School run – what's fair?

[ScoolRunnings]

My son (6) has been accepted at a selective school about 5 miles from where we live, as have 2 of his classmates. 1 classmate has a younger sibling who will still be attending our local school, same as us. The other classmate has an older sibling who already goes to the school which is further away.

I was discussing with my partner about sharing school runs with the 2 other families, and said that the parents with 2 children at the school should maybe take on more school runs as we only have 1 child at the school, and another who needs to be dropped off at the same time at another school, as does the other family (single mum). He thinks that the fact that we have another child isn't really their problem, and that the school runs should be divided equally. What does the internet think? I don't mind being told I'm unreasonable and would rather know now!

I'd start out doing all of them for my own child and assess how much hassle it actually is vs picking up/dropping off kids from 2 different families. Add in the fact that kids are often not at their best first thing/at pick up. Only if it is essential and will make a real difference do you even go there.

I can't figure out how you pick up by bus or train? All troop off to knock on a door, count heads and troop back to the bus stop or train station? Parent stands with kids and punts them onto the bus or train hoping you're on it?

Sharing with one family could probably work well. But two seems hard work.

it should be split equally

Am I the only one who thought this sounded like a math question? 😁

Now that I’m not panicking that I have to figure out what time Jimmy gets to school. I will say I’m in the split 3 ways camp. # of children doesn’t matter.

Evenly, but with the caveat of being flexible about it, as there will be various things going on which will probably mean that not all of the children need to come/go at the same time for every journey, every day (e.g sports practices/matches or instrument lessons/orchestra etc not to mention sickness or medical appts).

I'd suggest that you have a combined WA group and discuss it on a flexible basis.

share equally - think you'd maybe need to do more on a monthly rota, rather than weekly so it works out equally (make sure you take into account holidays and inset days etc) this type of arrangement can get messy quickly so
the more organised in advanced the better

No one is obligated to provide any transport for other children, regardless of how many children anyone has at each school. This should not have been any kind of a factor in deciding to go ahead with your child going. It matters not one jot that you and the other parent have a child at two different schools and the third has two at the one school. That’s your issue to sort. It certainly shouldn’t mean the one with two kids at the school has to do more days. If you genuinely all want to share lifts then you agree an equal split of days, even if that means you and other parent having to go to two schools on your days, as you would have been doing anyway, in exchange for the parent with two kids at the school also doing two schools on their days.
To be honest, this isn’t a plan I’d be willing to commit to especially if I had two kids at the same school.

You split it equally between families. I did it for 5 years with 2 other families and both of them had two children to my one. Luckily one family moved when the younger sibling started as 5 kids wouldn’t have fitted in my car.
Sometimes things worked out that I did more due to working hours or the fact I driove past the school to get to work, so I did those days automatically and the others picked up or did the days I wasn’t in the office.

Make sure husband also does his fair share!

I suspect that you’ll end up doing your own thing by the end of the first term. It’ll be hard work taking 3 6/7 year olds to school and back when they’re tired etc. Especially on public transport. There’s also after school clubs, people running late (what happens if one is running late, do you leave them or all be late?) and behaviour to account for.

I think it's fair to split per family. You aren't doing two runs for two kids.

Not sure that I would be committing to anything any rota or timetable initially. Would just sort your own child out for at least the first few weeks and see what,if anything , happens.

If you have 1 kid or 5 kids of your own, you still only drive there once. Number of bums on seats is irrelevant.

you also seem to hint at 'share'... are you sure you're cut out for this sort of arrangement, if in your head you think you fair share isn't the 1/3rd everyone else thinks it is.

Yes I think be very grateful and very flexible and it should work. Once you start with tit for tat type behaviour you will fall out with people and you’ll end up with no lift share at all.

If you suggested I should do more school runs because you have a child at another school and I have 2 children to your 1 child attending the shared school, I would just not coordinate school runs with you. It would signal to me that you are going to be difficult and it’s already hard to set something like this. The burden isn’t the number of children, it is the trip itself.

that you have another child that goes elsewhere is no one else’s problem. That is the kind of thing you deal with yourself or pay someone for transportation.

Yes, this!
I was never so happy as when DS finished secondary school. 7yrs of sharing lifts with 2 other families.
Wished I'd never got into it in the first place and should have smelled a rat when the other 2 families were so joyful that DS was going to the same school!
I did 7 out of the 10 journeys permanently (to be fair, I was going that way.)

But what changed for me was when I was hospitalised and couldn't do any lifts for 2 weeks and by god, the other families didn't want to do the lifts.
Also, one of the kids used to be late all the time to the pick up point, making me close to being late for work, which was so stressful.
Think about it OP - it can work well, but often people take advantage. By the way, menopausal me wouldn't have put up with that shit now!😆

Each family should do roughly equal amounts, but realistically, it will probably vary a bit based on after school activities. There will be days when some children stay later or yours need to be carted off to a class somewhere. Figure out a schedule that works well for everyone. As a parent who does a lot of lift sharing, I don’t mind doing extra some weeks if it means that the weeks when one of us is working late, I have an appointment and one of them needs to get to a class in completely the opposite direction, that someone else can jump in and do the driving that day so I don’t have to be in 3 places at once.

Are you all next door neighbours? Otherwise how is a public transport school run going to work? Pick them all up by car and drive to the train station/bus stop?

I’m surprised at the responses. I have two kids and always expect to do twice the number of turns as a parent with just one when sharing rides like this. But we’ve always had full cars so if I didn’t the other parents of singletons could just share with other singleton parents and cut the number of drives they did that way.

Don’t complicate matters………if the other parents are prepared to share the school runs then just divide by the number of families involved. You never know when you’ll need a massive favour and need someone to step up in your place if anything untoward happens.

Equal shares, definitely.

Gosh, Mumsnet. Is sharing lifts to school not a thing we do now? Seriously? We shared with 2 other families for years. Worked with minimum hassle. Sometimes there were after school clubs, so 2 different people did the run on those evenings. Not that hard.

We take part in a school run rota, other family do the morning drop off and we do the afternoon pick ups as that’s what works for both families work rotas.
Its slightly different for you as you’ve got 3 people involved however it should still be evenly split regardless of the fact that 1 family has 2 children at that school as it’s not their fault you have to do a double drop off.
They may offer to do an extra day based on availability but you certainly shouldn’t request it. In your shoes I would do a 1 week each and rotate rather then pick days which will be more confusing.

Did you know about the other families before you applied to the school, and if so, was that a factor in making the application to the school?

To be honest I think in your case I would be opting out of the fixed school run proposal but instead trying to keep in friendship with the other families to cover things like emergency pick ups, late collection after a school trip etc. As others have said a complicated arrangement with three families is going to break down the minute a child from one family gets chickenpox, or signs up for after school piano lessons, or someone’s car is unavailable for a week.