In Pratt v Robinson, 39 NY2d 554 [1976] a seven-year-old girl on her way home from school was struck by a truck while crossing a street several blocks from where she had been discharged from a school bus. In discussing a school's "orbit of authority" over a child, the Court invoked in loco parentis, holding at 560, that "the duty owed by a school to its students . . . stems from the fact of its physical custody over them . . . When that custody ceases because the child has passed out of the orbit of its authority in such a way that the parent is free to reassume control over the child's protection the school's custodial duty also ceases." Further, at 562, the Pratt Court instructed that "we see no basis, wither in statutes or common law, for the creation of a school's duty to protect its students from hazards which may best them once they are on their way home and outside the control of the school." The Court of Appeals described the school district's duty toward its students as follows: "The duty owed by a school to its students, however, stems from the fact of its physical custody over them. As the Restatement puts it, by taking custody of the child, the school has 'deprived (the child) of the protection of his parents or guardian. Therefore the actor who takes custody of a child is properly required to give him the protection which the custody or the manner in which it is taken has deprived him' (Restatement of Torts 2d, 320 comment b). The school's duty is thus coextensive with and concomitant to its physical custody of and control over the child. When that custody ceases because the child has passed out of the orbit of its authority in such a way that the parent is perfectly free to reassume control over the child's protection, the school's custodial duty also ceases "