New panel to tackle traffic dilemma

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- Following a rash of dangerous traffic incidents in school

parking lots, the district in now forming a committee to look for safety

solutions.

Fed up with the traffic issues at schools that put teachers and students

in harm’s way, Linda Mook, president of the Newport-Mesa Federation of

Teachers, brought the issue before Supt. Robert Barbot this week.

“You shouldn’t, as a parent, have to find a secret place to drop off your

child,” Mook said.

Mook described the most recent debacle at Kaiser Primary Center, where an

impatient driver cut out of a line of traffic, over a curb and across the

front lawn of the school.

Besides the obvious extreme danger to students and teachers, Mook said,

the teachers who try to direct traffic and safeguard the children have

become frazzled.

“Many teachers end this stressful, dangerous assignment shaken,

humiliated and in tears,” she wrote in a letter to Barbot.

Mook has proposed the district assemble a task force to address the

ongoing dilemma.

“The best solution in the long run will be to reconfigure and redesign

the front entrances of many schools,” Barbot said. “In the meantime, we

have an obligation -- moral and ethical -- to do something.”

Because the majority of incidents take place at elementary school

campuses, Susan Despenas, assistant superintendent of elementary

education, is putting together an ad hoc committee of parents,

representatives from the cities of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, district

personnel, principals, teachers and staff members to look at the issue.

The committee -- made up of 12 to 15 members -- will meet on a temporary

basis until some viable solutions are in place, Barbot said.

“We need something safe for our kids,” said JoAnne Russell, PTA president

at California Elementary School in Costa Mesa. “I’m happy that they’re

doing something.”

One of the first tasks for the group is to reinforce within the community

and among parents the importance of driving safely.”Let’s face it --

we’re in the middle of Southern California, where people have a love

affair with cars,” Mook said. “Autos and pedestrians don’t always mix and

the victor is always the car.”