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Schools

Pleas help relocate bus stop

The school district heeds a Curlew City mom's call to reassign her kids' bus stop to a safer area.

By GRACE CHENG
Published August 4, 2005

PALM HARBOR - Who knew a bus stop could cause so much hubbub?

In the week before students headed back to school on Wednesday, one bus stop was the subject of repeated complaints from concerned parent Jacqueline Ryan.

Last week, Ryan found out that her neighborhood in Curlew City would no longer get a bus to Lake St. George Elementary. That meant her three elementary school children and several others would have to cross eight-lane Curlew Road at U.S. 19 to walk to school.

No way, Ryan said. She called the transportation district.

Anthony Dzielski, acting director of transportation services, said there was no bus planned for her neighborhood because it was within 2 miles of the kids' school.

School district policy states students can ride the bus if they live more than 2 miles away from school, and elementary school students can ride if it is deemed dangerous for them to walk to school. Dzielski said that because Curlew Road wasn't originally flagged as a dangerous road, no buses were assigned to Curlew City.

"When (Ryan) called, we looked at it and said, "Hey yeah, she's right, it needs a stop,' " Dzielski said.

A bus was reassigned, but the stop wasn't where the old one had been located. The new stop was between 68th and 69th streets, about 100 feet east of her house. Last year, the kids waited to be picked up on Ryan's driveway at 298th Avenue N and 69th Street.

The new assigned stop was in a grassy vacant lot in front of power lines separated by a low fence, and across the street from a drainage ditch.

"It's just unsafe," Ryan said. "There's power lines, and across the street there's a creek with no fence, no nothing. No child in elementary school is not going to get curious and go over to that creek."

The ditch has roughly a 3-foot drop from its bank. Ryan said a school transportation official told her the computer had chosen the spot and that it fell within the county's safety guidelines.

"I'd like to know what they consider dangerous, if they think that's safe," Ryan said.

Her complaints were heeded on Tuesday, when an employee with the transportation department came to her door and told her the stop would officially change to Ryan's driveway.

Dzielski said the computer had always assigned the bus stop to the vacant lot, but whether students actually waited in that exact spot was flexible.

"A lot of times, a bus stop will be in a certain location . . . but it may be that a whole community of people want it in a certain (other) spot, and as long as it's reasonable, that's okay," Dzielski said.

Ryan said that each time she complained, the computer was blamed for the mishap. Although everything was worked out to her satisfaction, she said she shouldn't have had to complain in the first place. She said transportation officials should be held responsible for knowing where the buses stop.

"You cannot blame it on a computer," Ryan said. "You're not dealing with computerized children. They need to send someone out here to look at the stops. I shouldn't have to complain. . . . It's their responsibility to make sure the kids are safe."

[Last modified August 4, 2005, 01:05:20]