They are shutting the road to the school

[CheckMate2]

My DC school has just announced that the road to the school will be shut at drop off and pick up times to make it safer for social distancing.

This is a huge problem for me as I have 3 to drop off at different schools, they are asking us to park far away and walk.

I think it's down to the residents complaining about the parking but to close it completely seems so ott for the working parents and the parents who have to drive.

What do you think?

They have been doing this as a trial in Sheffield, all it did was cause havoc in nearby streets with parents dumping their cars anywhere blocking drives, dropped kerbs & stopping residents from parking near their homes.

Bollocks is it working parents. In my experience it's the ones who are too bone idle to walk, but also too bone idle to park in the school car park (you have to drive in, go over humps, then have to walk up a short driveway to the school reception) so they park across the road at the other side of the school (you can block the road and release the children through a small side gate and directly into the playground)
And yes I do know this for a fact. It's laziness pure and simple.

I don’t care how you take your child to school.I don’t care how late you may be to work

Fair enough. And no-one cares about your parking issues. And you can't expect them to because you don't care about anyone else so why should they?

@FudgeDrudge

I don’t care how you take your child to school.I don’t care how late you may be to work

Fair enough. And no-one cares about your parking issues. And you can't expect them to because you don't care about anyone else so why should they?

I care about making sure all children get safely into school. People parking like selfish idiots stop that happening.

@Nat6999sounds like they need to repeat the trial with some traffic wardens on hand.

I'd be cockahoop if our school and council took a form stnace on the parking near school. Why should my DC be put at risk by the people who are too lazy to park anywhere other than the 50 metres nearest to school?

Drivers behave appallingly around schools and create dangerous and unhealthy situations. More should be done to force people into changing their behaviour - that could be not choosing schools further away from their homes, cycling, walking or helping to set up walking buses etc.

If councils and schools don't make these changes, no one actually examines their own behaviour.

Social distancing and staggered start/finish times have been hard to manage in our area, with the queue of parents waiting to get in to the school at pick up stretching hundreds of metres back along the narrow pavement of the busy, narrow, a main road. Watching from my window as someone tried to get by on a mobility scooter I really felt we needed a better solution. But it's a main road so it won't get closed. You can't paint double yellow lines down both sides without impacting local businesses. Our streets weren't built for the numbers of people and the numbers of vehicles trying to use them.

RedToothBrush
Too true. The ones who complain the most tend to be the ones who never offer to help and the ones who are always trying to help tend to be the same few.
Twas ever thus.

This makes no sense.

My kids school have BANNED us from walking kids to school! They want us to drive and drop and parents do not leave the vehicle. They say that’s Covid social distancing. Surely everyone walking around is worse for people coming into contact?? They’ve staggered all the drop offs for every class so there’s a 10 min window

Supereager
Sounds a bit overkill to me but I'm guessing they decided that having loads of parents mingling around, with some inevitably incapable too selfish of refraining from lengthy chit chat with no distancing was a risk factor.

Each school site has it's own layout and own challenges for maintaining distancing. The ones near me have staggered drop offs/pick ups and a one way system. Some secondary schools have stopped all parents from coming onto site unless they have a meeting, many have separate exits for different year groups or key stages. It isn't one size fits all.

@Supereager

This makes no sense.

My kids school have BANNED us from walking kids to school! They want us to drive and drop and parents do not leave the vehicle. They say that’s Covid social distancing. Surely everyone walking around is worse for people coming into contact?? They’ve staggered all the drop offs for every class so there’s a 10 min window

How does that work for parents who don’t drive?

DS's school occasionally ran a walking bus for the kids from a safe drop off point. I think that would be helpful too. But of course it needs parents to volunteer and its the lazy fuckers who 'never have time' (cant be arsed).

Unfortunately the majority of people (preCovid) had two working parents who needed to travel to work. So two people who couldn't help with the walking bus. And if I was a SAHP I would be somewhat pissed off volunteering for a walking bus for the benefit of parents who couldn't do it and were possibly earning much more than me.

And again there's the town/city v rural divide - but not so much if you haven't got your children into a convenient local school or have chosen not to.

A few of our local schools now do this. It's a great idea but one of the schools is on a main road and now means that all the drivers using it to go to work and not dropping off at the school, are using surrounding roads like rat runs. This causes even more issues

I can see both points of view..

I can understand the frustration of the school and the residents about the congestion and dangerous parking, and there is really no excuse for illegal parking at all.

But then, I have been there at times in the past, trying to drop off and rush off to work, and it is really stressful. (Having said that I always found it easier to park 5-10 mins walk away rather than try a get nearer the school, and it did not add much time on, and was less stressful).

I do think closing the road will just move the problem to the next road that is open.

I do think some schools could do more to help, with earlier drop offs or organising drop offs at set locations and walking together.

Some schools near where I work, in a more deprived area charge £1 for breakfast club and they can drop off from 7:30. Our school does not have this. There is a private nursery next door which charges £9 to drop off at 7:45 and £7 to drop off at 8am daily (no breakfast) which is not really affordable, and we just use in emergencies.

Pre covid, we relied on grandparents 1 day per week, and otherwise worked our hours around the drop offs and pick ups, sometimes we helped friends and vice versa.

I think if all schools could provide the same that would be a start...

Also, I think it was easier when children automatically went to their local school, as larger numbers then walked.

We wanted to go to our local school 5 mins away, but it was massively over subscribed so ended up getting one 3 miles away. No choice but to drive.

We did end up moving closer to enable us to walk which is so much calmer in the morning, but obviously we were lucky to be in a position to do that.

It's really depressing that so many on here have absolutely no empathy with the idea that some (many) working parents simply cannot factor in more time for the school run or volunteer for walking buses etc. which would make other options viable. Its not about being lazy or can't be arsed. Maybe if everyone, including the twatty parkers, could just appreciate the fact that not everyone is in the same position as them and can't 'just' do X, yor z this issue might move forward.

HugeAckmansWife
I can't change my start time for work. I also don't think that schools have an obligation to sort my childcare for me.

I've also said that if there is a demand then parents who need it could contact their MP or councils, be in touch with the PTA to see what could be done, be involved in a group to help fundraise so school could offer a breakfast club etc.

None of those require people to change their working hours. I'm willing to bet that those complaining that they can't park 2m from the gates aren't going to be doing any of those things either because they'll undoubtedly be 'too busy' to do any of those things as well.

There's an attitude in this thread of moaning if people can't park right outside of school but also coming up with every possible reason why sorting their own childcare isn't possible (whilst also claiming there is the demand and willingness to pay for it), why they couldn't possibly manage to walk from the next street, why their schedules are so unbelievably tight that 5 minutes to walk round the corner isn't possible, why they can't possibly offer any support to causes, why nobody understands their working hours, and ultimately why they simply can't possibly manage to do anything practical about a situation affecting them and their children.

How about substitute 'willing to pay' for 'able to pay'. That's what I'm talking about. There's a difference there. And I'm not sure that anyone would be interested in providing childcare for 20 / 30 mins only. With cm limits on numbers, why would they save a place for that which could be given someone who needs and can pay for full wraparound. I completely get the frustration when people park like Rick's and don't use a large free car park that is genuinely 2 mins away. But thats rarely the case. The reality is you'd be parked 5_10 mins away, each way, possibly involving A one way system or traffic lights to get back on route, all adding up to significantly more time which isn't there if you can't drop off before X time and your start time isn't flexible.

HugeAckmansWife
Up thread people were saying they would be paying for before school wraparound and there's lots of people who would pay to drop off at 8.30am but there's nothing there, which suggests that what people want isn't a viable business.

You are right that any sensible provider would run a proper breakfast club but you and I both know that the people wanting 20/30 mins of free childcare wouldn't be happy about having to pay for their child's place at breakfast club because "we only use 20 minutes" and "I don't see why I should pay for a breakfast club from 8am when I only want to use half the session".

The same attitude happens on AIBU threads where a parent is late to collect their DC, after waiting 15 minutes the school put the child in after school wraparound and the parent is billed for the childcare. The OP is always furious that they were charged for the whole session. In essence, they were pissed off that school staff weren't providing free childcare for their convenience.

If people need wraparound care then they need to sort it themselves and not expect other people to organise convenient childcare for them.

@CtrlU

My sons schools started doing this and It was a nightmare. Especially as his school is between two dual carriageways and parking is practically non existent.

It’s not always a case of parking and walking down as obviously other parents are doing the same. So parking is still an issue, children end up getting in late as there is nowhere to park and some parents I know have to park and walk 15/20 mins down to the school (sometimes with younger siblings- and childminders/ nannies have the issue with having to collect other children also so means they are late or have to walk with all the children), and frustrations are very high.

I don’t think it’s been thought through properly at all.

What’s wrong with walking 20 mins with younger siblings? We walk 30 mins each way to DSs infant school with a three year old. It’s perfectly fine. I understand if time constraints are an issue but walking for 20 mins with children should not be a problem.

@Useruseruserusee

Good for you. Who cares about you walking. Do what suits you. I’m giving the OP my opinion.

I hate when people only comment on posts to debate and contradicts other people’s answer. Who cares what you do?

I agree entirely, Useruseruserusee - people with cars do tend to think that a fairly unremarkable walk of more than a couple of minutes is somehow too difficult for small children.

I had a 40 min walk to his primary school with my DS every morning when he was small. He didn't get into the primary school right next to our block of flats (it was a state school but we weren't the right religion) and all the other local schools were oversubscribed, so a 40 min walk it was. I had no option as I could not afford to run a car, and I was a single working parent. I still managed. It was difficult, but doable.

And a really positive outcome is that DS, now a teenager, thinks nothing of walking quite long distances.

Surely if you take a job you factor in needing childcare? If you are having to rely on driving and have a 5 minute turnaround to get to work on time then I think that’s cutting it too fine. That’s not an excuse. I pay for my DD to go to breakfast club and after school club, even though some days she was only there for 15 minutes because I didn’t want to be driving / causing traffic, there’s very little parking near school, and if I was held up I would be causing additional stress to school staff. It’s my job, my child and my responsibility to sort out her childcare and get to work on time.

Since it’s the school enforcing this they will have to be understanding of your child being late. If you don’t want them to be late can the other parent drop off? Or arrange before school childcare like many parents to have to.

I love the idea of quiet roads near school where you can hear your kids talk without the roars of all the engines, and not having to hurry kids on when they linger on the pavement next to belching exhaust pipes on idling cars. Also not having cars doing dangerous manoeuvres with toddlers and kids all around.

Since it’s the school enforcing this they will have to be understanding of your child being late.

...they really won't be understanding. It disrupts learning for the other children, and takes up unnecessary staff time. And if it's chronic it may rebound on you.