Hello Woodside Families,
In the wake of the tragedy that occurred on Thursday, we are taking this opportunity to revisit our pick-up procedures to ensure improved safety for our students. We have made some small changes detailed below so that students no longer are waiting for buses to arrive and walkers are not crossing the path of buses. Your patience is appreciated during this time of transition to ensure the safety of all students.
Parent Pick Ups – will be dismissed from their class starting at 3:45pm and go to the gym to meet their parents. We ask that once you have your child, you exit the gym with your child and proceed to your car. There may be increased parent pick ups and we will need to free up spaces for other parents to park and pick up their child. We also ask that you stick to using the crosswalk either outside the gym doors or walk the sidewalk down to the main crosswalk area to cross to your car. A friendly reminder to keep your child with you at all times and please keep your phone away while driving in the parking lot.
PM Buses – Students will remain in their classroom until all buses have arrived and are in their designated places. When our 4K students arrive on their bus from Willow, they will be greeted by a Woodside staff member and remain on that bus until all of the buses have arrived, are parked and engines are turned off. Once all buses have arrived, Woodside staff members will help the 4K students to exit their bus from Willow and escort them to their home bus. After all 4K students are on their home bus (and SSI students are on their bus), we will dismiss 5K/1 students to walk to their bus and then 2nd through 4th will be dismissed from their classroom to go to their bus. There will be increased supervision, with all staff being assigned to a bus and being present in the two crosswalks in the circle drive. We will continue to make sure all students are loaded and then give the buses the all clear to start their engines and begin to leave Woodside.
Walkers/Bikers – will be called with buses, but will wait in the LGA with a staff member until all of the buses are loaded and are at the end of the drive. I know this is not ideal, however, we are thinking about the safest dismissal for all students and having students walk or ride a bike while buses are moving is not what we want.
This will start this afternoon. I am sure there will be some tweaks as we assess how things are working this first week.
Sincerely,
Melissa Horn
Principal