School transpor sutiability / appeal

kissmeimposh

silvercar wrote: »

Due to distance they are obliged to provide transport, they do not have to pay you to look after your own child.

In the current situation, allowing you to travel with your child in the taxi would alleviate your concerns and fulfill their obligations. If you child is the only one in the taxi, there is room for this to happen.

I see the point but I do not fully agree in relation to our context and circumstances. Why would the council insist on paying vastly more to a taxi company if we could (must) do the same function and be paid vastly less while relieving the Council and the driver of responsibility for the child during the journeys? Why is it that our time has zero value but a taxi driver who has limited responsibility and concern for the child is paid a profitable amount? We don't seek any profit but we shouldn't be out of pocket or time in covering for an inadequacy of the Council.

frugallass

kissmeimposh wrote: »

is this something that the parents should have to accept?

yes I think it is something that parents should have to accept - if parents aren't happy with the transport provision provided then they should provide their own or pay for an 'escort' out of their own pocket.

There are days when my daughter cannot get the bus home (eg having been on a school trip or attended after school club) but I don't expect the school to reimburse me because I have had to pick her up !

silvercar

I see the point but I do not fully agree in relation to our context and circumstances. Why would the council insist on paying vastly more to a taxi company if we could (must) do the same function and be paid vastly less while relieving the Council and the driver of responsibility for the child during the journeys? Why is it that our time has zero value but a taxi driver who has limited responsibility and concern for the child is paid a profitable amount?

Its the taxi driver's employment and he is therefore entitled to earn a wage from it. Taking your child to school is a parental responsibility for which there is no payment. Short of finding a place at a nearer school it is not possible for the council to get rid of the time spent travelling to school.

If you take your point of putting a value on your time, if the council provided suitable door to door transport, you would be alleviated of the obligation to take your child to school, therefore saving yourself some time, no-one is suggesting that you then pay the council the value of the time it has saved you. Near me there are children with journeys just under the 2 mile limit, whose parents spend say 30 minutes ferrying to and from school. Those who live at 2.1 miles get transport so their parents are saved the 30 minutes that they would otherwise have spent. Are you suggesting they pay the council for the value of the time that the council has given them?

You can't talk about the lost time that your child being so far away means you lose. Having children means you spend a large proportion of your time ferrying them around, thats life. IMHO the real loser in the time equation is your child who will spend a proportion of each day travelling back and for to school.

You can argue about the inappropriateness of the taxi service being offered, but if the council turn round and say you may travel with the taxi, you will have nowhere to take the arguement. I would find out the arrangements for transfer between school and taxi at school and see if there is a failing at that end.

Time being so important, I would look at appealing, or at least going on the waiting list of more local schools.

I am really puzzled how your child can be the only one going from your area to this school.

dad-of-4

not sure if its been mentioned but i read an article not to long back where a mother had battled against the council to accompany her severely disabled child in the taxi journey to school, i think she had wanted to acompany as the nature of the disability had meant she had neededed training in handling the specific life threating emergencies that could occur at anytime.

anyway the papers made a fuss about it, as the council insited that the kids mother would need a full criminal record and sex offenders check inorder to be able to accompany her own child in the taxi. no other passangers or childen would ever be in the taxi, yet they insited anyway.

bestpud

I'm still really confused as to why your son is the only child not going to the local schools?

Did you ask for a place in your catchment school? And do you have more than one catchment school?

Because it seems as though there are two nearer school in your catchment but your child is the only one not to get a place in either?

If that is correct, then, as already said, appealing is an option?

On the subject of time, I really do think you are on to a loser with that one! You are not going to be paid for your time - that is for sure.

How long would it have taken you to get him to your catchment school each day? Because you need to consider that.

And how long do you think it is going to take you to drive 5 miles? It takes me around 15 minutes each way to drive dd the 5 1/2 miles to her school. I consider that reasonable given most people are at least 5-10 mins walking/driving distance from their local school.

And surely your local council will realise most of us consider that a part of parenting!

I do hope you sort something as I wouldn't like it, as I have said, but I kind of feel you may defeat your argument by expecting to be reimbursed for your time?

I can see where you are coming from but, time wise, you are being offered more than most parents as those who travel by bus usually have to get their children to the stop and be there to collect them at the end of the day! I suspect many spend more than 15 mins doing just that!

Just my thoughts of course...

seven-day-weekend

kissmeimposh wrote: »

I find it very difficult to believe that you would be OK about it unless your little child has advanced self-defense training, or unless your relative or long-time neighbour was the taxi driver. Do you think that if Marilyn McAnn was back at home for this term (don't we all wish), that her parents or the parents of her school colleagues would be OK about it?

At this stage, I would want the Council to abide by their legal and self-stated OBLIGATION to provide ADEQUATE and SUITABLE transport to school. That means either a bus, which they cannot do; or a taxi with other pupils, which they cannot do; or a taxi with a qualified and certified escort, which they could do but don't want to pay for; or in the last resort to pay the parents petrol and somehow compensate them as being an escort as the outlay to the parents is beyond petrol an in the realm of expenses that otherwise the Council should reasonably have to expect to incur considering the allocated school was the Council's allocation and not the choice of the parents.

I do NOT think it is right for the Council to take the position of 'you MUST either send your child ALONE with a taxi driver that we determine unilateraly, even though we have never so much as hinted that you may have to do this, or otherwise you shall endure the cost of school transport despite the fact that in the circumstances it is the Council's responsibility to provide it'. The Council cannot be allowed to say 'we'll provide the transport but we shall not satisfy your legitimate and reasonable concerns about your small child's safety and well-being if you do not entrust the child's safety and well-being to a subcontractor taxi driver'.

Is it me? Why should they have to do any of these things?

kissmeimposh

I don't think it is right that the Council force the child to attend a distant school and at the same time insist that it discharge it's transport OBLIGATION by sending the child alone in a taxi each and every day, where there is no precedent or experience or facility to accomodate a taxi at that school. The Council cannot have it both ways. Now that the child is in school, it is not right to force the child to change schools just to save the Council money. The Council is there to serve children's needs and fulfill the rights of children. Children are not supposed to do only what is most convenient for the Council.

silvercar

Is it me? Why should they have to do any of these things?

A council has an obligation to provide a school place for every child of compulsary school age. If the council cannot provide a school place within 2 miles of the child's home (3 miles for over 8s), they have an obligation to provide transport to and from school. The transport provided varies according to the number of pupils making each journey and general transport provision in the area.

For older children it will often be a bus pass where public transport is available. Where there are a large number of children travelling together, the councils do often provide coaches. Where there are only one or two children then a taxi could be a viable option, as would paying a mileage contribution towards the cost of a journey for parents taking children themselves.

Obviously the schools transport department has a duty to minimise the costs of their services, often contracts are put out to tender; the cost of a school taxi run will not be anything like the cost you or I would pay to hire a taxi for a similar length journey.

bestpud

Why can't the school accommodate a taxi?

kissmeimposh

They are only willing to provide a taxi to take the young child alone each and every day, without any prior arrangment regarding replacement taxi driver when the main one can't make the journey, and the taxi company contact person has appeared particularly dubious. This is the only child at the school being asked to endure this, apparently on an experimental basis as the school itself has no previous experience school taxis. This is unsuitable, unacceptable and does not reflect the Council's legal duty to consider the child's age. The Council didn't bother to make this prospect known to the parents until just before the term began.