Downtown residents fear kids’ long walk to school

Jace Radke

Friday, Aug. 13, 1999 | 10:01 a.m.

Residents in a downtown Las Vegas neighborhood don't think an added crossing guard will be enough to see their children safely to school this fall.

About 10 parents and one seventh-grader were at Thursday night's School Board meeting hoping to impress the board that the children in their neighborhood need bus service.

"We're here to beg if we have to," said Earl White, a housing coordinator with the RPS, a corporation that provides affordable housing. "The parents of this neighborhood are trying to raise their families and help clean up the neighborhood, and all we're asking the school district to do is continue bus service."

The neighborhood in question is on the north side of Fremont Street near 17th Street.

In the past the school district has provided bus service from that area to Crestwood Elementary School, 1300 Pauline Way, south of Charleston Boulevard. The distance between the neighborhood and the school is less than the 2-mile limit that the school district has set for bus service, but the residents say there are other factors to consider.

"I live on the third floor of the Fremont Villas, and when I get up in the morning for work I can see all the drug activity in the 7-Eleven parking lot on 15th Street and Fremont," Carl McDave said. "There's people walking around out there like zombies, and you don't want kids to have to walk by that."

The residents also complained that children have to walk across the busy intersections of Charleston Boulevard and Fremont and 17th and Fremont.

Lori Longmire, who works in the district's transportation division, said the addition of a new crossing guard on the way to the school is why the bus service has been canceled for the coming school year.

"There was already a crossing guard at Charleston and Fremont and we've added one at 17th and Fremont," Longmire said.

White said that there are about 75 elementary-aged children who will now have to make the walk to school in a neighborhood that has seen multiple shootings in the last year.

The residents were asked by board member Susan Brager to be at Monday's Transportation Committee meeting to further explain their predicament.

Seventh-grader William Giblin said he didn't want other children in the neighborhood to make the walk to Crestwood because he had made it in the past and had been scared.

"I saw the drugs, violence and guns when I used to walk," Giblin said.