For ending our long national nightmare of overweight school kids
Fuel costs may force some kids to walk
Here’s how rising fuel prices affect an organization with a fleet of 1,273 school buses: The Montgomery County school board today will consider giving Superintendent Jerry D. Weast emergency powers to make students walk farther to school, if need be, in the coming academic year.
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Board members are scheduled to consider the policy revision today. How they vote might depend on public outcry. The board last changed walking distances in 1996, voting to extend the maximum high-school trek from 1.75 miles to two. Dozens of parents called school officials in protest. The change effectively eliminated three bus runs per high school, for a savings of $250,000 a year. Nearly 2,000 students lost their ride.
You have got to be kidding me. They increased the distance a quarter mile and now the world is ending? Two miles?
And here I go sounding like some stereotypical “old person”, but I went to school with kids who had to walk that just to get to a bus stop. Hell, I had to walk that from third through sixth grades. I’d have had to walk it for two more years if they hadn’t built the new junior high outside of the city limits.
Since most schools have eliminated the PhysEd requirement and won’t allow tag, dodgeball, flag football or any other mildly competitive recess time sports exercise anymore, move the limit to three miles and watch the pounds melt off the little yard apes.
When I was in high school, you had to live at least two miles from school to ride the bus.
Another good thing that may come from the high cost of fuel, more local production as it gets more expensive to ship things from China.