Anonymous wrote:I live just outside the 1 mi walk zone for my kids’ elementary school, so mine ride the bus. A few thoughts:
The ideal is being about a ~5-7 min (within a few blocks) walk of the school. There are a bunch of kids clustered near our elementary school and from talking to other parents it sounds like it’s fun for the kids to walk/bike in a mass together to school. And leads to a lot of stop by the park type playdates on the way home. I would love to be in that scenario.
However I think a 10-15 min walk gets a little less ideal. Now you’re talking about adding a full 20-30 min commute onto your day each way b/c you have to walk them there and then back home (maybe that is a pro if you have the time and enjoy walking, but could also be a hassle if you have 2 parents working). And even if you’re comfortable with third grade + walking to school, if you have multiple kids like me there could be a big span of time until your youngest can walk to school.
Some perks of having bus riders are that I can basically walk out my front door to get my kids to school (we can see the stop from our house). And with the ride time, we get an extra ~50 min our day (15 min bus ride + 10 min buffer for arrival/dismissal), which eliminates our need for after care. Also friends who want to come over for a play date after school can just get off at our stop.
So overall, I think it really depends on what your morning and afternoon schedules look like as to which is better. But would prioritize the house itself over walk vs bussing.
This was us and while, yes, missed out on some of the parent connections from walking I also got to know a lot of parents in the neighborhood at the bus stop in the a.m. (there were a ton of kids at our stop). The kids did aftercare so I picked up there but starting in 4th grade let the kids walk home if they wanted to.
Being just outside the ES walk zone means we were in the walk zone for MS and HS. I think being walkable for MS/HS is much more valuable than ES.
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