Gilroy
– Isaiah Mollinedo-Navarro was doing everything right. He
signaled that he was going to cross. He waited for a car to stop
and the driver to acknowledge him with a wave. He then started off
north across Welburn Avenue.
Gilroy – Isaiah Mollinedo-Navarro was doing everything right. He signaled that he was going to cross. He waited for a car to stop and the driver to acknowledge him with a wave. He then started off north across Welburn Avenue. Despite these precautions, a car making a left turn from Wren Avenue struck the 8-year-old and he was sent tumbling to the ground, just a few blocks from Las Animas Elementary School, where he is in the third grade.
While Mollinedo-Navarro was released from a trauma center later the same day with just a badly bruised shin, the incident – and the lingering memory of 5-year-old Julio Gonzalez, killed by a car last October, just a block away as he walked to Rod Kelley Elementary School – has revived concern from area parents about their children walking to school.
“(District officials) talk about getting their kids to school to get x-amount of dollars, how about getting them there safely,” said Angela Mollinedo, Isaiah’s mother.
The school district has filled only two shifts for crossing guards in the more than five months that have lapsed since Gonzalez’s death. It is looking to partner with the city to make the walk to school safer, said Teri Freedman, the district’s public information officer.
Fixing the situation is going to take “collaborative planning,” she said.
The city engineer and mayor, however, see no need for any changes.
Mollinedo-Navarro’s accident is just that, said Mayor Al Pinheiro.
“That’s why they’re called accidents,” he said.
The city does not have any intention of placing traffic calming measures around the schools, said Don Dey, the city’s transportation engineer. The accident was likely the result of a driver’s mistake.
“Quite frankly, we cannot overcome individual human errors,” he said.
The Long Walk Home
The district is ignoring the needs of its constituents, said Mollinedo.
It will not provide bussing to elementary students that live within a mile of their school or to middle or high school students that live within two miles of their school, but the district and the city are not making the streets safe for kids, she said.
Mollinedo is not alone in her concern. Despite living just two blocks away, Annie Fite drives her first-grade son, Tyler, to and from school every day because it is too dangerous for him to walk, she said. Similarly, Rena Baeza walks her kid home every day because she fears her son, second-grader Jose Barradas, will get hit.
“Some drivers don’t wait until I’m finished walking the street,” she said.
The district has eight crossing guards at seven elementary schools now. However, increasing the number of crossing guards is not as simple as the district simply hiring more of them, said Freedman.
Attracting and retaining crosswalk guards is difficult because the job is not particularly attractive, she said. The position pays $10.70 per hour, comes with only two hours per day and those hours are split, with one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. This split shift generally precludes the opportunity for the employee to take another job with a different employer, she said.
In addition, crosswalk guards do not have it easy.
“They are treated with disrespect by the drivers,” Freedman said. “They are cursed at, they are flipped off.”
Few changes since death
While the district has maintained that it is concerned about the safety of children walking to school, there have been few changes enacted since Gonzalez’s death.
The 5-year-old was killed in a similar accident as in Mollinedo-Navarro’s Monday morning scare. Gonzalez was crossing at the intersection of Welburn and Kern avenues – just a block away – and was also hit by a turning car.
While there was somebody directing traffic at the intersection for the two weeks in October following Gonzalez’s death, no permanent person has been stationed, Mollinedo said.
Likewise, there was somebody monitoring the intersection of Welburn and Wren avenues Tuesday morning, the day after Mollinedo-Navarro was hit, but Mollinedo questions how long this measure will last.
After Gonzalez was killed, the district hosted a panel with the city engineers and the Gilroy Police Department to hear parent and teacher concerns. The district also teamed up with police to conduct assemblies on pedestrian safety and increase communication.
The education learned however, did not prevent Mollinedo-Navarro from being hit, his mother pointed out.
The district efforts have not been enough, Mollinedo said.
To address the problem of child safety in the wake of Gonzalez’s death, the police department started ticketing people near schools and putting up a sign that measures and displays drivers’ speed next to a speed limit sign.
However, while ticketing has continued, the sign malfunctioned and has only recently been replaced, said police Sgt. Jim Gillio. Using officers to direct traffic is not an option, he said.
“We don’t have the staffing for that,” he said.
A Growing Problem
The problem of pedestrian safety is not going to be one that goes away, said Freedman.
When Las Animas closes at the end of the year, area students will end up attending Rod Kelley, which could result in a longer walk for some of them, she said.
The process to generate solutions is underway, said Taylor. District officials visited the intersection of Welburn and Wren avenues Tuesday morning and discussed possible ways to improve safety. Yet there will be no quick fix and no quick answers, he cautioned.
While the district cannot affect instantaneous change, the response in the past months has not been up to par, said Trustee Pat Midtgaard.
The district needs to be vocal in getting the city involved, she said. “We might need to be the ones that put the pressure on.”
In the end, the safety of children walking to school needs to be addressed soon, Midtgaard said.
“I think this is just one more incident that should put it at the top of the list,” she said.
