School Pickup Policy Causes Confusion

An afterschool pickup procedure is causing problems for parents who want to get out of their cars when picking up their children at local schools.

Put simply, it's not allowed.

While the procedure of parents remaining in their cars while they wait for their children is not new, it has not always been enforced as heavily as it has been as Spring Hill's newest and largest school, Explorer K-8.

This is irking parents such as Spring Hill resident Deborah Knight, who said that when her children attended Deltona Elementary School, she always parked her car and walked up to the school to meet her children.

"I don't understand why I cannot get out of my car to pick up my children," she said. "No one has ever told me I (can't do this) until this year."

But it's always been discouraged at district schools, for both safety and parking reasons, administrators said.

"I can't speak for everybody else, but no one should be allowing it," principal Dominick Ferello said. "If tomorrow, the superintendent moved me to Deltona or Westside Elementary Schools, I would require the same thing."

With nearly 2,000 students currently attending Explorer and its crammed pickup area, the issue is just more apparent, administrators said.

"It's for safety reasons," Ferello said. "I can't just let adults roam this building. Students are supposed to be meeting them at their cars."

Facilities director Roland "Bo" Bavota confirmed that while it is not school district policy, it's a procedure that has always been in place to make parking flow more smoothly.

"Just because someone was doing it before, doesn't mean it was right," he said. "It makes parking really (difficult)."

However, there are exceptions made on a case-by-case basis for students with disabilities or other specific needs, assistant principal Vivian Sweeney said.

Otherwise, any parent who feels they must walk up to meet their child inside the school must go through the appropriate sign-in procedure at the front office, Ferello said.

Given the school's high numbers, even walking up to the school's entrance is discouraged, he added.

But for many of the school's parents who have been told to return to their cars to wait, the procedure is coming as a surprise.

"I'm not happy about it, and there are a bunch of other parents who are not happy about it, either," Knight said. "I'm not the only one asking questions. My children have been in the Hernando County School District for five years, and I've never come across this until this year."

She also took issue with the school's pick-up identification policy, in which the person picking the student up must display an identification badge in their car indicating which student they are picking up. However - unlike the policy at Deltona - the student getting into the vehicle does not have to display a matching badge.

Administrators confirmed this, but said Explorer's system is working well.

"The kids know who they're supposed to be going home with," Ferello said. "They know which car belongs to (their parent)."