Yet another example of how our public schools need a major revamp, and fast!
A new policy at the Bear Branch Elementary School in Magnolia, Texas is threatening to charge parents with TRESPASSING for walking their kids to or from school as a deterrent to keep parents who live close by from coming onto school grounds.
And it’s not going over so well for them… Bear Branch is losing students left and right over the “pick up” policy since it was introduced just a few months ago. The move comes at the behest of the principal who decided that no matter how close a student lives to the school, they must take a bus or the parent must use a vehicle to get their kid.
Attempt to walk YOUR CHILD off school grounds and you could face criminal charges!
The school claims this policy will make drop off and pick up safer. However, almost all parents and many of the staff disagree. They feel it’s a needless idea and has exacerbated already long lines of traffic by the school, making it more difficult to get children to school and back home in a timely manner.
This isn’t an idle threat, either. She has Montgomery County Constables backing her, willing to arrest any parents simply for walking with their sons and daughters to class. While many school policies rub parents the wrong way, this seems to be on a whole new level.
“She’s threatening to arrest people,” says Wendy Jarman about the principal, Holly Ray.
“This has happened to many parents,” Jarman says. “They have been cited. They have been threatened, if they step one foot on school property, they will be arrested and charged with who knows what.”
And not just Jarman… Frank Young is another parent who lives near the school and has decided to pull his kids out of it. He went on to state that there is no effort on the school’s part to negotiate a better policy; despite the petition with hundreds of local signatures being presented.
“Mrs. Ray’s policy is implying that a parent doesn’t have the ability or capability to decide what is safest for her children and that the school district does,” Young says. “I disagree.”
“The most toxic thing we can do for our kids is not fight for truth and justice,” Young says.