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Show Hazard Rating To Influence School Binsing By TOM BUSSELBERG 1 A tentative hazard rating system to determine de-termine which students should be bused was due to be "put to the test" Wednesday afternoon. MEMBERS of the eight-person transportation transpor-tation advisory committee were to walk several areas around the county in an attempt to evaluate possible hazardous areas as part of their mandate at setting up some sort of a system to determine where buses should be provided. The committee was set up several months ago, brought on by ongoing requests re-quests from various parent groups for busing, bus-ing, with the latest groups in Layton's Antelope Drive area and 1000 South east of Interstate 15 in Clearfield. AMONG tentative portions of the rating scale that would assign points to each potential hazard area, would be traffic density, de-nsity, broken down to both before "'nd after school and including large trucks and the number of pedestrian students crossing each potentially hazardous area. Ratings would be assigned for walkways along a road, with highest points offered where no sidewalk and no unobstructed shoulder exist ex-ist down to a walkway separated by parking strip at the low point level. Committee member Dot Fondario, a 'YTA' representative from Kaysville, stres-"' sed, "You've got to be consistent" when setting busing standards. State law provides pro-vides funding assistance for secondary students stu-dents living more than two miles from school and one and one-half miles for elementary students. In addition, some students stu-dents are currently bused in already-recognized already-recognized "hazard" areas, such as the Clinton 8th North bridges. "WE'RE LOOKING at it as mothers and fatiftrs. If they (district) don't stick to what we've done, we've wasted our time, Mrs. Fondario added, noted many hours have already been expended by the committee members with four meetings already held along with other study and phone calls received re-ceived from patrons. While input is sought from concerned parents and others, several committee members urged those calls be directed to Dr. Richard Butler, Davis District transportation trans-portation supervisor, who agreed that "it's fy job" to review such requests rather than burden committee volunteers. "IF WE have to listen to everyone's complaint I don't think we'll get anywhere," any-where," said Pemmie Alsup of Clearfield. "There are probably 100 people who are worried about losing their bus after this survey is done." Dr. Butler expressed "good feelings" about the committee's progress so far, but added, "I can't see how we'll finish by Dec. 1. 1 think we'll be well under way by then." THE BOARD of Education, in authorizing authoriz-ing the study, asked for a Dec. 1 study completion but had to extend the ninth grade activities committee deadline to Feb. 1, for similar problems of not being able to complete the task when first assumed possible. pos-sible. Speaking of the proposed point system, Dr. Butler said "similar-type systems" are in place in Box Elder, where ratings are actively being sought this year, and have been completed in the past in Weber and Granite school districts. He noted that to his knowledge "most of their patrons felt good about the way they handled it" in Weber and Granite. "THEY HAD problems with a few isolated iso-lated groups of parents but there's no way we can please everybody all the time. We tried to keep it simple enough so they wouldn't have trouble figuring it out," he said of the proposals. While he said a hazardous areas list hasn't yet been set up, Dr. Butler indicated " places' 'to' be studied Wednesday "were' '"" through his and the other committee members' mem-bers' suggestion. "As soon as we're sure we've got the right line on our measuring or rating instrument, then we'll go for (specific) (speci-fic) areas." ADDING THAT input will be sought from principals and PTAs in the near future, fu-ture, he emphasized, "We want this to be as subjective as possible. If we have a bunch of teary-eyed parents it's hard to be subjective. If we met with the citizens groups from every area where parents think (their kids) ought to be bused, we'd probably be here two years." Ernest Hill, representing the Utah Highway High-way Patrol, spoke highly of the committee's commit-tee's possibilities. "If we get five-six different diffe-rent people, that's better than probably just (input from) the school district. I think it's worthwhile we as taxpayers become aware of What's going on in the school district." MRS. FONDARIO expressed concern no input has been sought yet from the district's dis-trict's 92 bus drivers, adding that the "members want" their opinions. "I feel there are too many buses picking up just a few kids." |