Editorial: Children in harm’s way

Monday, Oct. 25, 2004 | 9:06 a.m.

The children who live at the Rancho Verde Apartments, near the intersection of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Interstate 15, have to make a dangerous trek in order to get to the Wasden Elementary School. The children's 50-minute walk to school, located near Rancho Drive and Charleston Boulevard, requires them to cross several major intersections. The roads they must walk along can seem like virtual highways since motorists, especially during rush-hour traffic, can drive too fast. In addition, children being children, along the way they sometimes cut through vacant lots near the route, where transients hang out.

Las Vegas Councilman Lawrence Weekly, at the Clark County School Board's last meeting, appealed to the board's members to provide bus service for children who now take this route. The children can't get bus service because the School District's policy only permits transportation for children who live at least 2 miles away from school -- the students at the Rancho Verde Apartments live 1.76 miles away from Wasden. School Board members and School District administrators appeared sympathetic to the plight of these children, but they note that the 2-mile limit has been needed because they don't have enough bus drivers to go around. This is a situation, however, that demands the School Board make an exception and find a way to get bus service for these children. If these students don't get bus service, it's not a question of if, but when, a child will get serio usly injured or harmed on the way to school.