At the start of the year we have children id'd as "every day pick up" or "routine day pickup" (like Tuesday and Thursday). Parents are given a number card after they have registered for pick up and at 3:30 the children are dismissed to the cafeteria where the cars line up and around the pick up line. There is a monitor outside with a walkie talkie that calls in the number of the child to the monitors inside that prepare the child for pick up and sends them out to another "pick up" monitor to assist with loading. At first it takes a moment and other than regular pick up have to walk into the front office to sign out their children. By about the 3d week of September though, everyone is familiar and it gets to a point where the walkie talkie person eventually doesn't need to even see the numbers anymore. So there is constant supervision from the time of dismissal for the everydays, to time of pick up including during the car loading. It works nicely and is the standard for our county.
I agree LUVMYKIDS, the situation can't ever be ideal for picking up. Yes, we must sign out every student, every day on a clip board in the designated classroom "parent pick up room". I don't know if a drive thru arrangement would work out. I'd like more feedback from others. Our school has a circle, but it isn't dual lanes - it's single. Thanks for responding and please pass along anything else you can think of.
Thank you for responding Scott. We don't refer to them as pods - but our school is "winged" by grade levels as well. Unfortunately, the exits in those areas are not to an appropriate area for pick up and two of the areas will be under renovation. Staggering dismissal with bus pick up is a possible idea to minimize some of the chaos, tho I am hoping for some sort of solution to using a classroom for pick up. I appreciate your input.
Like Scottmom's school, we send all the bus kids to the gym where they are separated by the bus number they ride and as the bus pulls up(we have a bus drive and a pick up drive)the children who ride that bus file out of the gym and load on to the bus.
Students who walk home or are picked up by car, exit out two set of doors at the front of the building. Because of the arrangement of the classrooms the K-3 children go out one door and the 4-5 children go out another. The parents either meet their children on the sidewalk in front of the building and escort them to their car in the lot or they drive up in a designated lane and pick their child up. There are staff members roaming the sidewalk in front of the building to keep kids from running into the parking lot and to keep traffic moving.
It's not perfect. No system that involves humans making decisions is:) We have people pulling up in the drive thru lanes to get pick up their children because they don't want to wait in the correct lane. We have people who park in the lot and are too lazy to get out of their car and walk up to get their child-yes, that's right, they expect this small child to go through 3 lanes of traffic and a busy parking lot to get to the car. The principal handles those folks.
Do you need to have every child signed out or just the preschoolers?
Since I don't know the physical layout of your school, but it sounds pretty big, I will tell you what we do at ours (K-5, 476). Our school has classrooms in 4 different sections (we call them Pods)-2 are 3-5 and 2 are K-2. The children that ride the bus line up first and they are walked out by the gym (at the farthest end of the building)where all the buses are and exit that way. Children that walk or get picked up, leave out their Pod. Parents are encouraged to pick up their children outside their Pod and not enter the building because we are supposed to keep track of everyone that enters the building and that would be too much. The Pod doors face 2 of the streets that surround our school. This is the only thing that has helped us. I don't know if it will help you any, but I thought I would try. Also, my youngest son went to preschool at another school in our district because ours doesn't offer it. Those children were picked up ealier than the rest of the school was dismissed because parents had to sign them out and that helped with traffic as well.
The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating-in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life. --Anne Morris
We are starting a renovation project and as a result will need to revamp our present "parent pick up process" at the end of the school day and for pre-school 1/2 day. We have approximately 625 kids (prek-4) and we presently dismiss parent pick up kids to a designated room where each parent signs out their child. Space will be limited since this room will most likely become a preschool room during renovation. A few years ago this process was put in place to avoid traffic in the foyer during bus dismissal and in the school office. It is not idea, but it was better than in the past and we'd like to improve upon it. Any ideas or can you please share how your school handles parent pick up? Thanks.
