Do you think it's cruel to ask a kid to do a daily bus ride that's more than an hour?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child has been in several special ed/private placements and they have all had long bus rides-more than an hour one way in most cases. It is common in these private placement schools.
The only way to make it bearable for a child is to have unlimited bus screen time (Ipad, DS, kindle etc).

It sucks and if you are at the point where you are considering a distant private placement, you are already in a place where you don't have any good choices. The schools are very antisocial--there are NO opportunities to meet other families, there are NO events at school where parents are invited, there are no PTAs, there are no school directories, it is very difficult to invite children to parties (you have to send in paper invitations and hope for the best because you don't have any contact info for the families). Children move in and out of the schools/classrooms. There is insane staff/teacher/aide turnover.

You don't really know anything going on at the school, because it is so far away.

If you are willing to share more about the schools you are considering, I could probably give more detailed feedback.

If I could travel back in time I would have homeschooled my ds for a year and done intensive therapy to try to get him back in public school. I have a very very low opinion on these private special ed schools that take public money.


OP here. Thanks for this. So far some names have been floated but we haven't toured anywhere yet. I will certainly ask for opinions on various schools when the time comes. I don't understand how people talk about homeschooling as something they can just do. I am highly educated but not in special education and certainly not in some of the specialized teaching methodologies my kid needs.

75 minutes is extreme as that doesn’t account for other kids getting dropped off before your kid. My child is at Ivymount and there are kids who come from far, but that seems too far. I’d also consider moving closer to the school you settle on.

[Anonymous]

I posted earlier. My child had around an hour each way to a public special ed center. He then had about an hour each way to a private contract school. Then, he switched to another private contract school with a bus ride that was about 1.5 hours each way. That's three hours a day on the bus, for years. Other children had even longer rides. You would be surprised to learn that there is no max or upper limit on how long children are scheduled to be on the buses. Each bus usually had 3 or 4 other children riding it, or the school system sent the children in taxis or vans.

To the pp upthread, every child who went to his school used devices for the bus. An audio book is a nice idea but given how painfully long these bus rides are, every parent I know just went with whatever would keep their kid happiest he longest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would drive or move.

+1