Every day at 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., the only artery into and out of
Ascencion Solorsano Middle School is clogged with parents shuttling
their students to or from school.
Sara suddes – staff writer
ssuddes@@gilroydispatch.com
Every day at 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., the only artery into and out of Ascencion Solorsano Middle School is clogged with parents shuttling their students to or from school. The process of picking up or dropping off students can take up to 30 minutes round trip from the corner of Santa Teresa and Club Drive to the school. The distance traveled is less than a mile.
Many parents are frustrated with the traffic jams and the amount of time they spend idling in their cars, burning up precious gas and time. Parking spaces specifically designated for student pickup and drop-off allow room for about 10 cars. Yet 900 students attend Solorsano and half of them are transported to and from school in their parents’ cars.
“There’s only one way in and one way out,” Principal Sal Tomasello said. Once drivers turn off Santa Teresa, they have no other option but to follow a single lane that dead ends just after the middle school.
There are no outlets or parking along Grenache Way and drivers either pull illegal U-turns that endanger students or inch to the end of the road and safely turn around, only to retrace their path back to Santa Teresa.
Tomasello often spends a portion of his afternoon directing traffic with the help of three campus supervisors and members of the administration.
Meanwhile, the situation could get worse. The Glen Loma Group is planning on building 1,700 units surrounding the middle school.
About 140 more students attend Solorsano this year than last year and Tomasello said that the traffic has been an ongoing problem and will only get worse in the future. Representatives from Glen Loma did not return phone calls Thursday.
Few students walk to school and only half ride the bus. Busses help to alleviate traffic but many parents opt out of sending their children to school on the bus because a “5 minute car ride can take 45 minutes on the bus,” said Lorena Martinez, the mother of two eighth-graders, as she idled in the pick up line waiting for her daughter. “I have to be here 15 minutes early to find any parking and it will take 15 minutes to get back to Santa Teresa from here.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Ignacio Fernandez, 23, waited for his little sister, Vanesa. “I don’t like picking her up,” he said. “I’ve been here for 20 minutes already and it’ll take me forever to get out.”
On the other hand, Vanesa didn’t mind the delay. The time-consuming car ride “helps me put off my homework,” she said.
“Anyone could have designed this place better,” said Calvin Campisi, the father of a sixth grader. “It was a nightmare the first week of school and when it’s raining. It gets really crazy.”
Campus supervisor Joann Vogel summed up the situation as “totally chaotic” and said many drivers don’t abide by traffic laws.
Many of the parents “just don’t care,” Vogel said. “I tell them to stop and they just keep coming at me. It’s their kids we’re trying to protect. We put our lives on the line for their kids.”
Vogel and Tomasello said that students face a dangerous situation when they cross the line of oncoming traffic to get into their parents’ cars across the street.
“There’s no concerted plan to address this problem right now and when you bring the city, Glen Loma, and the school district together, everyone’s pointing fingers,” Tomasello said.
Steve Brinkman, Assistant Superintendent of Administrative Services, said that it will “take a community effort to resolve this issue” and that “a school that’s built on a dead end cul-de-sac is not ideal.
“This has been an issue for several years and will need an arrangement between the city, the developer (Glen Loma), the school district, and parents (to resolve),” Brinkman said.
New plans may come about with the development of the surrounding land, but Brinkman said that he is not aware of any discussion in the works at the current time.
