ACPS Still Defining Safe Walk Zones, Parents Request Bus Service Be Restored: Report

ALEXANDRIA, VA – Alexandria City Public Schools staff and parents continue to challenge the district's new walk zones as staff work to complete the city's walk safety standard, more than two weeks into the school year, according to a new report.

ACPS updated its walk zones for this school year, resulting in the loss of buses in some communities. The Alexandria Brief reports that parents and community members at Thursday's school board meeting again requested that bus service be restored to the Arlandria-Chirilagua and Mount Vernon areas, and ACPS staff said walk routes were established without input from educators able to judge what young children can handle. The result, they say, is walk routes that meet distance requirements – being under a mile – but might lack sidewalks, cross busy roads or involve other safety hazards a child of five or seven can't handle.

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Acting Superintendent Grace Taylor said the start of the year had been particularly complex and said ACPS had gotten more than 1,000 transportation inquiries they were working through, according to the report. The board noted that bus driver vacancies and late registrations and routing requests had created a backlog the district continues to work through.

Chief Operating Officer Anthony Peña said his staff are still working on a framework for deciding what walking routes are safe and expects it to be finished this month. He reported that Alexandria City has committed to conducting traffic studies at some areas of concern.

Read more from the Alexandria Brief here.