2 exits from my neighborhood.

I can’t look left or right for oncoming traffic to go right or left if you are 5 inches away! I actually have thought about calling the non-emergency line…but not a gun…!

Also, in the summer (aka now through October in Phoenix) I hate it even more because cars back up all the way to behind my house and all I smell is the exhaust from everyone having their car running for the AC.

GET OFF MY LAWN!

[sent]

penguingrrl, every time you post about your town, it's like a word for word description of my town. Except I know you're living the 2.5 square mile town life a bit south of me. We have the same exact procedures for elementary and apparently both also live right across from our middle schools.

[pixy0stix]

Apr 17, 2024 22:10:07 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

The parents line up in the bike lane to avoid blocking the actual traffic lane, which I’m ok with (sorry bikers, you have the actual lane this time..).

"It's too unsafe to bike to the school."

sigh... Cars making people feel unsafe so they drive cars.

[AAM2012]

Apr 17, 2024 22:17:42 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Apr 17, 2024 22:10:07 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

The parents line up in the bike lane to avoid blocking the actual traffic lane, which I’m ok with (sorry bikers, you have the actual lane this time..).

"It's too unsafe to bike to the school."

sigh... Cars making people feel unsafe so they drive cars.

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? I get what you’re saying but there are sidewalks for kids if needed.

Again, this is a very small residential area. I’ve seen maybe 1-2 times a child on a bike going to school in 8 the years I’ve been here and they were on the sidewalk.

Those who live in the neighborhood generally walk, those who are on the outskirts drop them off in the morning on their way to work.

My sense is that most pick them up via car, regardless.

[pixy0stix]

Apr 17, 2024 22:21:34 GMT -5 AAM2012 said:

Apr 17, 2024 22:17:42 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

"It's too unsafe to bike to the school."

sigh... Cars making people feel unsafe so they drive cars.

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? I get what you’re saying but there are sidewalks for kids if needed.

Again, this is a very small residential area. I’ve seen maybe 1-2 times a child on a bike going to school in 8 the years I’ve been here and they were on the sidewalk

It's fucking shitty that people are parking in the bikes lanes near a school. Stupidity and selfishness at it's finest.