Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-01-17-STAS-min Ad Hoc School Transportation and Safety Study Committee January 17, 2013 at 9am Conference Room, Central Administration Blg Meeting Minutes 1 Attending Judy Crocker, MaryEllen Dunn (Asst Superintendent),Sharon Kendall, Deb Mauger (BoS),Jessie Steigerwald (SC), Craig Weeks Guest: Bonnie Brown 2 School Grounds as Public Ways a) Review of Tanuary 11 meeting comments On January 11, several municipal and school officials met in order to collectively discuss the STS proposed 2013 Annual Town Meeting Article Attendees included Chief Mark Corr, Cpt Manny Ferro, Carl Valenti, Deb Mauger, Norman Cohen, Mary Ellen Dunn, Margaret Coppe and Judy Crocker The proposed article suggests a town bylaw to allow school administration and the police to properly enforce and penalize those who fail to follow posted traffic rules on school property The discussion outlined access and public safety problems caused by violators School staff and the police have met with mixed results in alleviating the issue All agreed that additional parent and school education is necessary in order to have the desired culture change. It was noted that the school principals did not employ STS' Greeter Kits for the start of the FY13 school year that were designed to help with this issue Working toward the same outcome, TSAC is going to make a recommendation to the School Committee proposing that its property signage be codified This committee feels that it will be a more responsive solution by the body that oversees the property Currently, recommendations are being drafted for 4 out of the 9 Lexington schools Ms Dunn also outlined the development of a concept to build a history of the school property inventory Working with Public Facilities, infrastructure items to identify would include signage, pavement painting, crosswalk locations, and the like. School property is under the Jurisdiction of the School Committee As such,they are the body with whom to be held accountable for enforcement of the rules of the road on school property According to Chief Corr, for the STS bylaw proposal to be enacted, all school driveways would have to meet the standards of being termed a public way This is presently not the case Infrastructure work would be required in order to meet this classification It was concluded that the best way of obtaining the desired outcome would be for the School Committee to work on formalizing a directive to be used by the police for its property's roadway management In addition, school principals would be need to work on traffic management best practices, for their role is one of property manager TSAC will also continue with its sign codification project It was requested that STS remove its placeholder for its proposed Town Meeting Article. Mr Cohen reported that he is willing to continue to work on the language of a bylaw, and suggested starting the work in June in order to meet the Town Meeting August submission deadline b) TSAC update TSAC will work towards having its school transportation proposals on an upcoming School Committee meeting agenda after Ms Dunn solicits comments from the school principals. Ms. Dunn, Dr.Ash, and Ms. Coppe have met and discussed having TSAC minutes be placed on the School Committee agenda or as an information item in their meeting packet Important issues need to be better communicated between the two committees They also discussed having the Board of Selectmen work with TSAC c) Spring Town Meeting- discussion of maintaining placeholder for proposed bylaw The conversation included how the Town has two different parking metrics, one municipal and one for the schools It was suggested to use personnel already in the roles for both areas Ms Steigerwald asked Ms Mauger to check on what tickets were enforced last September and October written by the police on or near school grounds The Committee decided on tabling the current placeholder for a Town Meeting article in order to give time to the School Committee to take appropriate steps and for TSAC to move forward with its school signage codification project However,the Committee felt strongly that if these two groups were not successful in making forward progress on the topic,then STS might pursue the matter again for the fall Town Meeting The writing of the article would then need to begin in August with Mr. Cohen. STS also voted on making the following recommendation to the School Committee The ad hoc School Transportation &Safety Study Committee voted to request that the Board of Selectman postpone the 2013 Annual Town Meeting article to amend the by- law of public ways The Committee would like to give the School Committee time to respond to traffic mitigation and life safety concerns on School Committee property. 3 Evaluations and Recommendation of School Zones - MAPC Grant SRTS and DPW have submitted the grant package 4 Bus Registration Fees At the January 7 Traffic Advisory Committee (TAC) meeting, Ms Crocker inquired about the status of the price point for the Flexpress cost/rider Ms Rebbechi reported that the MBTA will not be changing their fare rate so in turn neither would the Lexpress system It was then agreed that the charge of$50/student could remain unchanged for FY14. Following a brief explanation of the proposed FY14 bus fees the majority of the TAC members expressed concern and disagreement with having any late fee as high as the actual cost/student to ride the school bus TAC feels that the goal of this project is to get students and parents out of their cars and onto the bus There was no penalty for late registration for FY13, so they felt that much of the laxness was because there were no consequences TAC suggested a payment schedule that includes an earlier deadline, e.g. May 1 for the initial $300 00 This would then be followed by a grace period for stragglers After May 10, a "no discount" fee of$722 is proposed for the first late student fee,with $300 for any additional family member TAC feels that it is very important to balance the "students on bus" goal against the needs of the planners A lot of flak(and perhaps lose community support) might occur if the penalty is seen as draconian Most of the TAC members wanted to see some compromise The ensuing discussion weighed the pros and cons of having a one versus two-part deadline registration period as well as using the actual cost/student to ride the bus as an after-period fee The majority sided with the one deadline approach and all agreed with the $722 cost point Ms Dunn reported that 25 buses would be needed for FY14, an increase of one bus over FY13 In addition, she reported that Ms Rogers and Rebecchi from the Town Transportation Department have declined to be involved with an after-school position in aiding the elementary after-school destinations program She suggested another solution that involves identifying an elementary grade captain/school who would take on the responsibility of the on-school site management. This may be a better fit as these individuals already have established relationships within each school 5 School Committee and Board of Selectman winter presentations Since the December 11 request,there has not yet been a confirmed date for the proposed SC's STS update and recommendations presentation. TSAC will also be looking for a presentation date The BoS will be scheduled after a SC date has been set 6 Review of minutes of December 6 2012 and Ian 3 2013 The December minutes were accepted as amended The January minutes were not ready for review 7 New Business Ms Dunn shared the TSAC liaison report that was distributed to the school principals this week. It contains on overview of recommended criteria that would require SC action to address traffic mitigation and safety concerns on or around school property It includes a Feb 15 principal comment deadline for recommendations regarding policies for traffic calming on Bridge, Bowman, Hastings, and Estabrook school properties, SRTS submissions and recommendations, and other traffic mitigation proposals The latter involves the school zone evaluation project and FY14 capital request for a new Clarke bus loop. Our next meeting will be February 14, 2013 at 9am in the Conference Room at Central Administration. Respectively submitted, Judy Crocker