We all want what’s best for our children and our community. This year the school district made the choice to change the arrival and dismissal times for Green Sea Floyd's Elementary, Middle, and High schools, to accommodate the separation of the younger children and older children on school buses. I believe that they had the best of intentions however the decision was never brought out for discussion with any of the parents.

Since the first day of school I have heard and read many parents struggling with this new time schedule. I feel their concerns are entirely valid. I took it upon myself to try to reach out to the school district about these concerns and was told that any concerns the parents may have must go through the schools principals before anything would be addressed by the board or executive directors. It doesn't seem fair that the principals are the ones that would have to deal with all of the unhappy parents, when it wasn't their decision that made the changes that are in question. It would also take much needed time away from their job at the schools, in the end that would also affect our children. The most reasonable thing to do was to start this petition to get everyone on the same page, pun intended. Below I will list the majority of the concerns and struggles that are being caused and dealt with due to the changes that have been made.

- A majority of parents who have children in both schools rely on their older children to be home to help with their siblings. The new schedule prohibits this. The younger children are dropped off first in the afternoons.

- If the older child drives to and from school that leaves the younger child sitting at the school past the allotted pick up time.

- Buses have to run a route twice in the AM and twice in the PM. This causes a lot of wear and tear on the buses which will eventually cost more money for the up keep. It also doubles the diesel use, again more money. It may be more beneficial to hire another person to ride on each school bus to help the driver with the children so that the driver can focus on driving safely. The extra person could help keep more children safe as that is their only task.

- Car riders also face a problem. Older kids may be dropped off at 7:30am but that requires them to sit in the school for an hour without reason. In the afternoons parents have to wait almost an hour to pick up their older children.

- Traffic congestion. Drop off and pick up volume have increased due to the bus situation which is leading to many of the smaller children to be tardy. So now the buses are doing twice the driving for fewer children.

These are just a few of the issues with this new schedule. I am sure there are plenty more and will continue to be more until this situation is resolved. This sort of thing may work for bigger areas where schools are not close together. Our schools are on the same grounds.

TOGETHER we can and will be heard.