CARPOOL PROCEDURES

September 5, 2008

Dear St. Joseph Catholic School Parents,

The purpose of this letter is to ask for your support of changes to the beginning and end of the school day.  Beginning on September 8th we are implementing the following changes to ensure greater safety and security for our children.

I would like to begin by making a few comments regarding the thoughts that led to these changes. Since I arrived in June, it has become evident that our arrival and dismissal procedures need an overhaul.  Since St. Joseph Catholic School opened in 2002, our parents have had easy access and relaxed security procedures.  This was reasonable and easy to administer due to the small numbers and familiarity of families and school staff.  The parking lot was easy to manage due to the relatively few number of cars arriving and departing each day.  However, because enrollment has increased to more than 350 students, we are now faced with some new challenges.

The first concern is the drop off of students in the morning.  At the present time we have the drop off location on the Jupiter side which is supervised. Currently we have a problem with the area near the rectory.  Many parents will try to avoid the car line and park in the lot near the church and let their children out of the car to walk into the building.  We also have a significant number of parents who park and walk children into the building.   Both of these situations are fraught with problems.  Simply letting children out of the car to walk through the parking lot is not appropriate.  With so many cars arriving and leaving it is very dangerous for children to try to negotiate that parking lot on their own.  Additionally, even when parents walk with their children, the cars arriving and leaving cannot necessarily see the children even with a parent. 

The second concern is in regard to the number of people in the gym and cafeteria each morning.   This is problematic due to the fact that we now have so many families; it is not possible for every staff member to know every parent who enters the gym or cafeteria. 

I have met with the Advisory Council and Msgr. Don earlier this month to address some of these concerns.  Following these conversations, we are going to implement the following changes:

MORNING DROP OFF:

• We will now have TWO drop off locations, the Jupiter entrance and the area by the church and rectory. You may use EITHER location.
• NJHS and Student Council members will be posted along the hallways to help guide your children from the church door to the gym or cafeteria.
• If you need to come to the school office or enter the building for any reason, please go through the drop off line and then park in the parking lot by the church (not Jupiter side) and enter the building.
• There will be a staff member on duty to help children into the building at the rectory side until 8:05 am daily.

CAFETERIA/GYM

• The cafeteria has been designated a safe zone and at any other time of day a visitor’s badge or volunteer credentials are required to be granted access to this location.  We will extend this requirement to the morning drop-off. 
• We are aware that frequently this time is an opportunity for parents to chat and is a positive social opportunity for our families.  We do not wish to eliminate this community opportunity for our parents, so we would like to invite everyone to gather in the Forum daily for coffee and conversation.  Mr. Riley will be on hand as often as possible to chat with visitors.   
• Finally, parents who drop off in the morning on the Jupiter side should refrain from parking on that side of the building to let children out and walk them to the door.  This creates a back-up due to the cars that are pulling in and then backing up again to leave.  We also ask that as you leave on the Jupiter side, drivers refrain from trying to make a left-turn to go back north on Jupiter.  This also creates a traffic tie-up.

In the afternoon we would ask for cooperation on a couple of items. 

AFTERNOON PICKUP

• Parents who pick up on the Jupiter side should no longer park on that side of the building in the afternoon to walk in and pick up children.  That side of the building, in the afternoon, has to be reserved for the carpool line only. 
• If parents want to enter the building in the afternoon they need to park in the church/rectory lot and walk in from there.  Parking on the Jupiter side creates traffic tie-ups and also creates delays when people try to leave at the same time that carpool is running. 
• Secondly we will ask parents who have middle school children who are dismissed at 3:30 to wait until 3:30 to be in line to pick up their children.  We ask these families to refrain from arriving early and waiting in the carpool line for the children who are in the later dismissal group. 

We ask everyone to understand that our motives with these changes are to help ensure greater safety, security and efficiency during these very busy times.  This may be disconcerting for some, but we are hopeful that this will be balanced by a greater sense of security for all of our parents.  As principal, I care greatly about each one of our 353 students and want to keep everyone safe.  We thank you for your support and cooperation in advance.

God Bless,

Philip R. Riley Jr.
M.Ed.
Principal