Newport Parents Plead With Board On Hazards

About 70 frustrated parents of Newport Elementary Sehoo1 children showed up at last night's Arm Arbor Board of Education meeting to renew their pleas that steps be taken to reduce the hazards faced by those children who must walk to and from the school. The meeting was held at Newport School. A film was shown of the narrow, winding and hilly roads in the semi-rural Newport area on which the children must walk. The school is located a halfmile from the nearest paved road and one mile from the nearest sidewalk. The school is located in Ann Arbor Township. Parent representatives said during the past 2V2 years they have met with the Ann Arbor Township Board, Scio Township Board, Washtenaw County Road Commission, Penn Central Railroad, Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department and the Ann Arbor Pólice Department, but all "claim they cannot solve the problems." The Newport parents asked the school board to do four things - Lower the mileage limit to accommodate those children who must take hazardous routes and allow them to stay for lunch. ■ Now, only those children who live a mile or more from school may stay at school for lunch. Parents said a relaxation of the rule would cut the number of round trips a criild must make in half. - Become actively involved in whatever process is necessary to construct a walkway along Newport Rd. -Bus children who must walk hazardous routes. - Reduce the noon hour f rom 80 minutes to 30 or 40 minutes, so that a larger number of children who want to stay for lunch could be handled more easily. The parents said that two "concessions" had been obtained in the past two years by "citizen and PTO pressure." A reduction of the speed limit on Maple Rd. from 45 to 35 miles per hour was put into effect, and two warning signs were erected on Newport Rd. But many safety problems still exist in the area, according to the parents. These include the absence of a sidewalk or any kind of walkway along Newport Rd., lack of road shoulder along Newport and Maple Rd., several hazardous intersections, speed limits of 65 miles per hour along Newport Rd., and two dangerous areas which many children must cross: Foster Bridge and the Penn Central Railroad tracks. The parents told the board that in the spring of 1967, Washtenaw County Sheriff Douglas J. Harvey said it would be "unsafe" (for the guard) to post a crossing guard at either the Newport-Maple Rd. crossing or the Maple-Blueberry crossing. Harvey suggested the solution was to bus the children. (Mothers have since been serving as voluntary crossing guards at Maple and Blueberry. ) One father told the trustees "there is a tragedy on its way to happening." He added that the board has a "moral obligation" to insure the children's safety to and from school. One figure of $15,000 per year was mentioned as an estimatedi cost of safety busing at Newport School.