It must seem to schools that they are required to act as a safety-valve for just about every community affliction. Some in low-income areas have already become virtual one-stop shops for healthcare and social welfare services. Now, increasingly, many are also being asked to be childcare agencies. Parents juggling their responsibilities are dropping children off at school as much as 90 minutes before classes begin.
In part, schools are paying the price for increased workplace pressures on many parents. But a climate of fear also deters many from allowing their children to bike or walk to school at a better time. Concern about predatory behaviour or the dangers of biking means that a cavalcade of cars now draws up at the schoolgate every morning. Yet if parents were confident that those dangers had been minimised, children could, in most cases, set off to school at a sensible hour.
Additional safety measures are possible. Why, for example, is the speed limit on roads in the vicinity of schools not lower, as is standard practice in the United States? Parents could also limit the danger by teaching their children good habits. If more children were encouraged back on to bikes, driver behaviour would surely improve, if only in deference to the greater number of cyclists.
Some parents will probably always insist that the most responsible course is to drive their children to school - even if that means dumping them at 7.30 am. In such cases, no financial burden should be imposed upon the school.
Gladstone School in Mt Albert has struck a reasonable compromise. It runs before and after-school programmes to meet demand from working parents. But the parents pay for the service. The Government may also pump more money into childcare subsidies for low-income families.
All that is helpful. But would it not be even better to see groups of children cycling and strolling off to school at the proper time?
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