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Bus stop changes worry parents

By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
Published August 10, 2007

A meeting on school bus changes brought out another few hundred parents and students to meet with school district officials last week, this time at Bloomingdale High School.

Parents lined up to pick up their children's new schedules and to meet individually with officials about new bus stops as part of the district's pilot project in east Hillsborough to cut and consolidate bus stops amid a financial crunch and difficulties in recruiting bus drivers.

Unlike concerns raised in Wimauma about children walking through unsafe rural neighborhoods or across busy highways, parents at Bloomingdale focused on school bus stops.

Several parents said they worried about the relocation of bus stops from within subdivisions to busy thoroughfares such as John Moore Road.

"If you have 20 middle school students on the corner of John Moore Road and Bloomingfield, there's no place for them to stand," said Melissa Kelly, who has two children at Bloomingdale High and a third at Burns Middle School.

John Franklin, the district's general manager of transportation, said officials would reassess the new stops to make sure no safety hazards exist.

"We will need to make spot changes," he told about 50 parents and students while dozens more reviewed stops with officials in the lobby. "It will continue to change, folks."

The district adjusted its proposal for bus stops for Wimauma Elementary after parents complained that changes would force many children to cross State Road 674 or walk unsupervised to and from school.

As a compromise, the district said it would restore two bus stops to prevent some students from having to cross the highway on foot and restore service to after-school programs at Bethune Park.

For parents in the Bloomingdale area, concerns centered more on where their children will catch the bus.

Parent Sheryl Hickle said she worries about her second-grader standing on the shoulder of Bell Shoals Road.

Kathy Sciortino, the district's routing planning manager, said officials would investigate.

One of the reasons for moving bus stops out of the subdivisions and onto the main roads is speed, she said. Turns into subdivisions full of speed bumps slow down buses.

One of the goals of the pilot project, in addition to reducing bus overcrowding, is to make sure the buses are more likely to arrive on time.

"Obviously, safety is first," she said. "We will make sure the children are safe."

Saundra Amrhein can be reached at 813 661-2441 or amrhein@sptimes.com.

More meetings

Hillsborough County School District transportation officials are holding more meetings for parents of students whose bus stops and schedules are affected in the transportation pilot project in east Hillsborough. The meetings start at 5:30 p.m. and include bus information for all the elementary and middle feeder schools and high schools. They are:

Today: Lennard High School

Monday: Spoto High School

[Last modified August 10, 2007, 09:04:36]