CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Ask pretty much any parent, and they'll all tell you the same thing — it's all about striking the right balance.
"Be careful, don’t do anything too crazy," said Athena Viculas, a single mother of four in Clarksville. "If your kids don’t make your heart beat fast, you’re doing something wrong."
But Viculas didn't expect the riskiest behavior her children would experience would be on their walk to school.
"It’s crazy; there’s no sidewalks," she said. "It’s not cut; there’s rocks, holes, all kinds of stuff kids trip over. There is a dead deer over there, there is like paraphernalia laying around through the grass."
She found out at the beginning of the school year that the Clarksville-Montgomery County School System expanded its "Parent Responsibility Zone" from half a mile around a school to one mile for elementary schools and 1.5 miles for middle and high schools. That means parents that live that close to their kids' schools now have to find their own way to get them to class. The district cites a major bus driver shortage as the reason why.
The move means about 10% of CMCSS students are excluded from bus transportation, according to the district. Before this year, only students that lived less than a half mile away were excluded.
"I have car problems, and so I have to fix it," said Viculas.
So, Athena and her four kids walk a narrow stretch of grass on the side of Crossland Avenue twice a day, in all types of weather and in all kinds of traffic to get to Moore Magnet School.
"At this point, we’re waiting on an accident to happen," she said.
Her stretch of Crossland Avenue is one of 13 sidewalk projects that the City of Clarksville is going to fund to provide a safer path to school.
This is phase one of the sidewalk plan along with their locations:
That's a solution for the future, but the single mom of four is worried about what she's going to do right now.
"They need to figure out something," said Viculas.
There are a few exceptions to the "Parent Responsibility Zone." For student safety, transportation will still be provided for students who live in the PRZ under the following travel conditions:
- 4 or more lanes of traffic without a crossing guard
- Roads with insufficient road width (less than 24 ft.) with speeds above 35 mph
- Roads with no sidewalks with speeds above 35 mph
Under state law, you're only required to provide transportation if a student lives more than 1.5 miles from a school. Metro Nashville Public Schools doesn't provide transportation if you live 1.25 miles from the school.
