It’s a battle that has probably been around as long as schoolhouses: Kids have to get to school somehow and the people who live and work around schools aren’t always happy to see them arrive or pleased with their behavior when they leave.
Saugus is fighting the school drop off and pickup battle on Talbot Street where Waybright School parents park to drop off their children and where residents are raising safety concerns. As with many disputes, the Waybright one will be difficult to resolve because both sides have legitimate arguments and a stake in the discussion.
Kids have to be educated and in a world where parents are more fearful than they were 25 or 50 years ago about letting kids walk to school, dropping off and picking up children as schools is a common practice.
Most parents just want to get their kid and head home or off to soccer practice but everyone who is a parent or who has been a parent knows tempers tend to flare when people are running short on time and traffic piles up in front of schools.
Residents often view schools in their neighborhood as a double-edged sword. Sure, it’s great when your children are school-aged to let them walk around the corner or across the street to class. But older residents get fed up with the traffic jams and twice-a-day commotion associated with kids coming and going to and from school.
The people at the center of school day traffic jams and temper flares are crossing guards. Guiding kids across O’Callaghan Way in front of Lynn’s Callahan Elementary School is not a task for the faint of heart, as at least one crossing guard injured on the job can confirm.
Experienced guards know the answer to making school pickup and dropoff time an efficient and relatively calm experience. Parents and neighbors must exercise some degree of patience and view the experience not as a time crunch or a hassle but as one of those fleeting opportunities to appreciate kids winding up a day at school with all the emotion and energy that is invested in childhood.
The rest of the responsibility lies squarely with school officials who need to take the lead in reaching out to neighbors and making sure communication on pickups and dropoffs is crystal clear. Must principals understand safety is paramount at the start and end of the school day when kids are coming and going. But some of them think their responsibility ends at the curb of the sidewalk abutting their school.
No one wants a single child injured or worse during pickup and dropoff time. With that concern in mind, now is the time for town and city elected officials to bring crossing guards and principals together to map out sensible plans for making the school day park and drop shuffle go as smoothly as possible. After all, it might just be possible to turn a battle into a ballet.
