It is a badge of honor in NYC specialized schools to be one of the kids who travels the furthest. There are groups of kids who travel to Stuyvesant by boat and who take two trains and two buses from manhattan to Townsend Harris. Only in NYCđ
Iâve lost count for all the times other parents have scoffed and looked down their nose at me for DH and I driving 45-50 min one way to get our kids to a charter school. Itâs all been totally worth it. Now we live a 35 min drive away from their charter school and itâs still been worth it. Weâre in the middle of year 11 of such commutes to and from school. I absolutely would do it the same way if I had to do it all over again. Anybody who has a problem with it can go pound sand as far as Iâm concerned.
Life is full of choices. You do you. If somebody wants to commute 90 min to high school, go for it.
My daughter was a NYC public school student, pre-K through senior year. She started taking the subway by herself to school in middle school, grade 6. Not as convoluted as Colin Jost, but she had to change subway lines in middle school. For high school she had a choice of several different buses or one subway line. Excellent attendance, or I would get a robocall after third period of high school.
Is this a contest? Our son âcommutedâ 2,500 miles to his high school by plane.
Itâs not a contest. Iâve just dealt with a lot of pretty rude people over the years who offer up their unsolicited opinion on our familyâs educational choices for our kids and I think those people are being ridiculous when they blurt out the things they do. Everybody should choose whatâs best for themâŠwhether itâs their local public school, a private school, a public charter school, home school, or boarding school. Thereâs more than 1 way to do it and just because you, I, or the people down the road make different choices than everybody else doesnât mean that rude buttheads have to be a tool about it all.
Had 1 person (former friend) one time even say, âOh, I give you a couple of years and then youâll be back at the ___ school district with the rest of us and then Iâll get to laugh at you and say, âI told you so.ââ 
As to the author of the articleâŠsounds like it was a great opportunity for them!
Perhaps only in NYC does the US have the combination of public transit good enough to enable this sort of commute and schools which are worth traveling to.
But outside the US this isnât so unusual. I traveled on my own 90 minutes each way to school (two public buses with a 1 mile walk to make the connection between them) every day from the age of 10 onwards. A commute of less than an hour each way was seen as living pretty close.
Yep, itâs not unusual in NYC. When City kids arrive in college,live in dorms, and walk less than 15 minutes to class,they suddenly have an extra hour or two every day to do things.
Regis is all male and there is no equivalent Catholic girls school.
Mine entailed no motorized vehicles (until 12th grade when I could drive). First. I walked a mile and a half to the local library, where I worked for two hours. Then I continued on to the high school (afternoon session), which necessitated cutting through woods and jumping over a stream. Then I walked home, a little less than two miles. It was a long, long day!
Also, I missed the jump once and showed up for my physics final covered in muddy splash marks.
I got a lot of judgement for our decision too (with a long commute) but honestly it was only slightly longer than if she was taking the bus to the local PS because of all the stops. It was the right decision for us.
Sounds like it was the right decision for Colin J too ; )
(And the time in the car together was priceless)
The down side to all of this of course is that there are no more neighborhood schools in NYC. There are some elementary schools that are neighborhood based but even middle schools are lottery based and kids have to commute.
No driverâs licenses until 18, only one technical school in the entire state. 90 minute train ride, one way, with one connection, plus a mile+ walk on either end to/from train station, with classes starting 8:30 AM.
And, that was about 8 years before Compaq introduced the first âportableâ computer (the size/weight of 10 laptops) - so no typing up assignments, or accessing/researching information while commuting, by something that would eventually be called a mobile network or the Internet.
Biggest problem was not finally dozing off right before it was time to get off.
Thank you for sharing this very entertaining and insightful article.
Long commutes with so much wasted time is one reason many consider attending boarding schoolsâno commute & no wasted time.
Thatâs not entirely true. Some NYC schools are preK-8. They are neighborhood schools. Thatâs the case in my neighborhood. A lot of kids do leave because they want to go to a stronger middle schoolâand sometimes thatâs a private school. Some of these kids do it to boost their chances of getting into one of the exam high schools.But any kid who lives in boundary can stay through 8th grade if they want.
I lived in the car driving my kid to a school 45-60 min each way for school. A daily 4 hour drive.
Long haul. But I do not regret it in the least. Not wasted time.
It does give you pause. Stuck in the car with your kid for two hours a day. To have one on one conversations that wonât come from anywhere else is nearly priceless in the long run. My biggest regret is I didnât get that with my first kid.â
But itâs tough. Itâs a job. You hate your car and getting in one after awhile. Still think it was well worth it.
There are many zoned middle schools, but in many districts, especially the more affluent ones like Districts 2 and 3 in Manhattan, many parents opt to rank schools in their district that are not their zoned school. There are still zoned high schools in the outer boroughs. My daughter and her friends said the one benefit of remote high school during the pandemic was getting more sleep because she didnât have to commute.
These are first world commutes. When I was in Africa a couple of folks told me about running (yes running) 10 miles each way to school every day.
The only places that do not have zoned elementary schools are Districts 1, 7, and 23, on the Lower East Side, in the South Bronx, and in East New York, where families can apply to any school in the district but almost certainly get a spot in the school closest to home.
Similarly, nearly all NYC students have a default zoned middle school.
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