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Present: Yael Levitte, Tim Logue, Lois Chaplin, Kent Johnson,
Bob Wolfe, Sue Powell, Margot Brinn, Jan Zeserson
Note-taker: Jan
Next Meeting: September 8 (Thurs), 3:30, Old Jail House
Special Alert: in order to plan Family Reading Partnership
event (Nov.) and Safe Walk to School (Oct.) , we need David’s
and Fernando’s input. We will change the date/time of
this meeting if need be to accommodate them.
Action needed before next meeting:
1. Fernando, did you locate last year’s flyer for Safe
Walk to Schools? Can you transmit it by email?
2. David, do you have particulars about Family Reading Partnership
event, e.g., size of our booth, deadline for application to
participate, etc.?
3. Anyone who knows teachers willing/eager to cooperate with
Safe Walk to Schools, please bring those names to Sept. meeting.
Agenda of this week’s (Aug 16) meeting:
1. Safe route to Beverly J. Martin (BJM) Elementary School
(Tim)
2. Safe Walk to School Day
3. Family Readership Partnership
4. Report from Mayor’s Intern re: U.S. mayors’
Kyoto protocol initiatives (Kent)
By end of our discussion, we had combined Agenda Items #1
and #2, given the specific situation at BJM brought to our
attention by Tim.
Facts:
- Redistricting has increased the student enrollment at
BJM school, which will increase traffic congestion on Buffalo
St. during drop-off/pick-up hours.
- Open-enrolled students cannot use school busses.
- BJM and the City have been brainstorming solutions to
anticipated traffic problem, and haven’t reached satisfactory
solution.
- Tim suggested CYC might add energy/experience/ideas to
the problem.
- BJM has a strong PTA.
Discussion (Brainstorming in response to Tim’s report):
We decided to concentrate our Safe Walk to Schools
effort on just one school: BJM. How shall we do this?
Long-term strategy -- Yael will contact the School District
to let them know CYC is interested in lending energy to the
problem. Who exactly should she contact?
For October, to raise community awareness of the problem,
Margot agreed to draft an Op-Ed piece for the Ithaca Journal
-- with input from CYC members --about the traffic congestion
problem at BJM.
Other Ideas raised in discussion:
- Can PTA (maybe in concert with Yael’s research class
at Cornell) survey
why parents drive children to school instead of letting
them walk, bike,
or take bus? This trend of getting to school by car is a
complex issue:
safety, bullying on busses, convenience. Is PTA already
addressing these
issues, and if so, how?
- Shall CYC suggest/help with a pilot: having parents park
around
Washington Park and escorting children from there for two
blocks to school
(parental escort, or combination of upperclass students
+ paid adult
escorts)?
- Shall CYC help to generate interest in "walking busses"
whereby students
meet at certain locations a few blocks from BJM and walk
together?
- Shall CYC help to generate student bikers meeting up in
a neighborhood
and biking together, possibly with adult or upperclass escort?
- What piece of these ideas might CYC do for Safe Walk to
Schools Day in
October?
If Fernando has last year’s flyer, we’ll also
distribute those to as many teachers as we are able to contact,
making a point to get them out earlier than we did last year.
Meeting adjourned at 4:45.
Agenda Items #3 and #4 postponed until September meeting.
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