Gilroy
– El Roble Elementary third-grader Maria and her brother,
fourth-grader Martin, walk to and from school with their mother
every day. The school is only a few blocks from their home, so
there’s no reason not to walk back and forth, mom Blanca Sanchez
says.
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – El Roble Elementary third-grader Maria and her brother, fourth-grader Martin, walk to and from school with their mother every day. The school is only a few blocks from their home, so there’s no reason not to walk back and forth, mom Blanca Sanchez says.
That’s what one might expect to see in the third year of the school district’s “neighborhood schools” policy. For the most part, elementary and secondary students attend the campus nearest their home.
But since it is only the third year of attendance areas, there are still plenty of students enrolled in schools in an outside neighborhood. Until the start of this school year, Gilroy Unified School District still bused those students between home and school. Citing budget woes, the district stopped the buses, except in special circumstances.
As Blanca Sanchez strolled toward El Roble’s Third Street buildings to pick up her children on Friday afternoon, she said the lack of buses doesn’t affect her, but she knows others are having a hard time finding transportation. Her niece, attending Brownell Academy Middle School down the street, is one of them.
“There isn’t a bus, and it’s a problem for her because there’s no one to take her to school,” Sanchez said in Spanish.
Sanchez said her niece finds rides because both her parents work, and most afternoons, she meets Sanchez and her children at El Roble to walk home with them.
Besides seeing more parents walk or drive their children in the absence of buses, schools this fall saw a huge number of transfers of students into their neighborhood schools.
There were 480 transfers between attendance areas this year, more than twice the number of transfers made at this time last year, based on school district data. Nearly 100 students remain on a waiting list.
The district began notifying parents last spring that busing would all but end – with letters home, meetings and follow-up phone calls to those students they knew were riding the bus from another neighborhood.
“A few parents were surprised, and ended up transferring their student to their neighborhood school early on (this year),” said Tammy Gabel, principal of Antonio Del Buono.
Now that students are getting settled closer to home, schools seem to be benefiting from the neighborhood atmosphere and less intrusion from buses.
“We do enjoy having more people in their neighborhood schools,” said Gabel, who encourages parents to walk students to school.
At El Roble and others, many more parents are joining Sanchez and taking daily strolls.
“We have a lot more parents coming on campus, which is neat to see, so they’re interacting with teachers more,” Principal Mike Nebesnick said.
More parents are walking, but more are driving, too. Outside Rod Kelley Elementary just after school dismissed Friday, Principal Luis Carrillo donned a florescent orange vest and stood in the middle of Kern Avenue
The one bus that comes to pick up students pulls up along the curb in front of the school. The rest of the students are picked up on the opposite end of campus. At the beginning of the year, the school sent a letter to parents with a map to demonstrate how traffic will flow before and after school. Things are running smoothly, Carrillo says, and Gabel and Nebesnick said the same for their schools.
One affect of ending most of the district’s busing might not be apparent until later in the year. Some speculated that tardies might increase or attendance could drop if parents found it difficult to get their children to school. The year’s first attendance report will not be available until next week, but the several principals said they have not noticed a drop in students attending class. Nebesnick said attendance so far seems to be better than this time last year.
Attendance is usually at its highest in the first couple months of the year.
