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School District Decision
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Mar 18, 2023 10:32:13   #
pdsdville Loc: Midlothian, Tx
 
Don't know where you were in Texas but you mirror my experience. Town of 2500 or so, everyone in town found their own way to school, outside town the bus was the answer. My graduating high school class was 75. I'm from Decatur, just north of Ft. Worth. Those were the days my friend.

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Mar 18, 2023 10:52:37   #
sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri
 
My plan would be to confiscate all property, including all cash, from anyone caught dealing drugs and put 100% of those proceeds into the public schools. Those that destroy lives should be responsible to help build quality lives.

Recent estimates put the illicit drug trade in the U.S. at $3.8 billion. That's $3.8 billion being sold and $3.8 billion being bought....with NO TAXES PAID. Try not paying your taxes and see what happens to you when the IRS takes all that you have to settle up plus interest and penalties. Oh...by the way, there are State and Local taxes to be paid from sales and purchases also. To heck with the battle cry of "Tax the Rich". Change it to "Tax the Criminal Enterprises". Buy a car...pay taxes on it. Steal a car and become the new "owner"...pay taxes on it.

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Mar 18, 2023 11:13:06   #
Stephan G
 
Stephan G wrote:
Having grown up in the city of Chicago, we lived three city blocks from the grade school. Most of the kids walked to school. Although some of the younger ones were escorted by their parents and some were driven to the school. High school, for me, was about five miles away. Took the CTA city bus with a transfer to the CTA train then walking about mile, or another bus, to get to the school. So most of my fellow students used the public transportation to get to the school. Did most of my homework on the trip back to home. There were a few school buses for the high school. (There was that one day that I got to the high school, only having to turn around and go home. The school was closed due to snow!)
Having grown up in the city of Chicago, we lived t... (show quote)


PS., Time period from mid 1950s to mid 1960s. Left out the time reference.

PPS., Circa mid-late 1980s and late 1990s, both kids went to schools withing 5 miles, using the school buses. Within 1/4 mile of the house directly to school and back.

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Mar 18, 2023 11:15:57   #
StanMac Loc: Tennessee
 
jerryc41 wrote:
I grew up on Long Island, and schools were within walking distance - whatever that is. Today, I'm sure the kids ride busses. State laws govern how far a kid can walk before he qualifies for a bus.

I wanted to use Google Earth to check the distance from my old house to my school, but "Unfortunately your computer does not support WebGL graphics acceleration; Google Earth cannot be loaded." I've used it before, but I guess G.E. is now more demanding.

I clicked on Learn More, and it said my computer does support WebGL. That's not at all surprising: it does and it doesn't, just like Schrödinger's cat. 😂

EDIT: I got G. E. to stay open, but measuring isn't available. Using the scale at the bottom, it looks like school was 2.5 miles from where I lived.
I grew up on Long Island, and schools were within ... (show quote)


The Maps app on your iPhone can tell you the distance between two points, Jerry.

Stan

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Mar 18, 2023 11:31:51   #
AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!
 
I was the first to get picked up, and it was a country route. So I rode the bus for an hour or longer. We had everything from first grade to seniors on the bus. That was fun, as when you were the youngest you got to know the oldest. And when you were the oldest, you got to help and encourage the youngest. But that was back when the world was civilized.

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Mar 18, 2023 11:41:35   #
Tex-s
 
jerryc41 wrote:
Our local school district is trying to make a tough decision. With declining enrollment, how should it allocate its buildings? We have one of the largest districts in the state. Until ten years ago, we had four elementary schools. Now we have three, and the board is trying to decide which one of them to close and where to put the kids. Around 1952, they build one large school for all the kids, K-12. That closed down the one-room schoolhouses. As enrollment grew, the four elementary schools were gradually built in four communities. I might be wrong, but I seem to remember a total enrollment of about 5,000 when we moved here fifty-six years ago. Now, enrollment is around 1,100.

Everyone wants their kids to go to the local school and have a short bus ride. No one wants to have kindergarten kids mixed in with seniors. Everyone wants lower school taxes. If a school is open, it requires light, heat, maintenance, a cafeteria staff, and cleaning. This is in addition to students and teachers. Regardless what the board decides, people will be unhappy. A question someone has to decide is how many kids would be required to keep an elementary school open?

I might be wrong, but I don't remember school busses being a thing in the 1950s. I seem to recall my mother driving me to school and me walking home afterwards. Maybe they became required when both parents started working.
Our local school district is trying to make a toug... (show quote)


I have mentioned before that I work in a rural school, maybe 250 kids from pre-K through 12. It’s one building with somewhat isolated halls, but we have 18 year old kids holding the door for 4 year-old kids every day. Class size averages about 16 kids, and not only is our system solvent, but have just passed a 85 million dollar bond to build a brand new complex. State by state funding processes and taxation regulation determine what if feasible at least as much as enrollment numbers.

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Mar 18, 2023 11:54:36   #
neillaubenthal
 
TriX wrote:
Without suggesting anything racially derogatory, the integration of schools in the 60s and the attendant desire to create racially diverse schools, increased bussing within urban areas dramatically. Also, the addition of “magnet schools (at least in NC where I live) increased bussing. Prior to that, most students lived in proximity to their schools, and walked, rode bikes, or were driven by their parents.


That's entirely true…but in those days after the Civil Rights Act districts were forced to create diverse schools and the associated bussing of kids. An alternative would have been to fix the inner city schools so that they provided the same education as the richer suburb schools provided…and then perhaps the need for as much bussing would not have been required. A hard problem…but admittedly the inner city schools got short thrift on funding, quality teachers, and facilities for a long time…but I'm not sure that inequity was entirely rooted in the race but rather the economic conditions that forced inner cities to be higher percentage of non whites. OTOH, clearly there were some race considerations involved in the lower levels of funding…but all in all I think neighborhood schools are really superior to a whole lot of bussing…but one has to make sure that the schools are the same…then also allow the bussing option if parents would rather their kids go to a more diverse school as there are also advantages to that.

Fortunately…I went to parochial schools for elementary and high school …you went to the school in your local parish and almost every parish had a school and there was 1 parochial high school where we went.

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Mar 18, 2023 12:16:36   #
Sendai5355 Loc: On the banks of the Pedernales River, Texas
 
Soul Dr. wrote:
When my Dad was stationed at Ft. Knox in Kentucky, we lived in the country. It took over a 1/2 hour to get to school on the bus. Nearest neighbor was about a 1/2 mile down the road.

Will

Although we lived just outside
E-town, I had to go to high school in Rineyville.

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Mar 18, 2023 12:47:43   #
Soul Dr. Loc: Beautiful Shenandoah Valley
 
Sendai5355 wrote:
Although we lived just outside
E-town, I had to go to high school in Rineyville.


Yeah, we lived about 8 miles from Elizabethtown. And I went to Rhineyville Elementary School too.

It's a small world, isn't it?

will

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Mar 18, 2023 12:58:53   #
neco Loc: Western Colorado Mountains
 
Nothing harder or. more sad than needing to close a school. I spent 35 years in public education and the board
and parents never found a good way to close a school.

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Mar 18, 2023 13:09:09   #
Amielee Loc: Eastern Washington State
 
In the 1940's I lived in a medium sized town, Maybe a dozen or so grade schools and 4 high schools. We lived about 10 miles from my school and I do not remember ever seeing a school bus. The city bus lines did have a school fare that had a monthly fee (very small) for school age kids and "patrol boys" remember those; rode free. Most of the time in good weather I rode a bike to school. For those not familiar with patrol boys in our town they wore white chest straps with a well made metal badge that said patrol boy and they had a flag on a stick to stop traffic at intersections to let school kids cross. The job is done by adults now days. We even got into the sat. morning movies about once a month free. Just show your badge and they let you in.

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Mar 18, 2023 18:49:08   #
Bret P Loc: California
 
When I want to know how far it is to something, I just use plain google maps and "ask" for directions as if I were driving, it gives the mileage.

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Mar 18, 2023 21:14:22   #
SunBeach1962 Loc: Syrscuse, NY
 
jerryc41 wrote:
Our local school district is trying to make a tough decision. With declining enrollment, how should it allocate its buildings? We have one of the largest districts in the state. Until ten years ago, we had four elementary schools. Now we have three, and the board is trying to decide which one of them to close and where to put the kids. Around 1952, they build one large school for all the kids, K-12. That closed down the one-room schoolhouses. As enrollment grew, the four elementary schools were gradually built in four communities. I might be wrong, but I seem to remember a total enrollment of about 5,000 when we moved here fifty-six years ago. Now, enrollment is around 1,100.

Everyone wants their kids to go to the local school and have a short bus ride. No one wants to have kindergarten kids mixed in with seniors. Everyone wants lower school taxes. If a school is open, it requires light, heat, maintenance, a cafeteria staff, and cleaning. This is in addition to students and teachers. Regardless what the board decides, people will be unhappy. A question someone has to decide is how many kids would be required to keep an elementary school open?

I might be wrong, but I don't remember school busses being a thing in the 1950s. I seem to recall my mother driving me to school and me walking home afterwards. Maybe they became required when both parents started working.
Our local school district is trying to make a toug... (show quote)



When I was a kid born 1952 I walked to and from elementary school and junior high I never took a bus till I got in the high school and then I had to walk down to the middle school junior high get on the bus go to the high school and then transfer to the private school bus that I was going to on the way home the returning bus drop me off three blocks from my house and it was all of Hill

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Mar 18, 2023 21:31:12   #
TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC
 
I just rode my Schwinn. We rode bikes to school, to the movies, or anywhere we went and never locked them, and they were never stolen - a different time (the 50s).

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Mar 18, 2023 23:06:04   #
Sendai5355 Loc: On the banks of the Pedernales River, Texas
 
My last 2 years of highschool I had a 20 mile bus ride from Hanau to Frankfurt a/m, Germany.

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