Safe trips to school a concern in Asbury
BANGS AVE. SHUT DOWN
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 08/1/07
BY NANCY SHIELDS
COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU
ASBURY PARK Bangs Avenue Elementary School, a southwest neighborhood school
for
nearly a century, has been closed to get rid of asbestos. School officials are
addressing
how nearly 300 children in grades 1 through 4 will get to classes outside their
immediate
neighborhood.
Busing is out, officials said, because the 1.4-square-mile city is too small.
About 55 of the students will have to cross the city's major north-south
thoroughfares
Memorial Drive, the North Jersey Coast Line railroad tracks and Main Street
to get to
Thurgood Marshall School on the east side at Bond Street and Summerfield Avenue.
An additional 237 students will be going possibly a greater distance, but not
across the
train tracks, to attend Bradley Elementary School on Third Avenue in the city's
northwest
section. Those students will have to cross Asbury Avenue, a major east-west
road.
"My whole thing is, how are these children going to get to school?" said
Beverly Causby, a
grandmother of several children in the district. "Their parents don't have
cars. What if it's
raining, snowing?"
"These are our children. . . . We should have extra crossing guards," Causby
said. "I can't
understand why they're not being bused."
Some parents and school staff members made it clear during a recess of last
week's school
board meeting that they knew many parents would make certain their children
traveled to
and from the school safely. But they expressed concern about those children who
are left
on their own to get to school.
Board member Frank D'Alessandro said Tuesday he understands that concern.
"We need everyone to look out for these kids, and that's why we need more
vigilant
crossing guards," D'Alessandro said. "The Board of Education and the city have
to make
sure that crossing guards are at their stations more than they have been
before. It's too
bad that it worked out so that students would have to cross two major roads,
and that it is
such a small city that bus transportation is not the answer."
Alan Schnirman, the school board attorney who provided the numbers on how many
students are expected to be affected, said Tuesday that acting Schools
Superintendent
James T. Parham has talked with city Police Chief Mark Kinmon about the
crossing guards.
Police oversee the guards, and Parham and Kinmon are working together,
Schnirman said.
"The last thing anyone wants to do is jeopardize the safety and welfare of the
children,"
the attorney said.
Solving other problems
The closing of Bangs came after a chunk of wall plaster containing a small
amount of
asbestos fell through a dropped ceiling in a third-floor classroom near the end
of the
school year. The school, built in 1912, was supposed to be replaced by a new
$30 million
building until the state Schools Construction Corp. ran out of money.
In late June, the SCC committed at least $450,000 to get rid of what asbestos
remains.
The asbestos problem set off a chain of events that actually has school
officials hopeful
some of the district's other problems can be solved.
With grades 1-4 from Bangs Avenue reassigned to the city's two other elementary
schools,
fifth-graders from all three elementary schools will become part of a new
intermediate
school of fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders in the middle school building.
Eighth-graders who had been assigned to the middle school will go to the high
school,
where they will have a program largely separated from the older grades but will
be able to
use some of that school's extra space, since the number of high school students
has
dwindled.
School board members hope the middle school restructuring will succeed after
years of
administrative turmoil.
Howard Mednick, the Bangs Avenue principal since 2001, will be the principal at
the new
intermediate school and said in late June he looked forward to the challenge of
making
that school work.
The board also has hired a new high school principal, Tyler Blackmore, formerly
an
assistant principal at the Bellflower Middle-High School in Bellflower, Calif.,
to replace
Linda Palumbo.
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IF EDUCATION IS SO IMPORTANT, WHY NOT MAKE THE EFFORT TO BUS THE KIDS TO THE
SCHOOL? THEY HAVE TO THINK ALSO, IF THE KIDS HAVE TO WALK TO THE OTHER SIDE OF
TOWN THAT MEANS THEY HAVE TO GET UP EARLIER THAN BEFORE, SO THAT MEANS TIRED
CHILDREN WHO MIGHT NOT LISTEN CAUSE THEY ARE SLEEPY. IF THEY REALLY WANTED TO
BUS THE KIDS NO MATTER HOW SMALL ASBURY IS, THEY WOULD, BUT THEY DON'T. I HOPE
THEY JUST EXPECT WHEN IT GETS COLD OR RAINS REALLY BAD, ATTENDANCE WILL BE
DOWN.
Posted by: blackgoddess316 on Wed Aug 01, 2007 7:48 am
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