Not sure if this will help you at all, but my school district started that distance rule a couple years ago. ('09-10 school year) I flipped, because it rains here a lot, and there was NO WAY I was going to have kids walking in that all the time. Plus, I had one girl starting Kindergarten that year, and another starting 1st grade. I just wasn't comfortable letting 5 & 6 yr olds walk. I had a little girl who was just turning 1, and some toddlers. To compound it all, my school agers went to two different schools. (They are next door to each other, but each covers a different boundary on the map. Long story on why they are next door, but that's beside the point.) After school, I would've had too many to fit in my van. It basically was just NOT going to work for me AT ALL.

Anyway, I called the bus company (contracted by the school district), both the elementary principals, and the superintendant of the district and fought my case really hard. I told them that I watched X number of kids and that there was no way I could take them. I told them I would lose clients if their 5 & 6 yr olds were made to walk, that it wasn't safe, cited some news stories of abductions, etc. I layed it on thick that they need to support our local DC Providers because we make it possible for parents to go to work, etc., etc. We were JUST inside their walking boundary, AND the bus would have gone right down the street that runs behind my house, meaning all they had to do was come one street over to get the kids as they are on the final part of the trip to school. I also said that I would understand them not doing it for just the average homeowner/student, but that being a DC Provider, the rules should be a bit different because of the circumstances of having multiple kids, and babies in the house, etc.

Long story short (ok, it's not so short -- sorry!) I won!! I was sooooo thrilled and felt so accomplished for having done that!! Forgot to mention that all my parents made similar phone pleas, and we all also wrote emails. It wasn't an immediate decision. In fact, they strung us along all through August, and didn't actually ok it until a week after school started Sept. 8th.

So I don't know if your school district would bend if you put a lot of pressure on them and got your parents behind you, but it worked for us!!

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