Dismissal, however, was rough. We knew it would be for several reasons. The first week of school always brings challenges with a greater number of cars in carpool and many transportation details and routes are still being develop. Many of our kids have not been in any school, let alone SCES, to understand how dismissal works. Also, at this time the district is short about 100 drivers and half of our drivers are driving multiple routes. I cannot thank you enough for the patience you showed towards our staff yesterday. This will get better each day, but it will require all of us working together.
Each year, we communicate transportation procedures with you. Here are some details to remember.
Morning Arrival: Car Riders may be dropped at the front of the main building between 8:45 am and 9:15 am. For safety, do not drop off students at any other parts of the front or back parking lot any earlier than 8:45 am. Staff members and student safety patrol members will direct students to enter the building at 8:45 am. Parents may walk their students to the door, but not enter the building, as long as they are not parked in the carpool line.
Afternoon Carpool:
- Students in grades 1-5 will be dismissed from their classrooms at 3:45 pm until 4:05 pm. Kindergarten students will be dismissed from the media center.
- To ensure the safety of all car riders and maintain an orderly dismissal process, all early checkouts for appointments must be prior to 3:15 pm.
- After that time, we will dismiss students at 3:45 pm in the carpool line.
- You must have an official carpool tag issued by the school office in order to pick up a student. After next week, drivers without a displayed tag will be expected to park in a a painted space and walk up to the school entrance with proper identification. You can request a tag by completing this form: https://forms.gle/dMqnhJBMxC3udiXu7. Teachers and students will see the numbers onscreen in their classrooms. Students go directly to the lobby, and then are directed when to walk out to a colored cone.
- At no time should you get out of your car when in the carpool line. This unsafe practice holds up traffic and will cause people to pull around your vehicle, potentially resulting in an accident.
- Also, please plan for your child to enter your car curbside, not driver side. While we hope no vehicle pulls out of line and goes around stopped vehicles, we don't want our students going out into the driveway.
- When exiting the campus, please make a right turn on Yates Mill Pond Road.
- Finally, do not park your car along Tryon Road or Yates Mill Pond Road. There is no safe place to pull off there. You may park at any time in the front parking lot or the lot connected to Swift Creek Park if you want to walk up and get your student. Just bring your carpool tag along with you. Thank you for ensuring that your student knows their carpool number. We will be putting a carpool tags on their bookbags this week as well.
- Here Comes the Bus app lets you know where your child’s bus is located in real time. The WCPSS school code for Yellow Bus is 67500. The WCPSS school code for Vendor Transportation Services is 67501. If the app is not working, we have heard from some parents that uninstalling/reinstalling the app caused it to work correctly for them.
- WCPSS.net - From the district website, select Trasportation, then Bus Updates, then Swift Creek ES. A chart will be populated on this page showing information about our busses.
- Twitter @SCESROARS - Starting today, we will resume our practice of tweeting when a bus leaves campus.
Thank you for your help and understanding. Please know that we are constantly reviewing our processes to make this smoother and get your child home as quickly as possible.
Thank you,
Darrell Propst