A CLOSER LOOK -- Danger zone: When kids and cars intersect

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT-MESA -- In the heat of the midday sun, three lanes of cars --

carrying tired parents in a rush to pickup their school children --

slowly inched toward the school yard.

At the front of that mass of cars, a student’s uncle was told that his

nephew wasn’t ready and instructed to return to the end of the line. In a

fit of aggravated rage, the irate relative revved his truck’s engine and

let loose with a stream of profanities threatening to run down two

teachers and any children in his way.

“My every thought was, ‘How am I going to protect all these kids?’ There

were probably 30 to 35 that would have been hit,” said Jaymi Ropp, the

teacher who placed herself between the motorist and the students.

This recent incident at Davis School in Costa Mesa is an extreme example

of the terrifying level traffic woes at local schools can reach.

While the severe congestion has now been relieved at Davis, traffic

issues at the school being built in Newport Coast continue to make

headlines. It is a problem that plagues schools throughout the

Newport-Mesa Unified School District.

ROAD RAGE

Road rage, an acknowledged phenomenon on the highways of California, has

crept into school parking lots and student drop-off and pickup zones.

Outbursts of profanity and threats to kill the teachers directing traffic

may not occur on a daily basis, but tempers often simmer just below the

surface.

Denamarie Arellanes, whose son Matt is a fifth-grade at Davis, began

dropping him off behind the school because she felt the front entrance

was just too dangerous.

“Some of these parents were driving on the grass -- these cars would

basically go onto the playground,” she said. “I’ve seen a couple

incidents where teachers had to grab students out of harm’s way from a

car.”

Arellanes’ descriptions of parents closely matched those of road-rage

sufferers.

“These parents were so impatient,” she said. “The stress levels were

going up -- there was just a lot of pressure on both sides.”

At College Park Elementary School, PTA president Renee Bowan cites

parents as the No. 1 problem.

“Our major problem is parents dropping their children off in the middle

of the street,” she said. “They’re just in a hurry to go to work.”

The complaint about hurried parents causing problems and accidents was

echoed by administrators at nearly every elementary school.

Just a few weeks ago at Newport Heights Elementary School, a mother in a

hurry to drive away ran over her son’s foot as he attempted to get his

things from the back seat of the car, said school officials.

SO MANY KIDS, SO LITTLE PARKING

Because most of the schools in Newport-Mesa were built in the 1950s and

60s, they were designed as small neighborhood schools to which students

would walk or ride a bicycle, said Susan Despenas, assistant

superintendent of elementary education.

Now those schools are serving twice as many students, employ more

teachers and have a majority of students dropped off by busy parents

driving sport utility vehicles. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the

size of the parking lots.

“There’s actually no safe place to drop off our kids,” said JoAnne

Russell, PTA President at California Elementary School.

The district is working with each school site to alleviate these

problems, but at some schools the solution is not clear cut, Despenas

said.

The parking lot at Sonora Elementary School in Costa Mesa was planned for

a school with 17 classrooms. That school now has 10 additional portable

classrooms and 378 students.

“I think every school’s problems with traffic are unique, we’re just

constantly looking for ways to keep our kids safe,” said Lorie Hoggard,

principal at Sonora.

It’s a complicated game of chess played by principals at each school

site, who must devise a way to get children to and from the classroom to

their parents’ cars safely.Mary Ann Ehrt, principal at Mariners

Elementary School in Newport Beach, estimated that as students come back

to school each year, at least 10% of her time as a principal is consumed

with these traffic worries.

“We’ve been working all year in a sheer decision-making, problem-solving

mode,” she said.

Nearly every principal at the elementary level in Newport-Mesa heads

outside in the early morning and afternoon hours to direct traffic.At

Newport Elementary School on the Balboa Peninsula, Principal Denise

Knutsen stands on the sidewalk directing the traffic on 14th Street and

Balboa Boulevard because her school doesn’t have a parking lot.

INCREASED TRAFFIC

Children have not stopped wanting to be independent and walk or bike to

school with their pals. Rather, parents say, it is their fear of

increased traffic threatening their children’s safety that is diminishing

that trend.

“People feel that the safest way to get their child to school is drive

them and drop them off,” Despenas said.

At Mariners, fewer parents are letting their children ride because of the

school’s proximity to hectic Irvine Avenue, Ehrt said.

A traffic study is currently underway near Sonora Elementary, where

administrators and parents want to see a crosswalk put in at the corner

of Sonora Road and La Salle Avenue to slow motorists down.

“Our biggest problem is that people use El Camino Drive and Velasco Lane

as a thoroughfare to get to Bristol Avenue,” Hoggard said.

It is a problem that Don Martin, principal of Corona del Mar High School,

said is only made worse by the number of parents driving their children

to school.

“We’re also a junior high with kids coming from quite some distance, so

we have a lot of parents dropping off,” Martin said. “Then you have

teenage drivers -- a breed all their own. But teenage drivers are going

to drive like teenagers. Our problem is compounded by parents and

pedestrians.”The problem at Corona del Mar resulted in the injury of a

12-year-old boy who was struck by a car while crossing Eastbluff Avenue

on his way to school in June of 1998.

Although the school district is aware of the problems, Despenas said, the

only way to handle it is one school and one problem at a time, because

each case demands a slightly different solution.The traffic problems, she

said, are simply the result of antiquated schools and the increased

number of students and faculty.

But parents whose children are slated to go to Newport Coast Elementary

School when it opens in the fall, are facing these issues while the

school is still just a pile of dirt.

An out-of-the-way loop up a hillside and back around is being planned so

that parents may drop of and pick up their students safely.

The new school will sit on the corner of Newport Coast Drive, a six-lane

highway with a speed limit of 55 mph, and Ridge Park Road, a steep

incline with a speed limit of 40 mph.

Parents in Newport Coast are already deeply worried that a school child

will be struck and killed trying to cross the busy highway.

Those parents have been lobbying for a footbridge to provide safe passage

for students.

“I don’t know a parent who would let their child walk or ride their bike

as it is,” said Steven Fink, who is considering sending his kids

elsewhere. “I am super happy with the level of education in Newport-Mesa,

but it’s not worth risking my child’s life over.”