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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2013-06-21-STAS-min Ad Hoc School Transportation and Safety Study Committee June 21, 2013 at 9am Lower Conference Room, Central Administration Blg Meeting Minutes 1 Attending. Elaine Celi,Judy Crocker, MaryEllen Dunn, Craig Weeks Guest. Bonnie Brown 2 Meeting minutes for May 2 were accepted. Minutes from June 6 were not yet submitted for review 3 Update on Bus Registration More than 2500 students are presently registered for the bus for FY14 The final parent bus subsidy registration deadline is July 1, after which no subsidy will be offered except for new families In addition, an informational letter has been distributed to all distance-eligible students. 4 WorldTech Consultant Update The WorldTech preliminary report is due the last week of June. From the report, Ms. Dunn will generate a traffic policy for review/comments • by TSAC for their early July meeting • by principals during July • by School Committee for their first meeting of the FY14 calendar The proposed policy will highlight a minimal level of safety expectations for LPS Ms. Dunn discussed the need of a nonpartisan advisory group for principals that would provide policy support, such as a school traffic ombudsman. TSAC would be the appropriate vehicle to process parent concerns and problems Ms. Dunn and Ms. Steigerwald met with Dr Ash in order to review school traffic improvements expected to be accomplished through the WorldTech evaluations and recommendations Today, Ms Dunn and Ms Celi will be meeting with Pat Goddard (Director of Public Facilities), Sandy Trach (Estabrook principal), DiNisco Engineering (new Estabrook architectural firm) and WorldTech Consultants in order to obtain a clear plan of 1) the interim Estabrook school traffic pattern for the time period commencing with the February 2014 building occupancy to the end of the FY14 school year (before the old building is razed) and 2) the school traffic pattern for FY15 forward. In addition, Dr Ash and Ms Dunn will be meeting with Carl Valenti (Town Manager) to review the same. Ms. Dunn also reported that some time would be allocated to discuss school traffic safety, flow, and proposed policy during the Principals' Retreat on August 15th 5 Education of Procedure/Policy Changes A) Various mechanisms for promoting the upcoming school traffic changes were discussed. These included local newspapers, Patch, and LexMedia, LPS global connect and school list serves, Globe NorthWest section, school and Town websites, Twitter,YouTube, as well as letters from each principal and Dr Ash. School traffic procedure videos have been used across the country and take many forms. This may be a future Public Service Announcement project for the LHS Media class taught by Bill Cole or similar by Mary Pappas Ms. Dunn will also ask Mr Cole if this Committee can view his class'work and determine if any is suitable for general safety publicity this fall. B) The topic of having LPS take an active role against violators of passing a school bus displaying its flashing lights was further examined. Tickets cannot be issued without an officer bearing witness to an incident. However, parents and bus drivers can record offending license plate numbers and the owner of the offending car can be contacted working through the police and the Registry of Motor Vehicles It was decided that LPS needs the direction of the School Committee in order to send a form letter to violators. Therefore,the Committee decided to make the following recommendation to the School Committee The ad hoc School Transportation and Safety Study Committee voted to request that the Lexington School Committee make the recommendation to direct MaryEllen Dunn to execute a plan whereby a LPS form letter is issued to any violator of the stopping for a school bus displaying flashing lights law (Section 14 of Chapter 90 of MA General Law) LPD and C&W Transportation will also be asked to endorse this letter c) Ms. Crocker will ask Ms Coppe about availability on the first School Committee meeting's agenda of the FY14 school year STS would like to develop a presentation plan for 1) final school sign codification vote, 2) school traffic policy and 2) passing of school bus displaying flashing lights violator letter 6 Discussion on engaging parent responsibility and responsibility Enforcement While enforcement was discussed as being discretionary to principals and staff,the necessity of setting a firm policy that shall be enforced is clear Equivalently, a ticket shall be placed on a vehicle that is in violation of posted signage.A broader community engagement of engaging principals and needing well-defined resources and plan will continue to be important. See also the attached hand-out regarding enforcement. The question was raised of what do principals want in order to be able to enforce traffic policy It is anticipated that they will need traffic resources to manage their individual school properties. It was suggested that the FY15 LPS budget include a LPS traffic officer working in collaboration with the LPD Deputizing LPS staff is also a possibility, such as bus captains Crossing guards are working off-site during the critical arrival and dismissal periods so would not prove helpful in this role Therefore, along with requesting comments on the recommended school traffic plans and proposed policy, principals will also be asked to provide input of what resources they believe that they will need for enforcement of these proposals It was noted that a traffic infraction on school property is not a special or different type of roadway violation. Therefore, LPS should not create a new LPS parking ticket. Instead, traffic policy request and enforcement of traffic policy should be integrated into the Dept of Public Facilities as a regular budget item and not a one- time fiscal request, such as is the case with CPA funding. 7 New Business Ms. Crocker will send out a doodle poll to Committee members to determine the best meeting date during the last week of July Our next meeting will be TBD during the last week of July in the Conference Room at Central Administration. Respectively submitted, Judy Crocker