South School parking a hazard
Published on November 22nd, 2000
STONEHAM, MA - Superintendent of Schools Joe Connelly is afraid South School parents are going to run over their neighbors' children.
Safety Officer Larry Rotondi has seen the parents in action at the South Elementary School on Summer Street and around town.
"I asked one lady why she was picking her kid up in the middle of the street," Rotondi said. "And she said, 'He's not my kid.'"
South School PTO President Lisa Gallagher, the mother of three children at South, agreed that parents "bend the rules as much as they can."
"You wouldn't believe the close calls," she said.
Rotondi is exasperated. He has 35 traffic directors for 35 dangerous crossing spots, but often two or three directors call in sick. He decided to pull directors from the least dangerous spots when understaffed.
South School was deemed one of the least dangerous spots. Yet, the threat of an accident is so great that Connelly is considering paying parents $20 a day to monitor the South School parking lot in the morning drop off and afternoon pick up hours.
"We may have to blacktop over the play area behind the school for more parking," Connelly said. The schools have commissioned a traffic study. As it is, parents of preschool children are allowed to park on the basketball court.
"We never thought it would be this bad," Gallagher said. "When we voted for the school, we thought there would be underground parking."
Many children close enough to walk to school never do; parents drive door to door.
"Maybe we have to let go, but you hear about things happening," Gallagher said.
Even though parents fought hard for neighborhood schools, they do not allow their children to walk through the neighborhood. To protect the children from their own neighborhood, parents crowd into small parking lots, threatening to run over their neighbors' kids.
"These parents are all wonderful people, but they have to follow the rules," Gallagher said. She has seen parents double parked opposite cars sitting in the fire lane.
"All it will take is for one parent's foot to slip on the gas pedal," Connelly said.
The danger zone, according to Connelly, is the intersection of Irving Street and Summer Street. Children walking on the Summer Street sidewalk compete with cars exiting the school parking lot via Irving Street.
Connelly has already worked with South School Principal Paula Sline to make Irving Street an exit only with no left turn. And the crosswalk closest to the school has been moved slightly west on Summer Street so that the students who do walk home do not have to walk in front of the entrance to the parking lot to get to the crosswalk.
At the Nov. 16 School Committee meeting Connelly said that he will meet with traffic engineers and parents over the coming weeks to find a long-term solution.
School Committee members were concerned about Connelly's initial solution — paid parent supervisors.
School Committee Chairwoman Jeanne Craigie and members Mary Pecoraro and Marc Grimaldi asked about liability.
Grimaldi, an attorney, worried that paying the parents could "open us up to a higher level of liability."
Connelly said he wanted to pay the parents to make sure they actually showed up.
Craigie also asked about the role of teacher aides. At Central School some of the aides work outside, before and after school. But South has a more active parking lot and eight aides to Central's 11.
School Committee member Mary Carey was not worried about Connelly's idea.
"I don't think we'd have a problem," she said. "It would just be parents helping parents."
Gallagher thought the parents should be part of the solution.
"Everyone will work together to make it work — I have to believe that," Gallagher said.
In other school news
The School Committee ratified contracts for paraprofessionals, nurses and cafeteria workers last week.
Paraprofessionals, or teaching assistants, signed a three-year contract with raises of two percent in the first year, three percent in the second year and three percent in the third year. An extra step will be added in years two and three. A step increase based on length of service equates to 25 cents more per hour.
The four school nurses also agreed to a three-year contract with successive raises of two percent, four percent and four percent. The nurses will also receive $500 each to pay for relevant graduate courses.
Cafeteria workers agreed to the same raise and step arrangement as the nurses.
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