Opponents of bus stop policy to pack BOE meeting Monday

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

The Fayette County Board of Education is preparing to face overflow crowds of angry parents when it convenes Monday for its regular monthly meeting.

It will be the first board meeting since classes resumed last Monday, and the first opportunity to address changes in the school district's pupil transportation policy that eliminated service to some neighborhoods while greatly consolidating routes throughout the county.

All week, the school district offices have been flooded with complaints, and transportation personnel have gone out of their way to make sure each and every case is heard, said school board Chairman Terri Smith. On Thursday, she estimated that the majority of legitimate legal complaints had been dealt with to the satisfaction of the families involved.

Still, vowing they "won't give up" until their complaints are heard, about 50 parents gathered at The Estates clubhouse Wednesday night to compare notes and coordinate their next move.

The fight may be short-lived, as more reports of compromises and restored stops trickle in.

At least a handful of families from The Estates said they were told by a school district transportation employee that a bus would begin picking up the kids who lived in the homes furthest from the entrace starting Monday.

That presents a potentially awkward scenario, some parents argued: A bus driving through the neighborhood past kids who were walking to school, just to pick up children who lived a little further away.

"We all pay the same taxes, we should get the same service," was the cry.

"Their concern is correcting errors in the one-mile rule," explained Joe Mendola, an Estates resident and one of the meeting's organizers. He admitted finding out prior to the meeting that his house lies beyond the one-mile cutoff and will be served by the new bus stops on Monday.

The Estates is adjacent to Braelinn Elementary on Robinson Road, and many homeowners say they moved to the area specifically to get their children into the highly-ranked school. But because the two main entrances to the subdivision on Robinson Road are with .4 mile of the school, bus service to the students there was dropped altogether.

In June, the School Board amended the policy on the minimum distance a child should have to travel from home to school, or home to bus stop, from .3 mile to .5 mile.That distance of two-tenths, coupled with other measures like leasing buses instead of purchasing new ones, is allegedly saving the school district more than $1 million a year.

To the parents present at the meeting, cost wasn't the issue: It was safety. And asking young children to use the cart path system to get to school daily isn't acceptable, parents say.

"This is a a safety issue, pure and simple," said Peachtree City Councilman Steve Rapson, who attended the meeting and urged the parents to follow proper channels and stay focused on that issue.

Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown, via e-mail, backed up the claim by Rapson and others that the paths were not an accepable means of getting to and from school.

"If you ask, are the paths safe for elementary age children walking in the dark wee hours of the morning, my answer would be that I would not allow my children to do it," wrote Brown.

Brown suggested school managers made "large communication gaps" in getting the word out about the change. Chief among them was waiting until days before school started to send out letters about the policy, and many of those letters either never arrived or went to the wrong addresses, parents reported.

School personnel have not acknowledged any breakdown in the notification processs, but through a statement issued Tuesday morning did apologize to parents and studednts "if this change causes difficulty."

Another issue of concern to many Peachtree City parents, Brown said, was overcrowding at bus stops. With several stops consolidated into one central pick-up spot, many kids are gathering at key intersections, and some buses particularly on the middle school pickup cycle are dangerously overcrowded, parents allege.

Brown said the city occasionally will monitor bus stop activity at the request of a parent, but generally doesn't have the manpower to do so. He discouraged parents threatening lawsuits against the school district to reclaim bus service.

"Give the Board of Education the opportunity to fix things in a timely fashion," Brown said.

The regular monthly School Board meeting scheduled for Monday night may provide the first step toward reconciliation. Several residents present Wednesday said they had already called about getting on the agenda. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at School Board headquarters, 210 Stonewall Ave. West.