Neighborhood schools would benefit students, district
To the editor:
My family recently moved to Cape Coral a few months ago from Rochester, N.Y. Imagine our shock to learn how the Lee County School District operates. Things in Cape Coral seem to be way behind the times. I cannot believe that someone can live right next to a school and not be able to send their children there because of school choice! Instead, they are forced to either drive their children 20 minutes or more out of the way or put them on a bus for over an hour and a half. This is ludicrous.
The Lee County school board is proposing job cuts due to the economy. Why don’t they go back to having children attend school near their homes and not pay for gas and busing way out of the way. On many occasions, I have seen three buses at the same stop picking up kids of the same age but all going to different schools.
When I drop my children off at school, I see many kids walking along side the road on Chiquita Boulevard because there are no sidewalks. Why are there no safety measures taken for walking students? The speed limit posted is 45 mph. When I drive 45 mph, people pass me up like I am standing still! I fail to see the logic of school choice.
Is Lee County School District not proud of ALL of their schools? Is there a reason kids cannot go to a neighboring school instead? In Rochester, NY, everyone goes to school in their specific area. Money is not wasted on gas and extra busing.
The other thing that might work, is changing the middle school times to approximately the same time as the high schools. Both the middle school kids and the high school kids could take the same bus and get dropped off at one school and then the others dropped off at the other school. They do this in Rochester in various locations and it seems to work fine. It is almost next to impossible to work a full-time job when you have to juggle children in the middle schools with such odd times. I know a lot of people would feel the same way because when I drop my children off at school in the morning, there are a ton of parents doing the same thing. All coming from the south only to bring their kids to the north. People need to get a petition going to change this school choice! While Cape Coral is a beautiful city, the school district is much to be desired.
Susan McArthur
Cape Coral