NCPTA Urges Advocacy in Durham School Transportation Zones

Parent-teacher associations serving Durham schools affected by the new “family responsibility zones” can promote safety, help collect winter clothes, and advocate for crossing guards.

But, according to Dr. Shaneeka Moore-Lawrence, president of the NCPTA, PTA leaders should stop short of actively promoting and organizing walking groups due to liability concerns.

“While it is great some of our PTAs want to assist by coordinating walking efforts,” they shouldn’t do so in the name of the PTA, Moore-Lawrence told attendees at a virtual emergency meeting about the topic on Sunday.

Effectively, it’s like running a carnival on school grounds and allowing a bounce house: if someone gets hurt during a PTA-sanctioned function, the PTA leadership (and not the school district) would be liable for damages.

However, while the NCPTA doesn’t want PTAs taking their advocacy into managing walking groups to their neighborhood schools within the “no-bus zones,” leaders seem to want PTA members to encourage government officials to remove any barriers caused by the new transportation service approach in Durham Public Schools.

The new zones, created around 21 Durham schools to reduce the number of school bus routes and throttle demand for limited drivers, require families to provide their own means of getting about 750 elementary students to school – whether that’s on foot, on bicycles, or in the family car.

“The situation has created pretty big barriers for our community,” said Jocelyn Dawson, president of the Hope Valley Elementary School PTA, during the virtual meeting. Hope Valley, she said, has about 24% of the total students affected – and many of the 140 new walkers at HVE are from Spanish-speaking families. “The condensed rollout time hasn’t allowed for a lot of communication, something we are really concerned about.”

The HVE PTA held a drive to collect winter clothes, acquired 250 rain ponchos, and is trying to work with city officials to find a crossing guard to help around Dixon Road, Chapel Hill Road, and University Drive.

The PTA also discovered that the sidewalk serving the Colonial Townhouses neighborhood – a key route for pedestrians in the northern end of Hope Valley’s responsibility zone – is shut down for construction. As a result, Dawson said, those families are expected to continue with bus transportation for two additional weeks.

For other schools around Durham, it starts this week – year-round schools on Tuesday and traditional schools on Wednesday.

The NCPTA and Durham Council of PTAs holds another meeting on the transportation zones Monday at 4 p.m.

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