alyssa Gill
Good afternoon,
I want to voice my concern and dislike for the proposed schedule for next year. As a parent of 2 barranca mesa elementary school kids, this is awful. I couldn’t care less about the ½ day disappearing, other than the obvious fact that it does away with any beneficial planning time the teachers have, yes I understand it will be worked into the end of the day. But the fact is that now I have to magically figure out childcare, in a town where it’s insanely expensive, and basically impossible to find. If I wanted to get a highschooler to come hang out with my kids under the CURRENT schedule it works like a charm, not to mention it gives a teenager a job. I was a nanny in high school (a job I found while at school, LAHS, from the computer center), the new schedule you guys are proposing doesn’t take that into concern at all.
Another topic that greatly needs attention is transportation. The bus stop from the 2023/2024 school year along San Ildefonso Road, drive through the neighborhoods. Now it stops on the main street. The same street the boy was struck and killed on a not that long ago. To make matters worse, we live in La Mesa, there are NO SIDEWALKS. So, you have bus drivers letting kids with pent up energy off the bus on a very busy main road, instead of the two old stops in the neighborhood? And to make matters worse they’re sent into a VERY congested neighborhood, where they are not paying attention, and are running in front of moving cars from behind other parked cars? I was hoping my kids could use the bus and they would be safe, that isn’t at all the case (yes, I’ve voiced my concerns to the transportation department). Now let’s add the new start time into the mix. The sun is at the worst angle at 7-7:30 in the morning when these kids would be waiting for the bus and no one has thought about the safety of the kids waiting in morning rush hour traffic, with blinded drivers? There’s already a problem with people flying illegally past the busses.
I want to know that my kids are safe, in this world that seems impossible while sending them to any school in the US. Los Alamos is an anomaly where we have a little less to worry about. But it looks like that’s changing. Hopefully it’s just things that were overlooked while everyone was trying to do their day-to-day jobs along with working out the kinks for next year. But I hope you see enough distaste for this that you change it. With the number of elementary parents I’ve spoken with who are unhappy about it, I hope you all take the time to actually think about the implications this will have on our community, and our kids most of all.
Please keep the school times as they are!!
Alyssa Gill