“This is one specific issue that affects millions of families every day, on which I was hoping FRK could have a tangible impact. A great many public and private schools impose severe restrictions on how kids can travel to/from school.”
Of course, sometimes the restrictions, however severe, are justified. (I’m not claiming that this is true in the case, just that it can be true in some cases.)
There’s not much a school can do about how a child gets to school. The student arrives, whether on foot, chauffeured by parents, or dropped off by an unknown male in an unmarked white van, and that’s it… the student is present, the student goes into the school, end of story. The only exception that comes to mind would be if students arrive by walking, and then cross a busy street between crosswalks, which I am familiar with because when I went to junior high school, that’s how I got to school every day. Jaywalking students would be subject to school discipline, even though the offense happens off the school grounds.
LEAVING school is a different story. The school has accepted custody (and the related liabilities) of the children; they are allowed to set rules about how and when that custody (and the related liabilities) ends. For example, my daughter’s grade school, when she attended, released students to school buses, to walk or bike home, or to designated caregivers who provided transportation from the school to their own facilities. But one thing they did NOT allow was students being dismissed from class, and going outside to the playground to play. The rule was that students had to go home after school and then come back to the playground.
Now, in theory, a parent can grant their own children autonomy, to make their own way home from school (or to other peoples’ homes, or even to other places entirely. If a public school were to hold such a child without probable cause to believe a crime had taken place or was about to take place, it would be a violation of civil rights under color of law, which are magic words to a civil-rights lawyer. In practice, however, schools are given wide latitude to violate the civil and property rights of students under the guise of “maintaining good order”.
Now… private schools have different rules because their services are contracted for, and thus, the choice is “agree with the contractual terms” or “don’t enter the contract” and agreeing to follow school rules… however arbitrary or unfair they may be… is one of the contractual terms.