YULEE, Fla. — Some Nassau County parents say the new school year is off to a rocky start after the school district removed a neighborhood bus stop. Now, they are concerned for the safety of students and say there is not a designated place for students to walk to get home.
“There’s nothing, there’s no watch for children signs, there’s no sidewalks, there’s no people monitoring the roads," Mother Crystal Pinkston said.
Residents in the Wilson Neck neighborhood say for years the bus would drop their kids off at the stop sign in the neighborhood but this school year the bus stop is gone, forcing students to walk if they don’t have a ride.
“The edge of the road is even breaking off in spots and that doesn't help either; they are going to end up walking in the ditch trying to get home,” Parent Christine Messer said.
Messer says it's a place where many parents wait to pick up their students from school and it adds to the neighborhood traffic.
“It's just not a safe road, it's too busy, it's too busy for these kids to be walking,” Messer said.
The neighborhood is a little less than a mile from both schools and according to state law, students living less than two miles from their assigned school are not eligible for transportation. Messer says her kids have used the bus stop for years.
“They're walking with a 30-pound backpack with school issued laptops, in the storms that we have in the summer, plus, and it's cold in the winter. My concern is it's only going to take one student, or even a driver, we've all done it. One second, you just kind of turn the radio or answer someone in your car, turn your head, they're gonna hit one of these students and then what, then what? You can't bring that student back.”
First Coast News reached out to Nassau County School District numerous times but have not heard back.