There’s plenty of school left before summer vacation.

Still time for road rage at school parking lots all across America.

The School Car Line Is a Study In Tantrums and Turf Wars
More parents drive their kids in race to beat the tardy bell; ‘DO NOT cut the line’ 
By Scott Calvert
Wall Street Journal
April 16, 2024

Arguments. Arrests. Lawsuits. Police.

The bumper-to-bumper jockeying at school drop-off and pickup is lurching past annoyance en route to truecrime drama.

“DO NOT cut the line. DO NOT drive on the gravel path near the water tower,” Principal Michael Girouard told Red Oak Middle School parents in Battleboro, N.C., in a scolding missive. “If you find yourself running late, get up earlier.”

Jordyn Hon of Plant City, Fla., fed up with people driving through neighbors’ yards to jump the line before and after school, posted a map on Facebook with hand-drawn arrows showing the proper protocol at Springhead Elementary School.

“There’s two different blocks you can take to simply act like a decent human being,” Hon wrote. Her post drew a stream of huzzahs, including one woman’s observation that “there isn’t a worse car line than Springhead and that’s a hill I’ll die on.”

Parents have long dreaded the nerve-fraying navigation required for car caravans ferrying students to and fro. It seems to be getting worse. New federal data show a rising share of students who ride in cars to school. It isn’t clear whether the growth comes from busdriver shortages, more workfrom-home parents or other reasons.

West Melbourne, Fla., police posted 10 “quick refreshers” for parents picking up and dropping off. The tips, some more sober than others, include:

“Just say no to quick chats.”

“Don’t throw your kid out of a moving vehicle.”

“Remember you have to pick the kids back up so this is not an excuse for day drinking…(you know who you are).”

Police Lt. Graig Erenstoft said the post’s light tone was meant to ease people’s stress, though “we’ve dealt with the day drinkers,” he said. A single rule-breaker can mess everything up, he said: “That parent who needed to say goodbye four times? You’ve now added 15 minutes to the last person in line.”

Chad Craven said the crush of cars at his 8-year-old son’s school near Detroit tempted him into waiting at a no-parking zone during pickup. He has paid a price—$335 for four citations.

“I wasn’t even parking, technically,” Craven said. “I would sit there with my foot on the brake.” He wised up, he said, and began to watch for a police car to pass before stopping there.

Kristen Melcher of Vicksburg, Miss., now sends her children to school by bus after she was cursed at for pulling in front of a car that had stopped short of the designated drop-off spot. “I wouldn’t say I have anger issues, but to avoid me getting myself into trouble,” Melcher said, “I just avoid it completely.”

The drop-off drama in North East, Pa., has shifted from school grounds to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The case started last August, after Sara Kim criticized her school district superintendent who was working curbside during school drop off.

“My children received their first lesson of the school year—the superintendent screams at parents with her arms in the air as a tactic to ‘move the line along,’ ” Kim wrote on Facebook, her lawsuit said.

Supt. Michele Hartzell emailed Kim that day, asking her to delete the post. “Possibly consider using some kind words such as, ‘wow, it is nice to see our Superintendent help out,’ ” she wrote, according to court papers. Kim declined.

“You had absolutely no qualms about embarrassing me in front of other parents, faculty, and children—why wouldn’t I return the favor?” she told Hartzell. In March, Kim sued the school district, Hartzell and school board president Nick Mobilia, alleging they retaliated against her for exercising free speech. She claims Hartzell gave Mobilia a video of the drop-off incident and that Mobilia showed customers at his wine business in town, causing Kim embarrassment and emotional distress. The suit is pending. Kim’s lawyer declined to comment, as did Hartzell and Mobilia.

Police in Goose Creek, S.C., were called to a primary school last August. Trisha Rawlins told police she had squeezed her car in front of another vehicle when the driver wouldn’t let her into the line at drop-off. Two women from that car strode over to Rawlins’s window. Rawlins moved a nonworking stun gun from the center console to her lap, a police report said. One of the women at her window pulled out a purple handgun, the woman told police. Her companion had a handgun in her purse, the report said. No one was hurt, and the two women were arrested. Their cases are pending.

Rebecca Rotholz of Westchester County, N.Y., learned the consequences of not being properly informed when a neighbor gave her and her son a lift to school. After they got out of the car, the neighbor began to drive away, not realizing that cars were supposed to leave in the order they arrived. School staffers leapt into action. “They’re, like, yelling at her. She doesn’t know why,” said Rotholz’s husband, Jeremy Schachter.

Windsor Charter Academy in Windsor, Colo., capitalizes on car-line angst by auctioning off prized parking spaces to parents. The K-12 charter school uses a dismissal app and gives parents detailed instructions. Even so, “it’s a pain point obviously for parents,” said Sara Sanders, the school’s communications director. Sarah Baldwin and Annalyssa Brandley, sisters who collectively have four children at the school, bought their way out last year. They made the winning bid for exclusive use of a choice parking spot for the school year: $560.

“It was worth every penny,” Baldwin said. “I cut 45 minutes out of sitting in a line every single day, waiting for them to come out. I just pull up and get them.”