Safety Issues in Concord Car Line Prompt Parent Concern

Parents chatting on cell phones. Cars circumventing the line waiting to drop kids at school. Drivers entering the one-way lane from the wrong direction.

Gerry Viau has seen it all in the student drop-off line.

“A kid’s going to get hit and killed,” said Viau, the parent of two Concord children, at Tuesday’s meeting.

Viau and fellow Concord parent Jane Gneiser said they attended the meeting not to criticize the school’s response to the dangerous situation but to volunteer to help solve the problem.

“It’s a safety issue we’ve seen the school repeatedly address,” Viau said “But it’s fallen on deaf ears.”

While Viau waited in an eight-car line on Tuesday, she said other parents started creating their own lane to jump ahead. Another man parked his car, blocking a bus, and walked his child into the building.

Gneiser said she recently pulled her car purposely in front of another mother who was about to plow into a school bus.

It’s a dangerous situation for small children, Gneiser said. And it’s also setting a bad example.

“Parents are teaching their children, ‘It’s OK for us, little Susie, to break the rules, but everyone else has to follow them,’” she said.

Superintendent Kerry Foderaro acknowledged the car-line issues and said that student safety is his primary concern in all situations.

At times the district has had officers from the and DuPage County Sheriff’s Office help direct traffic, he said.

The officers’ presence helps — temporarily, Concord Principal Laura Anderson said.

 “I’m out there and they try to run me down some days,” she said.

Foderaro suggested getting the Parent Teacher Council involved in spreading the safety message, as well as working with individual parents who aren’t following the rules.

“We could get a campaign going to push safety because it’s all of our responsibility,” he said. “(The situation) is not only jeopardizing their child’s safety but other peoples’ children, too.”

Gneiser and Viau said they’d do what they could to help with the effort and could already point out some repeat offenders.

“I want to do something before something really bad happens,” Viau said.

The board will get an update on the issue at the next meeting.