Headline:
News and Issues
Stanford Area Families Bus Group Home Page
Welcome to the home page of the Stanford Area Families Bus Group (SAFBG)
Our group promotes the aims of Gunn High School's award-winning organization,
GOFAST: Gunn High's Organization for Alternative, Safe Transportation.
Reconfigure the route of an existing PAUSD fee bus,
the J, to improve safety on the Charleston-Arastradero corridor.
The reconfigured J route would reduce single car traffic near the
Foothill-Miranda intersection and Terman Middle School by providing bus
service to Stanford campus high school students. The changed route would
also dramatically improve the bus ride for Stanford West elementary students.
See SAFBG Proposal.
No bus, public or private, serves the Stanford campus high school students
during the morning commute, although the District agreed in 2003 to provide
high school service on the fee bus system in order to raise revenue and to
reduce traffic on Arastradero (thereby fulfilling the Terman EIR). LAH
does have this service; Stanford does not.
See History.
Gunn High School's GOFAST has dramatically reduced the number
of student drivers coming to the school, greatly increased bus riding
and cycling to school. But Stanford campus students who bus to Terman
in middle school years have no A.M. bussing option for high school.
The reconfigured J Bus route would transport young children
directly from Stanford West to Nixon. Students would leave
the house 5 minutes later, and their ride would be shortened
from 33-40 minutes to a 13-20 minute ride. See
SAFBG Proposal.
The reconfiguration would entail an extra five minutes of student
supervision at Nixon in the morning. See
SAFBG Proposal. The District and the SAFBG have met
four times, June-December 2005, to ensure that the reconfiguration of
the J can meet all District concerns about the five minutes. See
Meeting Minutes: 20June2005,
8August2005,
18August2005,
14December2005.
The District will net thousands of dollars by reselling vacated Nixon
seats to Gunn students. See
SAFBG Proposal. Supervision costs would be minimal and
could be borne by offering reduced bus passes to teachers' aides.
See Finances and Board Policy.
No new Liability would be
incurred. The SAFBG has found "responsible adult
supervision" for the five minutes, as required by the State
Educational Code.
Precedent for elementary before-school supervision has already
been established. No new precedent would be set. Two examples
are Duveneck's program and Palo Verde's math-science program
supervised by parents. The District's suggestion that no new
supervisory program should be provided before-school to any
elementary students, e.g., at Nixon, if none is available for
Fairmeadow VTP students, seems a regressive approach.
The District's
stated concern is the parallel case of Fairmeadow Voluntary
Transfer students from EPA, who also need supervision earlier
than 15 minutes before school. At present, the EPA students have
a school start at 8:30 A.M. Their C bus departs 6:56 a.m.
(first pickup), arrives at Hoover before 8:00 a.m. (school start
time), and then the Fairmeadow students wait on the stationary
bus for 15-20 minutes. If Nixon students receive 5 minutes of
extra supervision, the District would recognize a need to revise
the Fairmeadow Elementary arrival and wait.
In November 2005 the District tacitly acknowledged the
importance of traffic reduction near Gunn by offering
high school bus service from Stanford. However, their
route, also on the J, would have high schoolers start
from home before 7 A.M. See
District Proposal.
Nixon students from Stanford West would not benefit.
Safety would not be improved, since traffic would not
be reduced. Instead of a viable 7:40-7:50 bus ride,
as the SAFBG proposes, high school students who
live ten minutes from Gunn by car would leave home before
7 A.M. to travel by fee bus for 35 minutes.
- All three PTA's of schools served by the J
(Nixon, Terman and Gunn) have approved the SAFBG
proposal to reconfigure the route.
- The Palo Alto Weekly published (July 5, 2006)
"A Bid for Busing" on the J route proposal.
On December 16, 2005 Assoc. Superintendent Jerry Matranga denied the
J bus reconfiguration. (See
District denial letter.
What we are asking for is a slight modification of an
existing fee bus route, an alteration in the order of
stops, which makes the service more efficient. See
the
detailed SAFBG response to each
of the District's reasons for denial.
Last Modified: 12July2006