As soon as the South Jordan School District comes back from the Fall break in Jan 2009, the South Jordan School District will work on getting all the recycling bins back to all the Schools in South Jordan. In August 2007 the City of South Jordan code enforcement told the South Jordan School District that the recycling bins needed to be removed if the Schools District were not able to have fencing or an enclosures put up around the recycling bins. The School District was unable to taking what little budget it had away from the children’s educational needs to build these enclosures being requested so almost all the recycling bins were taken from the South Jordan Schools at that time.

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   I have been trying to find a resolution to fix this situation for a month or two and was actually working on getting a waiver or variance to the code for the South Jordan School District. However last week a friend of mine who happens to be an Attorney for the City of South Jordan was able to dig up some information on the State Code of Municipality 10-9A-305 sub 4a, which exempts the all public Schools from the code enclosure requirement.

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Anyways thanks to everyone who gave their support in helping me and my efforts to get the South Jordan School District Recycling Program back to our Schools!  

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And a BIG thank you to Mr. Aaron Osmond and Kennecott Land for dontating the funds to pay for the recycling bin at Daybreak Elementary for the 2009-2010 school year!

If you have enjoyed the first round of the S.A.F.E. Program please us know your thouhgts by posting the in forums, thanks for your support and the next S.A.F.E articles will be up in a few weeks.

Thanks and remeber to VOTE for Joe Ross on Nov 3rd for South Jordan City Council

As most of you know, Daybreak welcomed a brand new elementary school this year: Early Light Academy. Along with hiring teachers, planning curriculum, and ordering desks, the school board at ELA has prepared for its first school year by giving consideration to its students’ daily commute to and from its doors. Working with the South Jordan Police Department, the school established a Safe Walk Route (every school in Utah has one) which shows families the safest ways to walk to school from the surrounding neighborhood. Unfortunately, when significant roads have to be crossed without crosswalks or crossing guards, “safe” becomes a relative term.

For the kids who walk to Early Light Academy, there are two considerably dangerous roads to cross. A crosswalk on the east side of the school is the major entrance and exit to the school grounds, and it runs through a street which, while empty throughout the day, becomes overrun by parent’s vehicles before and after school. But after the kids walk past some weedy empty ground and down a short side-street, they come to Grandville, a wide, hilly, curving thoroughfare (as far as Daybreak streets go). And across the street these kids go—several sidewalks emptying in several places up and down the street, no designated crosswalk, and definitely no crossing guard. There are usually about 100 children streaming across Grandville every day, and at least five or six cars, if not more, zooming up the hill in that half-hour after school. It’s chaos.

At the other schools in Daybreak, when parents are concerned about the streets their children have to cross, they accompany them to school. But at both street crossings at Early Light Academy, a few parents and teachers have taken it upon themselves to shepherd children across with no school-zone signs, no hand-held stop sign, and no reflective safety jacket. They’re taking their lives in their own hands, as well as the lives of the children they help across the street. While this may be commendable, it’s really dangerous—not just for their safety but the liability, if anything were to happen, would be pretty formidable.

 Part Two of our Three part story, Early Light Academy coming on Sat 9/19~ 

    On a quiet afternoon in Murray in May 2007, a young father was walking his kindergartner home from school. As they crossed four traffic lanes on 1300 East in a pedestrian crosswalk with no crossing guard, they were both struck by a car and killed instantly. At Eastlake Elementary in Daybreak, 13 children have to cross four lanes of traffic on South Jordan Parkway to reach their school. And there is not even a crosswalk, let alone a crossing guard. 

    Principal Tanner can go back and request a crosswalk from the city engineers (she has to start the process all over again having been turned down for a crossing guard initially). Northshore parents can start walking their children to school regularly (at least it’ll be a good opportunity to teach safe street-crossing skills) until there are enough of them to qualify for a crossing guard. And then Tanner can go back to the police department and request a crossing guard again. Hopefully, as Northshore grows in it won’t be too long before that crosswalk and guard get put in place.

    Summer is winding down in Daybreak. Neighborhood children put away their swimming suits and pull out their backpacks, gearing up for another year of education at our fantastic local schools. You’ll see them hit the sidewalks and streets on school days—walking, biking, and scootering with brothers, sisters and friends. In the morning, you’ll catch sight of a straggler hurriedly stuffing toast in her mouth as she gallops, head-down, to make it before the bell. In the afternoon, you’ll find a gaggle of boys, probably brothers, releasing a day’s worth of pent-up energy in a friendly wrestling match on the side of the road. Screeching tires and the shrieks of an injured child do not belong to these scenes, but I’m afraid we’ll hear them if we don’t address the crosswalks around our neighborhood schools.

   First of all, it is South Jordan City’s responsibility to paint crosswalks, put up school-crossing signs, implement school zone speed limits, and hire crossing guards. While school officials and concerned parents can bring the city’s attention to the problem areas, they can’t take on the liability themselves of getting crowds of kids across neighborhood streets. The police department performs a traffic study of the area in question, gathering data such as the frequency and speed of car traffic, the number and ages of children regularly walking through, and the nature of the site. Using those numbers, the city determines what safety measures should be taken. Unfortunately, it seems that children’s safety in South Jordan has become a low priority as crosswalks, crossing signs, and especially crossing guards are rationed out sparingly among our neighborhood schools.

    Daybreak Elementary is surrounded on four sides by public streets; consequently there are four major crosswalks at intersections that funnel children from the surrounding neighborhood into the school. Only one crosswalk has a crossing guard. Doree Strauss, principal, says that there have been “a lot of near misses”. She told me about a parent who came into her office, shaken and crying because she had nearly hit a child who darted out in front of her car. With the cars parked along those narrow Daybreak streets, visibility is extremely difficult and young children will run into the street, it’s their nature.

    Since the school opened five years ago, Strauss has been working with the city to get a crossing guard in place on the west side of Daybreak Elementary, at the intersection of Oakmond and Firmont. She went through all the regular channels, the police studied traffic patterns, and the city finally approved a crossing guard for the area. Then they came back and told her, “Sorry, your crossing guard is going to Eastlake Elementary.” Principal Strauss understands that Eastlake needs crossing guards too, but if the city determines an area needs a crossing guard shouldn’t they make sure it gets one? That was two years ago when Eastlake first opened and there is still no crossing guard at Oakmond and Firmont. Strauss says she keeps hearing excuse after excuse from the city.

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THERE ARE SOME MAJOR UPDATES TO THIS STORY....CLICK THE READ MORE BUTTON TO SEE THE UPDATES IN RED

I heard this last night and thought of CCMC…the answer is no, of course not because it’s not their car so they don’t care. Same thing goes with the Daybreak Homeowners Budget, all CCMC cares about is how much money they can make off the Daybreak homeowners. Now the point of this article is to go over some of the issues from last night’s BOD meeting that went until 11pm I was told. (I wasn’t there *I was at the Congressman Chaffetz Town Hall meeting*, but have gotten feedback from 6 people who were, so here it is).

1. The Beach issues

2. The Founder’s Park Landscaping Committee Park enhancement

3. CCMC’s inability to do their job

4. Budget issues --- THIS IS THE REAL ISSUE THAT CAUSES THE SNOWBALL EFFECT ON EVERYTHING ELSE