ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Some parents of students at Magnolia Oaks Academy in St. Augustine say their children can’t safely get to school because of what they call hazardous walking conditions - but they live too close for buses.
Currently, students are ineligible for bus service if they live within two miles of the school, but several parents argue that the close distance doesn’t equate to safety.
“My kids have to walk all the way around past unfinished houses where there’s no sidewalk,” said Brad Hill, a father of two. “They have to go into the street.”
Katie Mina, who has a son in fourth grade at Magnolia Oaks Academy, says hundreds of children are facing safety risks every time they walk to school due to a lack of lighting, sidewalks and crossing guards.
“This development has narrow streets, but then it also has one sidewalk,” Mina said. “You’ve got bikes that are riding on that, and you’ve got kids that are walking on it, [and] the kids are having to step over the bikes, and then you’ve got golf carts [and] cars.”
Mina and Hill both brought up concerns once Daylight Saving Time concludes in the Fall.
“They’re going to be walking in complete darkness,” Hill said, referring to Courtney Vista Drive.
“There’s not one streetlight that’s out there,” Mina said. ”The kids are going to walk in the dark, [and] somebody’s going to get hurt.”
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Mina says these risks should be enough for the district to consider bus transportation for closer neighborhoods, so she started a petition requesting that the St. Johns County School Board conduct a review of the neighborhood’s conditions.
As of Saturday afternoon, the petition had more than 350 signatures.
It argues that the neighborhood’s conditions may be considered hazardous under House Bill 85, which would allow the district to grant them bus transportation despite living within a couple of miles of the school.
“There’s an accident waiting to happen,” Mina said.
Mina says she reached out to the district, the superintendent, and the District 2 school board chair. The Sr. Director for Transportation, Al Pantano, responded to her with this email:
Transportation will collaborate with MOA to arrange a meeting about transportation services at MOA after hours to afford parents and guardians the opportunity to attend.
We absolutely value and respect your concerns and perspectives. We believe that tone, empathy, and sincerity are best demonstrated in person hence our willingness to conduct the meeting.
However, I do not want to mislead you by arranging the meeting. The walk zone is appropriate in accordance with rule and statute. We appreciate that the state’s definition of appropriate may not align with your definition.
Mina says something needs to change.
“The safety of our kids, we’re putting them in the county’s hands. But at the end of the day, the county is failing us big time,” Mina said. “Magnolia Oaks Academy, the building, might have been ready, but nothing else was ready, and that would-that’s the problem.”
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