Oh, well if it wasn't uphill both ways, then it doesn't even count does it?My mom grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan Canada. She attended a one room school house. Yup, one mile walk through the snow. At least it was flat. No buses. Oh, did I mention the school was on the corner of her dad's farm and that he donated the land for the school? Oh, and no cutting school as my Grandparents rented a room to the teacher so the teacher lived with my mom and her siblings. School only went to 8th grade. For High School you had to go 100 miles to a boarding school.
Of course, both my kids went to a private High School, 14 miles from home. No bus, carpool until they got their driver's license, then they drove themselves.Oh, well if it wasn't uphill both ways, then it doesn't even count does it?
I think many of our parents and grandparents have stories just like yours. I know mine did. Doesn't really change how we see things though. You thought 7 miles was far because your experience was that everyone lived within 2 miles or less of the school they went too. I don't think it's bad at all because I grew up much farther than that from the school I attended. The distance from the school was something we looked at when we purchased our land. I wanted to be sure it was close enough that I didn't mind running back and forth when they got old enough to start sports. And thank goodness I thought of that because from Aug to March they are having practice 3-4 days a week for something.
In all fairness, it was 20 years ago. But, I will say that having lived in CA most of my life, things are different in OK. They don't (or didn't) tolerate a lot and didn't make excuses. Having 3 grandkids in the same district you speak of, I didn't realize they didn't have buses. Then again, I have to pick 2 of them up Wednesday and like you said, they don't go to their scheduled schools.Interesting. I didn't think they wanted High School students mixing with First Graders, for example. Like I mentioned no more buses here in the San Juan Unified school district since they went to open enrollment. No way to set up a route since few if any students go to their neighborhood school anymore, and quite a few go to the school closest to their parents work.