Why are school so dumb?

We live near a school, which is pretty handy as it has nice playgrounds that the little monkey can play in after hours.

In my day, schools weren't generally surrounded by eight foot high fences. Ours had a bit of hedge around some of it, what looked like a five strand farm fence (the type that keeps in sheep) around other bits and none at all in places. We all knew where the boundary was, and we didn't cross it.

I'm talking about a primary school being the type that is nearby - how kids that are about 3 foot high are expected to climb over a normal fence is beyond me, let alone one that is so high, I couldn't get over it with a ladder. Do we need fences this high to keep the little tackers in? Is school that bad these days? Looking at the fencing reminds me of The Great Escape.

Anyway, I noticed today that some of the gates have a wheelchair symbol painted on the ground in front of the gate. That's probably because the gate is on a level patch - no steps inside or out. However, what got me is that the gate has one of those pool fence latching mechanisms on it where you need to be at least 5 feet tall in order to lift the latch and get out. It's obviously been installed to keep the short arsed little primary school kids from escaping.

How on earth is someone in a wheelchair supposed to open the latch? There is no way that someone in a wheelchair could reach that high. It is so high up, I almost need to stand on a wheelchair to open it, and I am just shy of six foot. So is the person in the wheelchair supposed to get up and stand on the seat and..... oh, slight logic problem here.

Schools - they aren't getting any smarter.