We ask that you drop off your children no earlier than 7:40 am. 

Because parking is at a premium this year, we encourage all parents to go through the carpool line behind the building to the far side and then along the front. However, we understand that sometimes parents need to walk with their children to class.  Staff will be situated at the front of the school to help your children out of the car and to wait with them at the picnic tables.  Carpool will end at 8:30 am every day, after which time you will need to park and sign in your children at the front office.

In the afternoon, please again follow the carpool line to pick up your children.  Every family should have a carpool sign with your last name to put on your dashboard.  As you pull up in line, a staff member will call your last name over the intercom for your children to come outside.  A staff member will then walk them to your car.

Please remember these safety guidelines in the carpool line:

• Drive slowly and move forward as the cars ahead of you do so.  Be sure your doors are closed and your children are buckled in their seats before driving off.

• Carpool Signs: During afternoon carpool it is very important that every car have a carpool sign visible to the person calling names.  Sometimes the signs slip below the dashboard or where the window is heavily tinted, and the person calling names cannot see your whole sign.  Please ensure that it is clearly visible.  If you need additional signs to give to people who are authorized to pick up your child, please let us know.  We are happy to make more.

• Parents with dialectic/rhetoric students only (i.e. no grammar school students): Please come to school no later than 2:45pm. This will allow you to get off the campus before the grammar school parents turn up.  If your student has to stay a few minutes later for any reason, please come after 3:20pm.  In other words please avoid the time between 2:55 and 3:20pm when we are trying to get grammar school students out.

• Parents with grammar school students: PLEASE DO NOT ENTER THE CARPOOL LINE UNTIL AFTER 2:55pm.  We have to have time to get the dialectic and rhetoric student out.  Names are not being called until 3:00pm (5 minutes later than last year).  If you have to pick up your children right at 3:00pm, please park and walk to the classroom to pick them up.

• We ask drivers not to use cell phones while operating a vehicle on school property, ear-pieces are included.  Drivers' hands being free is not the only concern we have with people driving at school; it is also an issue of being generally distracted.  With all of these children being our responsibility, we want to do all we can to make sure they are safe, especially when in the parking lots.  For the safety of your children, thank you for cooperating with this.

• We have noticed that a number of our parents allow their small children to ride in the front seat of the car.  While that is legal, we would like to at least advise against it, for the safety of your children.  The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under 13 not sit in the front seat of the car (http://www.aap.org/family/carseatguide.htm). Certainly children’s sizes can vary—some 13-year-olds are smaller than some 8-year-olds.  However, we would just like to ask you to take that into consideration, for your children’s safety.

• We prefer that children and staff members not walk around to the driver side of the car in carpool line, as there may be cars driving in the left lane.  Therefore, we would like to ask parents with children in carseats or booster seats in their cars to have those seats on the left side of the car if possible (behind the driver seat).  That will make it easier for your children to get in and out of the passenger side of the car.  Thank you for helping in this way.

•  If you are turning right into the school from 436, please yield to cars turning left into the school when they have the green light.  In addition, please do not turn right on red into the school, as this takes up the necessary room for the cars which are getting ready to turn left into the school, and it prevents them from getting through the intersection.  Please simply wait until you have the green light to make your right turn.

• During busy times, cars coming from the south on 436 may want to go through the light at the school and do a u-turn by the doctors’ offices.  When it is very busy, it can take several light sequences to turn left into the school driveway.

•  Please do not use the grassy lot at U-Haul at any time.  U-Haul has told us that anyone parking there risks being towed.