The Fayette County Board of Education is preparing to

face overflow crowds of angry parents when it convenes Monday for its

regular monthly meeting.

It will be the first board meeting since classes resumed

last Monday, and the first opportunity to address changes in the school

district's pupil transportation policy that eliminated service to some

neighborhoods while greatly consolidating routes throughout the county.

All week, the school district offices have been flooded

with complaints, and transportation personnel have gone out of their way

to make sure each and every case is heard, said school board Chairman

Terri Smith. On Thursday, she estimated that the majority of legitimate

legal complaints had been dealt with to the satisfaction of the families

involved.

Still, vowing they "won't give up" until their

complaints are heard, about 50 parents gathered at The Estates clubhouse

Wednesday night to compare notes and coordinate their next move.

The fight may be short-lived, as more reports of compromises

and restored stops trickle in.

At least a handful of families from The Estates said

they were told by a school district transportation employee that a bus

would begin picking up the kids who lived in the homes furthest from the

entrace starting Monday.

That presents a potentially awkward scenario, some parents

argued: A bus driving through the neighborhood past kids who were walking

to school, just to pick up children who lived a little further away.

"We all pay the same taxes, we should get the same

service," was the cry.

"Their concern is correcting errors in the one-mile

rule," explained Joe Mendola, an Estates resident and one of the

meeting's organizers. He admitted finding out prior to the meeting that

his house lies beyond the one-mile cutoff and will be served by the new

bus stops on Monday.

The Estates is adjacent to Braelinn Elementary on Robinson

Road, and many homeowners say they moved to the area specifically to get

their children into the highly-ranked school. But because the two main

entrances to the subdivision on Robinson Road are with .4 mile of the

school, bus service to the students there was dropped altogether.

In June, the School Board amended the policy on the minimum

distance a child should have to travel from home to school, or home to

bus stop, from .3 mile to .5 mile.That distance of two-tenths, coupled

with other measures like leasing buses instead of purchasing new ones,

is allegedly saving the school district more than $1 million a year.

To the parents present at the meeting, cost wasn't the

issue: It was safety. And asking young children to use the cart path system

to get to school daily isn't acceptable, parents say.

"This is a a safety issue, pure and simple,"

said Peachtree City Councilman Steve Rapson, who attended the meeting

and urged the parents to follow proper channels and stay focused on that

issue.

Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown, via e-mail, backed

up the claim by Rapson and others that the paths were not an accepable

means of getting to and from school.

"If you ask, are the paths safe for elementary age

children walking in the dark wee hours of the morning, my answer would

be that I would not allow my children to do it," wrote Brown.

Brown suggested school managers made "large communication

gaps" in getting the word out about the change. Chief among them

was waiting until days before school started to send out letters about

the policy, and many of those letters either never arrived or went to

the wrong addresses, parents reported.

School personnel have not acknowledged any breakdown

in the notification processs, but through a statement issued Tuesday morning

did apologize to parents and studednts "if this change causes difficulty."

Another issue of concern to many Peachtree City parents,

Brown said, was overcrowding at bus stops. With several stops consolidated

into one central pick-up spot, many kids are gathering at key intersections,

and some buses particularly on the middle school pickup cycle are dangerously

overcrowded, parents allege.

Brown said the city occasionally will monitor bus stop

activity at the request of a parent, but generally doesn't have the manpower

to do so. He discouraged parents threatening lawsuits against the school

district to reclaim bus service.

"Give the Board of Education the opportunity to

fix things in a timely fashion," Brown said.

The regular monthly School Board meeting scheduled for

Monday night may provide the first step toward reconciliation. Several

residents present Wednesday said they had already called about getting

on the agenda. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at School Board headquarters,

210 Stonewall Ave. West.

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