Ann Arbor school board approves controversial Haisley Elementary School parking lot project
The Ann Arbor school board approved the controversial Haisley Elementary School parking lot project unanimously after months of discussion and numerous protests by parents at board meetings.
The work was among the summer projects the school board approved at Wednesday’s meeting. The project at Haisley would add a bus lane, an area for parents to drop off and pick up children and more parking spaces in the front of the school.
Parents at Wednesday's meeting objected to a traffic islands in the plan, calling it unsafe and an invitation for students to take a shortcut through the parking lot. However, Randy Trent, the district’s executive director of physical properties, said the project’s traffic engineer believes the traffic islands actually make the project much more safe than it would be without them.
“The traffic engineer does not believe it makes it any safer,” Trent said of removing the traffic islands. “In fact, he’s adamant that it makes it much less safe.”
The total cost of the asphalt projects trustees approved Wednesday was $683,234.80. Other schools set to have asphalt work done are Abbot Elementary School, Ann Arbor Open School, Bryant Elementary School, Burns Park Elementary School, Huron High School, Community High School, Lawton Elementary School, Pioneer High School and Thurston Elementary School.
- To view a PDF of the new Haisley plan, click here.
- To view a PDF of what the Haisley parking lot currently looks like, click here.
Trustee Susan Baskett said she went to Haisley during dismissal near the end of a recent school day and watched the process of kids getting on buses and being picked up by their parents and said she felt her anxiety level rising by the minute.
“I saw buses and parents and I couldn’t imagine living that every single day,” she said. “I would have wanted a safety guard to take me from the curb to the parking lot.”
She said board members heard and listened to the complaints of Haisley community members about the project — and it would be hard not to considering the amount of discussion the project has caused.
For the second straight meeting, a solid majority of the public comment segment at the board meeting was spent with parents voicing their worries about the project to the board.
Scott Sproat, a parent of two students at Haisley, said removing the traffic islands in the project “could save a child’s life.”
“We’re very concerned that such a large island will tempt children to use it as a short cut to the school’s entrance,” Sproat said.
Tam Perry, the mother of two children at Haisley, presented board members with a David Letterman--type Top 10 list of reasons why the traffic islands should be removed.
She said eliminating the islands would remove the need to maintain plants on the islands, save some of playground space that would be otherwise eliminated and make the project cheaper.
At least one parent thought trusting the expert opinion was enough of a reason to support the project.
David Haig said he believed traffic islands make the project safer and that the consequences of not moving forward with the plan would be sacrificing children’s safety for the whims of a vocal group.
Haig said the argument that the project should be scrapped because “green space” near the school would be eliminated as a part of the plan was most baffling to him.
“This is grass we’re talking about. Not a forest or wetland,” he said. “The safety of kids really outweighs the grass.”
Kyle Feldscher covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at kylefeldscher@annarbor.com or you can follow him on Twitter.
Comments
Dennis
Thu, May 26, 2011 : 4:30 p.m.
Why would they need a bus loop. Didn't I just read that Ann Arbor was cutting bussing out? Seem like they could use the money better elsewhere, like to retain teachers
Kyle Feldscher
Thu, May 26, 2011 : 4:42 p.m.
Dennis - Only high school busing is proposed to be cut. There are no plans to cut elementary school busing. In fact, Haisley actually received the most buses during the day with 11 buses dropping off and picking up students.
Gorc
Thu, May 26, 2011 : 12:02 p.m.
Some kids will cut through the parking lot regardless if there an island or not.
Troutfisher
Thu, May 26, 2011 : 11:49 a.m.
Safety is everyone's primary concern, but I think that it could be achieved without such a large plan.
Reason
Thu, May 26, 2011 : 10:23 a.m.
I'm a Haisley parent and will just say the so-called "process" for deciding this project has been horrible. I have mixed feelings about the parking lot so am not really pro or con but the process sucked. Many decisions made early on without parent input and significant resistance to parental participation which was astonishing to me. I went to a public meeting and was amazed at the atmosphere--there apparently was a parent with some expertise in this area who had designed a potential alternative parking lot layout but the public schools people wouldn't even let him present to all of us even though we all wanted to at least hear his ideas. I felt like the meeting just let people talk but that it was a rather condescending process where they were letting people talk because they felt they had to and not really interested in engaging parents. I don't understand why some of the involved parents (many of whom were very reasonable and thoughtful) weren't brought into the planning process.
Reason
Fri, May 27, 2011 : 11:08 a.m.
Oh I agree some parents are way off on the extreme (there were some wild comments at the meeting on both sides of the issue), but many appeared to have thoughtful, creative, and useful ideas and wanted to work collaboratively, and I would have thought the schools would have welcomed this but they didn't. And as far as the parent with expertise--the group at the meeting collectively WANTED to hear those ideas b/c they appeared to solve some of the controversies being argued in a way that was acceptable to everyone--but the person running the meeting just shut everybody down. I don't have any problem with the school board making the final decision but was just amazed at how unpleasant the process was and how many reasonable parents were treated by the folks in charge.
DonBee
Thu, May 26, 2011 : 2:05 p.m.
Reason - It is this way in most meeting, they ask for input and then when they report the input, it never matches what I hear in the meetings. In the Skyline meetings our group reported they wanted a magnet school, not a comprehensive high school building, but the report on the meeting said that the groups were unanimous on the need for a comprehensive high school. The vote in the meeting was evenly split between the two options. Sounds unanimous to me! In a number of face to face parent meetings, what was said in the meeting and what was reported in the written reports to the BOE are so different, I have to wonder if I was in an alternate reality. Steve Hendel - If you have a lawyer or two in your group, you get what you want. If you don't you don't. If you can point to the achievement gap, or disability you get what you want, if you can not you don't. If you can point to sports teams you get what you want, if you don't you don't. It is the way AAPS and the BOE work. They know who has grounds to sue and who has powerful friends, and who does not. The good news is the current board has significantly reduced legal and settlement costs.
local
Thu, May 26, 2011 : 10:51 a.m.
I guess I am wondering about parent input. If ever parent had input and got their way, nothing would ever get done. When you elect a school board, you are giving them permission to do what they think is best. If experts that work for the district think this is the way to go, I support that decision. Public forms and input from parents can only go so far, eventually decisions have to be made and we elected the school board to do that.
Steve Hendel
Thu, May 26, 2011 : 10:46 a.m.
I'm not a Haisley parent, but I'd say that one problem the school board DOESN'T have is minimizing parent participation; au contraire, it seems like the Board often bends and twists to placate vocal minorities. It's nice to see that the Board still knows how to make a decision. Isn't that what we elected them to do, even if not 100% of every 'stakeholder' group is on board ? As to the parent "with some expertise in the area" who had prepared a detailed alternative plan, but was not able to present it: good. A public forum where passions are running high is NOT the place to evaluate a detailed alternative plan or indeed even the technical qualifications of the plan's designer.