Traffic, parking at Bunkie Elementary spark complaints

Parents and school employees wanted a police presence at Bunkie Elementary to help make the school safer during drop-off and pick-up times.

Instead, citizens have said, the only police presence seems to be aimed at punishing teachers for asking for police help in the first place.

There were several angry citizens at the Bunkie City Council meeting on March 12.

Members of the Bunkie Elementary Parent Volunteer Organization have submitted a critical letter in addition to speaking to the council.

Two City Council members have expressed concerns.

Meanwhile, Police Chief Scott Ferguson said the criticism is unjustified and the critics are just plain wrong about the entire issue.

The City Council meeting came a day after Alderman Travis Armand, a teacher at Bunkie Elementary, was arrested at school for allegedly committing a battery on a police officer and interfering with a police investigation.

Those charges were dismissed a few hours before last Thursday’s council meeting.

Armand said he believes he was arrested because of his past disagreements with Ferguson on issues between the City Council and police department -- including the situation with parking and drop-offs in front of Bunkie Elementary.

NO PARKING

Ferguson and Mayor Bruce Coulon have ordered that school employees cannot park in front of the school. This has forced employees to park some distance away and walk to work.

The complaint is that the police are punishing teachers and school employees but are not doing anything to address the real problem -- parents stopping in the middle of the street and dropping their children off in front of the school.

The proper procedure, according to school policy, requires parents to enter the car line at the rear of the campus on Cedar Street, drop the child off beneath the covered overhang and exit onto Pershing.

Parents are not allowed to drop off children in front of school, but they do.

“Are police supposed to enforce school policies or the law,” Ferguson asked rhetorically. “Our officers are enforcing the law and providing assistance to the schools when they are available.”

Ferguson also said complaints that the police are not enforcing a law against the parents dropping off children to school is incorrect.

“There is no law against dropping a child off at the curb,” he said, noting that the practice may violate a school policy, but not a law.

If the school or school district wants to control students crossing the street, Ferguson said crossing guards should be hired.

“We are police officers, not crossing guards,” he added.

Although state law prevents parking that blocks vision at a crosswalk, the practice was allowed until after the February council meeting when a parent exchanged cross words with Ferguson.

Armand said the decision to enforce that law, while ignoring other traffic violations such as stopping in the middle of the road, smacks of retaliation.

Armand also said the parking ban has actually made that problem worse because there is now a wide open area directly in front of the school that basically invites parents to stop and drop their children off rather than take the time to go through the line to drop them off in the back of the school.

“I’m afraid a child is going to get run over,” Armand said.

Ferguson said banning parking in front of school “is not about retaliation. It’s about the school not being happy with the level of assistance that we are able to provide.”

Ferguson said he believes students are safer now that parking is not allowed near the cross walk.

“Before, if a car was exiting the school’s driveway they couldn’t see anything because of the cars parked there,” Ferguson said.

He said there were also complaints from the Council on Aging Center near the school about the difficulty in seeing oncoming traffic due to the parked cars.

Ferguson said one of the things school officials told him when they asked for his assistance was that they were afraid a child would run out between the cars and get run over.

That is no longer a problem because there are no parked cars at that site and any child crossing the street will be more easily seen.

PARENTS’ LETTER

In a letter to the editor from several Parental Volunteer Organization members, the parents claim that even when a police officer is at the school “they stand by and do nothing while many parents violate the law and place children in harm’s way, not even attempting to warn or refrain parents from the illegal activity.”

The letter writers said Ferguson sent a letter to Sullivan saying he would enforce the state law concerning parking on the street “‘with no prejudice.’ In reality, he has done just the opposite.

“Chief Ferguson and Mayor Coulon have acted to impose the law on school employees but not the parents in violation of the same law,” they wrote.