When Alachua County Public Schools go back into session on Monday, August 24, local motorists will have to share the road with 135 bright yellow public school buses and lots of parents driving their children to school.
About 28,000 public school students will be returning to school, and half of them will be riding a bus. The other half will be walking or riding their bikes to school, or they or their parents will be making the trip by car. Either way, it means motorists will have to be extra vigilant.
“There will be a lot more vehicles and pedestrians on the road, and drivers need to keep that in mind,” said Harrell Harrison, director of the district’s transportation department. “We’ll also have kids getting on and getting off our buses at about 9000 stops throughout the county, and we want to avoid any accidents at those stops.”
Harrison says parents should review traffic safety rules with their children. Such rules include crossing the road with traffic signals or a crossing guard, looking left, right and left again for oncoming cars, using sidewalks whenever possible and no horseplay. A list of basic safety rules for walkers and bike riders is available on the Back to School feature at the top of the district’s website at www.sbac.edu.
“Parents are responsible for the safety of their children at the bus stop and on the way to and from the bus stop,” said Harrison. “They are their child’s most important teacher when it comes to traffic safety.”
School zone warning lights will be turned back on for the first day of school, and motorists who speed through those zones face hefty fines. But Harrison says the bigger issue is the safety of the children.
“Because children don’t always follow safety rules, adults have to be more careful,” he said. “Drivers can’t assume that children will act predictably or appropriately when they’re on the road.”
Because the University of Florida and Santa Fe College students will also be heading back to classes on the 24th, school transportation officials are telling parents to expect bus delays during the first two weeks of school. Further complicating the situation is the fact that many parents will drive their kids to and from school at the beginning of the year, then have them ride the bus.
“All school bus drivers do a dry run of their routes before school starts, but all the additional traffic at the beginning of the year makes a big difference.” said David Deas, assistant director for transportation. “Parents and students will have to be patient until things settle down.”
Parents are also being encouraged to make sure their very young children, especially those in kindergarten, have some sort of identification with them if they ride the bus, including their name, bus number, grade and school. That way a bus driver can identify and help a child who may not know when or where to get off the bus. That’s especially true for children who are driven to school in the morning but ride the bus home.
“Sometimes the younger children aren’t able to tell the driver their names,” said Deas. “If we can identify the child, we can make sure he or she gets to the right place.”
Parents who don’t know what bus their child will be riding or when and where it picks up and drops off students can visit the district’s website at www.sbac.edu and click on the Back to School box on the top of the page.