Two of my friends have children who have just entered kindergarten at our local elementary school. I learned from them today that the school has a policy disallowing children to ride bikes, scooters, skateboards or the like to school, even when accompanied by a parent. I was shocked that such a policy could exist. At the last school where I worked (private, not in our town) kids would ride their bikes and scooters or walk with their parents to school and then they’d leave their bikes, etc., at school and ride them home at the end of the day. I did some research and apparently our town isn’t too bad off because some towns don’t even let you walk to school.
Our town only provides free transportation to children who live within a two mile radius of their school, so if you live within the two mile radius you need to pay for the bus or your parents need to get you to school somehow and the overwhelming majority of children live within two miles of their elementary school in this area. I don’t believe that the middle schools and high school are covered by such a policy, but haven’t looked into it yet.
Here is an article about a boy and his mom who shunned his school’s policy by riding to school:
One of my friends is getting around it by biking to school and the parking bikes in the park across the street from the school. Why should parents have to “sneak around” to bike their kids to school? We live within a mile of the school and I would want to be able to ride my son to school at least some of the time.
What is your school’s policy?
Hi Courtney,
It is kind of interesting how we get bombarded with that kids are overweight and and that we parents need to do more to get them moving.And then we are not allow to do simple stuff like bike to school with them. Something is totally wrong in our society.
At my local school this used to be the case, but the issue was more lack of bike rack. Our parenting council at our school contacted the city to find a solution and we did raise money for a bike rack for the school. Today kids and teachers bike to school, it is great.
Maybe your friend need to find out why kids are not allow to bike to school.
This is a problem of perceived liability and minimizing risk for the school board. These organizations find it almost impossible to look at a holistic view that utilizes the opinions of educators and health professionals rather than lawyers and administrators. All the reason that more parents need to bad together with your friend and countless other parents to create solutions to getting our kids moving again.
Reading this makes me realize how fortunate we are to live where we do. On nice days, I’d say that about one third of kids ride to my son Marco’s school. I’ve been making the 1-1/2 mile bike trip with him *every* day, rain or shine (but no snow! we’re in California), since he started kindergarten last year. I can honestly say that riding bikes to and from school was one of the best things about his kindergarten experience. Here’s an article I wrote about this:
The Benefits of Riding Bikes to School
By the way, he’s just started riding to school on his own once in a while. He’s really becoming a very responsible kid!
Here’s the link:
The Benefits of Riding Bikes to School
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http://playborhood.com/2010/12/the_benefits_of_riding_bikes_to_school/
Thanks for the comments, everyone. What’s interesting is that within the last year the town put new bike racks up in many places around town (that I seldom see used). I wish they would put some at the schools and encourage riding. Mike, I have visited your site in the past- thanks for the link to the great article! I love what you’re doing with your son by biking and being consistent about it. It’s so good for both of you in many ways.
This makes me sad…and completely angry. My kids aren’t old enough for school yet, but I’ll be sure to look out for those bike racks while visiting schools and ask about their policy.
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