Bike safety for Edmonds students
Published 11:22 pm Tuesday, August 11, 2009
LYNNWOOD — About 3,000 kindergarten through high school age students districtwide will lose bus service when school starts Sept. 8, and the Edmonds School District and city police want to make sure parents and students are ready.
Budget cuts have forced the change, which will save the district about $500,000 a year and affect about 3,000 students, district spokeswoman D.J. Jakala said Tuesday.
“We’re doing the best we can to address this budget reduction in a way that is helping our parent community to get through this and come up with a plan,” Jakala said.
The state reimburses districts’ transportation costs only for those students who live more than one mile from school.
Police department traffic specialists will hold a free bicycle rodeo from 1 to 4 p.m. today at Cedar Valley Community School, 19200 56th Ave. W., to help students and parents.
The change means students who used to take the bus and live within a mile of school will either be driven to class, ride a bicycle or walk.
To spread the word about the changes, the district sent information to affected parents and, in some cases, also has made follow-up telephone calls, Jakala said.
“We’re not expecting it to be absolutely smooth and perfect on Sept. 8,” Jakala said. “We’re doing just enough to minimize negative impacts.”
To help improve safety for the students, the district will increase the number of crossing guards at some intersections.
The bicycle rodeo is part of the annual Back to School Resource Fair that since 2005 has been organized by the Family Resource Center of South Snohomish County.
Shannon Sessions, police department spokeswoman, said the department distributed flyers in English and Spanish to 13 Lynnwood apartment complexes, notifying them about the event and changes.
Cedar Valley Community School serves students in kindergarten to sixth grade. Sessions said the school is particularly affected by the transportation change because students live in eight of the 13 affected apartment complexes and “a lot of those are what I would call at-risk apartment communities,” Sessions said.
For more information about transportation changes, visit the school district’s Web site at www.edmonds.wednet.edu.
