The School Drop-Off Line

If you watch the movie “Daddy’s Home” with Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell, you’ll catch a scene in which Mark Wahlberg cracks under the pressure while driving within the cones that designate the school drop off and pick up line at the elementary school his children attend. Springville parents will definitely relate! Controlling traffic during these times must be a widespread challenge for schools, as reflected in “Daddy’s Home” and on the blog Scary Mommy where Christina Antus writes The Hell that is the School Drop-Off Line.  Even the Today Show has covered the issue in The 7 rules parents must not break in the school drop-off line. If you google “school drop-off line” you’ll find 13,600,000 results. Wow!

I promise you we did not make changes to the pick up and drop off location at SMS to torture or inconvenience our parents. The changes were made strictly for student safety, always our #1 priority. And remember, while we respect the parent decision to drop off and pick up students–we do also provide free transportation to and from school on that BIG YELLOW BUS.

Previously we had staff, parent and bus traffic all flowing through the same parking lot at the same time. Our students were dropped off by parents and then were crossing between the cars and buses. SMS Principal Shanda DuClon developed a plan which moves parent drop off and pick up to the District Office parking lot with a short walk for our students down the sidewalk.

The morning drop off seems to run smoothly, parents pull in and drop off their student then quickly proceed out of the parking loop. In the afternoon, pick up would run much more smoothly if the first parents who pull into the loop at the District Office would pull all the way around, with the others following. Now, the first parent to arrive often stops at the precise spot where the sidewalk to the middle school begins and we end up with cars lined up onto Newman Street. If all of our parents would pull in and make one line with the first car pulling all the way around to the exit of this loop (so that the back of SES is on your right), there would be plenty of room for all of the cars picking up students. More important, then our students could stay on the sidewalk as they head to their parent’s cars.

Thank you for working with us on this issue! While we realize it may be less convenient, it is safer for our students than walking through the bus traffic that’s there to transport all of our students.

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