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