Message from Ellsworth AFB School Liaison Officer

So the question of the day is "how did pick-up go?" I was at Badger Clark this afternoon and there were definitely some bugs to work out. Ideally, here’s how Badger Clark’s pick up is supposed to work. The buses will be the first to line up on Briggs St and will pick up the bus kids, who are released at 2:40pm. After the buses leave, parents will begin pulling up on Briggs (facing north) and p
ick up their students, who are released around 2:50pm. In order to keep traffic moving, parents won’t park their vehicle and walk to get their child because that just slows down the process. The teachers will make sure students get to the appropriate vehicles. Also, parents won’t park on Briggs facing south as that will force their child to cross traffic to get to their vehicle. And parents definitely won’t make a U turn on Briggs (we saw a few of those today).

Now, this ideal plan didn’t happen today. Some of the buses initially parked in the wrong place and teachers didn’t have good visibility of parents pulling up, forcing some parents to park and walk to get their students. The school is working through those issues with the buses. Things were confusing for everyone and traffic got a little clogged up, but in the end, the students were supervised and safe. This is a work in progress and there’s a learning curve for both the school and parents. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, there is always much more traffic on the first day of school. It will get better.

With that said, let me know how things went for you and I’ll pass on your concerns. The district is focused on making drop off and pick up a safe and efficient (as possible) process for everyone. Together, we can make this work. Again, thank you for your patience!