kindergarten field trip - no harnessed seats allowed

April

Well-known member
So I got a notice today regarding DD2's upcoming kindergarten field trip to the pumpkin patch. "October 20th - please send a booster seat today. Do NOT send seats that require anchoring or tethering".

Okay so #1: we're in Canada - land of 40lb minimums on all boosters. Also land of mandatory tethering for harnessed seats.
#2: I'm willing to bet money that at least 1/3 of the kids in the class are under 40lbs. DD is 42lbs and she's a good head taller than every one of her classmates. #3 the parent driver form requires you to state how many seats you have available without an active airbag. No mention of lap/shoulder belts.

I'm one of the parent drivers. DD will be riding harnessed in her Nautilus. I'm also a tech. There is no way I'm putting an under 40lb child in a booster in my vehicle. What am I supposed to do, bring a freakin scale? I see the pick up/drop off line everyday and many of these kids ride in harnessed seats. So I can only imagine how many will be riding in a booster for their first time on this trip, possibly in lap belt only positions.

Thoughts?
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babyherder

Well-known member
Remind the teacher that what she is organizing may be illegal (under 40 lbs in a booster and booster with lap belt only). Say you are uncomfortable doing something illegal and unsafe. If you have extra harness seats install them and tell the teacher ahead of time you will be using your own seats. You and/or her can find parents that are comfortable with that.
 

Neatfreak

New member
Ugh. How unfortunate! I might send the teacher a note, saying that you are a tech and wanted to give her the chance to revise her note before anyone caught what "must be an error" because not all of her students can legally ride in a booster.
 

petriescz

New member
As a teacher I used to weigh my kiddos before trips to ensure they were riding in proper seats! I am sure with a gentle reminder of the law she would change her letter. If not I wouldn't hesitate to get the administration involved. Surely they wouldn't want the liability from an accident.
 

Helen

New member
Can you offer to inspect any harnessed seats before the trip starts? Maybe her concern is that it will take too long/parent drivers won't properly install the seats the kids usually ride in?
 

mrswh

New member
That is really disheartening. :( I have seen preschool teachers stick 3 year olds in boosters - even when the parent left a car seat w/harness - because it was just easier. :mad:

I'm not sure you can tell the teacher/school what to do, aside from informing them of the law (you can do this in writing if you really want them to pay attention) and refusing to bring any child in your car who is not properly/legally restrained.

Perhaps, if the majority of kids in the class are under 40 lbs and therefore riding in harnessed/tethered seats, there won't be enough boosters to go around anyway. I have a 6 yo (in a harnessed Frontier) and 4 yo (in a Marathon) and I don't even own a booster.
 

Kristydrosgers

New member
Most school busses are not supposed to have seatbelts. School-age children are eight times safer in big yellow busses (even without seatbelts) than in passenger vehicles.

I don't buy that at all. Our family friend watched his daughter school bus get hit right in front of there home and she died:(
 

Stretchy Glue

New member
I don't buy that at all. Our family friend watched his daughter school bus get hit right in front of there home and she died:(

That is very tragic, however the data is pretty clear on the safety of school busses. It takes a lot of people a long time to come to grips with the data but it's real.
 

karlatta

New member
I don't buy that at all. Our family friend watched his daughter school bus get hit right in front of there home and she died:(

I am sorry for their loss. But the stats remain the same. School busses are very safe. Obviously, there are still accidents with injuries and even deaths, but traveling in a school bus is statistically safer than being in a car.
 
We just went through something similar at Fionas preschool, They wanted all the kids in backless boosters and some only had lap belts, on a 15 passenger van, NOT COOL.

I basically printed out our state law, then gave a pictoral report on what it meant, and then I gave them Coleens info (from here since she lives close by and offered) I also gave them some safe kids hand outs.. At the end I wrote that our daughter would be driven by me to all feild trips until they fixed the problem, with in a week or so, we were told no more feild trips, after they researched and tried to be exempt and realized the law pertained to them. now they worked it out so that I drive Fiona, and another mom who always chaperones, comes along with her daughter in my car, and some other mom drives, but for some reason today I was the only other driver, maybe a kid was absent.. I didn't count or really even think about it.
anyways That is how I handled it, it was really stressful for me, but it got it done.. hopefully you can talk to them about it.
 

carseatcoach

Carseat Crankypants
I don't buy that at all. Our family friend watched his daughter school bus get hit right in front of there home and she died:(

I'm sorry for their loss. But that doesn't change the facts (nobody's asking you to "buy" anything):

School bus transportation is one of the safest forms of transportation in the United States. Every year, our nation's 450,000 school buses travel more than 4.3 billion miles to transport 23.5 million children to school and school-related activities.

The record is impressive: American students are nearly eight times safer riding in a school bus than with their own parents or guardians in cars. The fatality rate for school buses is only 0.2 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT) compared to 1.5 fatalities per 100 million VMT for cars.
http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NRD/Multimedia/PDFs/Crashworthiness/SchoolBus/SBReportFINAL.pdf
 

Melanie

New member
I don't buy that at all. Our family friend watched his daughter school bus get hit right in front of there home and she died:(
What happened to your friend's daughter is awful. We had a terrible school bus accident here a while back. The bus was turning left and was hit by a car that had been going about 60 (not sure of speed at impact). I was very impressed by how well the bus held up. The car went 1/2 way under the bus. But there was barely any damage and no damage to the passenger area. The bus didn't even get moved much. The accident would've looked much different if it had been 2 cars that collided.

My kindergartener now rides the school bus. It was hard to wrap my head around her being safer with no seatbelts but statistically it really is true.
 

rodentranger

New member
I drove for a preschool field trip a few months ago and insisted that I use my own seats that I installed for the kids in my vehicle. I put my kids in the harness slot seats and the other kids in the no rethread seats I have. If I am transporting kids in my car, I feel like it's my job to make sure they're safe.
I even insisted that I get the kid that won't stay in a harnessed seat!:D
 

April

Well-known member
Update:

Just for the record, I had/have every intention of transporting my DD to and from field trips in her regular seat in my van. My primary concern was that they were insisting that no parents who weren't driving send harnessed seats for their kids, knowing fully that many are under 40lbs.

So with the help of my wonderful friend, CPST/CRST-I and car-seat.org mod Nicole (aka QuassEE), I wrote a letter to the school. Lucky for me, (unfortunately for Nicole) she is going through a very similar ordeal with her DD's school. So I just had to modify some of the wording.

So I gave the letter to the teacher when I picked up DD. I didn't have time to chat cause we had a dr appointment, but I got a phone call from the teacher about 30 minutes later that went something like this:

"I just wanted to call and say thank you for your letter, and that I really really appreciate it. You hit the nail right on the head. We are aware that our current guidelines are far from ideal. I've been wondering myself what was going to have to happen before something gets changed. I sat here reading through your recomendations, trying to make sense of it. I felt like I needed an interpreter to explain it to me and it seems like you are just the person for that job. I've made the principal aware of your letter and I'll be passing it on to her. Somebody will call you next week and we would really appreciate if you'd be willing to work with us to ensure all of our students are being transported safely."

WOOOOHOOO!!!!
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