Is Your Morning Drop-off Chaos or Calm?

That sounds like our old school which is in LISD also. At our new school (in LISD) there are at least 5-6 teachers outside monitoring carpool. They are directing cars to the stopping point (which is 2-3 space past the front door) and they have those big orange cones out to the left of the carpool line which does not allow cars to pass ahead of the line. The orange cones are in a perpendicular line (from the carpool line) in front of the front door to the left of the carpool line. (Does that make sense?) Much calmer than the chaos at our old school. Also, any "child" safety patrol happens inside the school. Which is also safer for the "CHILDREN" who are on safety patrol!

We do have a safety patrol...4 kids open the doors for the kids on the curb side...kids are not allowed to get out the driver side....and a teacher stands out there and waves the cars forward to the 1st parking space...and another teacher is the crossguard for the parking lot, for people who choose to park and let their kids out for whatever reason (lots to carry, mom going in too, whatever). There are also 2 safety patrol kids who hold flag poles out to block the crosswalk when the teacher stands there with her stop sign...we also have 2 additional safety patrol cross guards who hold their flag poles out to let kids pass across the mouth of the teacher parking lot...so lots more safety patrol kids than your school, plus teacher supervision as well...good luck

I am a LISD mom and our school is great, we have a teacher there to help the safty patrol, in the morning and at the end of the day (both are special ed so they do not have to worry about students)They do not allow cars to park in the drive trough- you have to keep your car running. The middle lane is for driving only so there are not kids crossing in front of the cars. Hope that helps.

I worked at an elementary school in a different district for a long time, and we had at least 1 teacher outside with the safety patrol kids (I was in the rotation to be the teacher on duty for a few years). The safety patrol stood at the drop-off spots, which were past the front entrance so the cars could pull farther in. The students opened the doors on the curb side and then closed the doors. Those 4 unloaded cars would leave, and then 4 more pull up into those spaces.

That was the "smooth" operation, and it worked with 90% of parents. Some parents, even with a teacher looking them in the eye and waving them down to the first spot, insisted on stopping right in front of the door so their child wouldn't have to walk any farther. Some would pull up to a safety patrol student but then stop short or go farther so the student didn't open the door (I never did figure out if they just didn't want their car touched or what?). And then some parents would get in a hurry and drop their kids farther back in the line, thus causing the double-lane traffic, because they would pull out at the same time as the 3 or 4 who pulled up to the safety patrol kids.

I will say that our kids were never outside doing safety patrol on their own, and some parents still didn't "follow the rules", but most did, and it was usually fairly smooth. We didn't deal with the teacher lot being in the same path, though, so that made our situation a little easier. And rainy days, all bets are off!

Good luck talking with admin about it, and keep trying. Most schools put out their duty schedule for the teachers at the beginning of the year and there is a rotation so that things are fair. You may have a hard time getting anything added for this school year, but if you can make a solid case, you might see a change for next year. If your PTA is active and loved in your school, they can make a big change too, if they ask as a group. Here's to happy drop-offs!

Until you said LISD, I could have sworn you were talking about my son's school. I wish I had some advice for you!! People drive constantly through our street "cross zone" which also means they drive into on coming traffic. (I am almost hit several times a month!) Cars are supposed to drive a certain way depending on which drop off zone they choose to use. This way they create a safe zone for crossing the street and using the other car pool drop off. Many parents ignore this and choose to "dodge" kids and cars to save time in the morning. I now drop my son off right when the doors open before it gets too crazy. This has helped deal with the line cutters but not the having to watch for cars driving through crossing zones. I guess it's one battle at a time!

Chaos! I fortunately started work a little later, so I started walking my child, just to avoid the insane, unsafe parent drivers. At our school on any given day I will see at least one parent run the stop signs as well. When I pick her up, I park further away and we walk. AGAIN to avoid the law breaking, disrespectful parent drivers that there seem to be no end to. I even contacted our local police department and suggested that they stake out the area during that time. Is it wrong to get such pleasure from seeing them get pulled over? Most of the time however they mind the law when the cop is around, telling me that they know what they are doing is wrong. I guess they are just H**L bent on teaching their kids the wrong thing.