Remember how some Madison parents whined in February about Madison High School administrators' ordering their kids cars towed for not following parking lot rules? At tomorrow night's meeting, the Madison Central School Board will consider their transportation committee's response to those parents: drop dead. As Chuck Clement reports, the board will consider the transportation committee's recommendation that the district eliminate its student vehicle use rules from the district policy manual. This revision reduced redundancy, as existing policy already says that the student handbook will list traffic rules and parking control.
But the kicker is the amendment of Policy JHFD to read that "All vehicles in violation with [sic] District policies may be towed without notice at owners [sic] expense."*
Rather than creating more due process to ensure that the school doesn't unduly oppress our precious little ones or their parents' checkbooks, this policy revision reinforces the high school principal's power to tow improperly parked cars from the school parking lot.
Remember, parents: the school can't tow your kids' bicycles. The high school has no policy on riding or parking bikes.
There is no good reason that the kids that live in town can't walk to school. As for the rural kids, whatever happened to kids riding school buses? I know there are people that won't like my comment, but there were a lot of times that my brother and I walked home from high school and we lived out in the country. We chose to walk instead of riding the school bus. A little exercise never hurt any kid.
Ms. Joan is correct. Those little buggers should all be required to walk to school and the Madison school board could repurpose the parking lot for something better. Get rid of the reserved parking for those fatcat administrators while they are at it.
Just a little information on the kids driving to school. This year the parking is a lot worse due to the construction of the new gym. This means less parking for students. Who have to drive because of many reasons some are both parents work and the kids have activities after school so they will have to get home some how.
Riding the Bus in Madison this year if you are in town is hard they changed the bus pick ups drastically. Many kids don't like to ride the bus because of what goes on on the bus.
I agree with the towing of the cars if the cars were parked wrong. As adults if we were to park the way it is described in a parking lot you can get towed.
The change of the policy is not a surprise. I have heard of a couple of times this year that the policy that is written by the school is not followed by the school so who do we trust the kids that say we were not parked that way or the school that says they parked bad so we towed them.
I can give you a list of good reasons: jobs, activities, weather, church and personal safety. Do we demand the same behavior from adults as you would from our children? Do we ask that teachers walk to school if they live in town?
Who is going to be the first to make their 7, 12 or 17 year old kids or grandkids walk a mile or two every day no matter what the circumstance?
How fast do you think you'd be turned into to social services if your kid showed up with frostbite or soaked through to the skin from a heavy downpour?
There is no comparing to yesteryear.
The kids could dress properly. Most of the kids that lived in town when I was in school had after school jobs, and the farm kids had jobs at home. Music classes, and sports practice was done during the school day. Being the complaint is about senior high parking, that is the age group that I was talking about. Yes, some of the teachers did walk to school they didn't have cars. Talking about people having cars, when I went to college there was probably a dozen students in college that had cars.
Because of construction, parking at the high school is a mess. I've been on the north side many times in the last year and I'm not surprised that there has been issues.
Most of my classmates drove to school.
Michael, I live in town, and I walk or bike to school almost every day.
Downpours are rare. As Joan says, kids can dress for most weather conditions. I'm not saying they can't ever drive... but parking is a privilege, subsidized by the taxpayers.
Parking is an expense that everyone will pay one way or another. How necessary it is to provide parking is another question and might be more important to you when students parking in front of your house 9 months out of the year if you live close to the college or high school.
Sure am glad we had the foresight to buy our house less than two blocks from the middle and high schools years ago so that we don't have these dreadful parking problems :)
My suggestion would be to encourage more students and teachers to try carpooling. That might help alleviate some of the parking spot shortages.
Paula, carpooling would nicely reinforce the planning, problem-solving, and collaboration we're supposed to be teaching in the classroom. It would also save fuel and wear and tear on the streets and parking lot.
The city can reply to parking congestion, Michael, with sensible regulations that maintain traffic flow and residential accessibility.