Q: Can you share some insights into your attempts to make school arrivals and dismissals safer for students?
A: Jacksonville is one of the worst places in the country for pedestrian deaths and we are working to try to fix this in Mandarin. Along with Councilmember Michael Boylan, I’ve been making traffic visits in the morning and the afternoon at all the Mandarin schools. Some things I have seen have been shocking, like people driving across the grass and sidewalks as well as making illegal u-turns. We have also met with the schools’ principals and listened to their concerns and suggestions.
Q: What do you plan to do with the information you have gathered?
A: In late April, we will have a meeting with all interested parties — District 6 principals, and representatives from traffic engineering, public works and JSO — to try to fix the safety problem. I will present some statistics and circumstances of recent accidents and the principals will also share their concerns. We plan to push for the safety of the kids.
Q: What have you identified as areas needing improvement?
A: First of all, we need students and adults to follow the rules already in place. We can’t expect the kids to follow rules if they see adults breaking them. We need a contingency plan for those who don’t follow the rules.
Other areas for improvement include the fact that we don’t have crossing guards at all at our middle schools and high schools. At the elementary school level, we do have crossing guards, but don’t have a reliable way for them to report their absence and get a replacement. It happens frequently that we are missing crossing guards on any given day due to this.
For middle school and high school, there are no school zones in front of their schools with reduced speed. For example, there is no reduced speed on Hood Road and on Greenland Road, the speed limit is reduced only in front of Greenland Pines Elementary, but not Mandarin High School. And at the elementary schools, which do have speed zones, I feel we need better signage and more enforcement of the reduced speed limit. Crossing guards have told me even they get nervous by drivers speeding sometimes, and they are wearing bright clothing and holding a large sign. We need occasional monitoring by JSO.
Q: What are your long term goals for this initiative?
A: Hopefully we can come to some kind of agreement on actionable items to help keep our kids safe. And then the hope is that Mandarin can be a model for the rest of the county, per Superintendent Bernier’s request.
Q: How can our readers contact you?
A: They can email me at BolducM@duvalschools.org or call me at (904) 390-2375.
