We are working on behalf of parents in the community with students taking school buses to Nashua middle and high schools. We propose adding more stops in the community for the safety of our children. Current bus stop locations are as follows:

• Middle schools: One bus stop at the Kessler Farm/Hawkstead Hollow intersection
• High school: The closest bus stop for our community is in Somerset Apts parking lot.

For middle school students, if they are walking from the far end of the Kessler Farm loop, they need to walk more than half a mile to get to the stop. It is nearly impossible to do so in winters when the sidewalk is full of snow and roads are icy at 7 AM. It is not safe.

For high school students, it is quite a far walk indeed, regardless of where in Kessler Farm community they are walking from. Also, this is a hill so it is an uphill/downhill walk up to a mile. In winters, very difficult.

Due to the walking difficulty and distance, in many cases, parents are required to drop off or pick up students from the stops. This adds about 30 minutes extra time per parent per student each day – considering wait time for the bus. Sometimes buses come late, in which case parents have spent a lot more than that.

We propose that, in the case of middle school buses, simply adding another stop at Kessler Farm and Stanstead Pl/Albury Stone Cir intersection for middle school buses will simplify the matter. We discussed this with one bus driver already and he confirmed that taking the Kessler Farm drive loop and adding a stop does not add any extra time. He was even willing to do so but needs the stop added formally.

In the case of high school students, we propose adding the same stops as the middle school buses. This requires the bus to come up the Kessler Farm drive loop and make stops.

Note that for elementary schools, the buses drive along the Kessler Farm loop and make stops at several street intersections. For middle and high school buses, we are requesting to make only two stops to make it efficient for buses.

This is a relatively minor adjustment for school buses but a HUGE impact on the daily lives of parents and students in the community.

We approached the Nashua School District (NSD) superintendent's office a couple of years ago to have a stop added for middle school buses. But the request was denied without any logical reason. We made the same request a month ago to the NSD transportation department, again the same result. Several other parents in our community have made similar requests in the past, but no action is taken by the NSD transportation department.

We aim to present our petition to Nashua's Board of Education at an upcoming meeting, hopefully November or December.