Dear Monsieur L’Hotellier,

I have been asked to write to you on behalf of the parents who have signed the linked petition. The purpose of this letter, and the petition, is to bring to your attention the wide-spread concerns of parents with the situation at school drop-off and pick up. This issue is now critical and requires your immediate attention.

As you may be aware, over the last week, and as a result of a complaint by a neighbour or neighbours, the police have been intensively patrolling the parking zones around LCS, and particularly on Moverly Road. Numerous parents have been fined for a range of petty offences ranging from overstaying the 5 minute drop off by a few seconds, not having a translation of a French Driving Licence on hand, and even a fine for improperly executed parallel parking.

This police presence is inappropriate, heavy-handed, and a misdirection of state resources. Matters of this kind should be dealt with among the neighbours, Randwick Council and the school. It is not a police matter. That said, we appreciate that police are simply responding to a request by neighbours.

Of course no parent wants to block someone’s driveway. Equally, since LCS policy demands that parents in the primary school must accompany their children into the school for drop off, and enter the school at pick up, they have no option but to look for a parking space near the school and exit their vehicles.

Currently there are only about 8-10 “kiss and go” parking spots on Moverly Rd. At “drop-off”, this means that several hundred families are trying to vie for a parking space on Moverly Road and the surrounding streets that will enable them to escort their child into school over a compressed 30-45 minute window. At “pick-up”, they have to do it all over again, except the window is further compressed since they have about 15 mins to collect their children before they are put into aftercare. Add to this waiting time lining up at the gate prior to the entry time of 3.15pm (for maternelle). The situation is made more complicated when parents have children both in maternelle as well as in the other primary school years (CP to CM2).

This issue of course is of long-standing and precedes your time here. It has been raised repeatedly by parents through School Council and other channels but has ‘”fallen on deaf ears”. It is not enough to ask parents to respect the neighbourhood. The vast majority of parents work to ensure they do not block driveways or park in a manner that obstructs someone’s ingress to/egress from their property. However with the recent police escalation, the parents would like to implore you directly to work with them to find a solution.

One solution is to work with Council on the zoning of the length of road adjacent to LCS on Moverly Rd to enable parents to form a “drop-off” and “pick-up” line. At pick-up, parents could line up in their cars, with the family name prominently displayed in the window, to proceed into the former outdoor school car park on Moverly Rd. Once inside that parking area, they can collect their child safely and exit back onto Moverly Rd and then onto ANZAC Parade. The adjacent public school- Maroubra Primary- does just that on Loch Maree Street with great success. Since LCS has just upgraded its school buildings with the new extension and included facilities that enable teachers to park underground, the “old” car park can be repurposed to allow for a better flow of traffic at these critical drop off and pick up times. At drop off, parents would literally drop off students at the same location directly into the care of staff. This would be a low-cost solution that would not require significant additional teacher-time since class teachers already stand to welcome students into the playground at drop off and class teachers wait with their students in the pick-up zones.

Additionally, and no less importantly, parents have asked for you to look again at the bus route since there are many parents who would utilize this option if the route enabled them to send their children by bus. While public buses may not be available for younger years, there are parents who would pay to support a bus route for younger children.

There could be other options and likely the ‘best’ solution is a combination of these ideas and others. We would be grateful if you could please organize a meeting with interested parents to discuss these concerns and possible solutions.

We welcome your ideas and your support!

Yours Sincerely,

LCS parents