WHEREAS, Our children are the future of this City and must be educated in an atmosphere in which their safety is not only guaranteed, but considered to be the highest priority by this City government; and
WHEREAS, Our children deserve and require a safe schooling environment not only within the confines of the school building but also extending outside of the school building as well; and
WHEREAS, In the previous school year alone, there were seventy incidents in Philadelphia in which school children were struck by either a car or a bus, and during this current school year there have already been twenty six incidents, nearly double the amount of incidents that occurred during that time frame last year; and
WHEREAS, It is apparent that there needs to be a careful review of the monitoring and evaluation processes of all those involved with the safety of our children outside of the school building to ensure that their duties are fulfilled appropriately; and
WHEREAS, A review of the current training program for our City’s crossing guards must be conducted to ensure that it is comprehensive in scope, students must be educated on the importance of crossing the streets carefully, parents must be responsible for dropping and picking up their children with great caution and concern; and
WHEREAS, Current parking restrictions which prohibit parking in certain areas around our schools were written to protect our school children and must be strictly enforced by our Police Department, and the Streets Department needs to consider alternative configurations to streets adjacent to school facilities as well; and
WHEREAS, A review must be made of the best practices of other cities in this field to ensure and guarantee the safety of our children so that their school day begins and ends with education, not tragedy; now therefore
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That authority be given to the Committee on Legislative Oversight and Committee on Public Safety to hold joint hearings to investigate the alarmingly high number of incidents in which our school children are struck by vehicles on their way to and from school.
End