Parents Worry About Increase In Traffic

Post Falls firefighter Rick Clutter is concerned about the safety of Prairie View Elementary students on their walk to school.

The new Post Falls High School, a spacious two-story building, is located next door to Prairie View.

Clutter is concerned about the increased traffic on Pole Line Road, the greater numbers of inexperienced drivers and the lack of space for students to walk along the road.

There has been one minor accident near the high school involving two high school students. Clutter fears that the next accident will involve a young pedestrian.

More than 100 students drive to the high school each day between 6 and 7:30 a.m., creating a steady flow of traffic that never before existed on Pole Line. A walkway links the two schools, but Clutter said it doesn’t extend down Pole Line. Thus, drivers must be extra aware of the high school and elementary students who are forced to walk or ride their bikes to school on the shoulder of the road.

Sometimes there isn’t even a shoulder to ride on, Clutter said. He wants a walkway built along Pole Line for the use of students from both schools.

“I’d like to see the community get a little more proactive about this,” Clutter said.

Increased traffic on the road is not the community’s only concern. Some parents have voiced anxiety about the potential for increased accessibility of drugs to the elementary students.

Mark Jones, Post Falls High vice principal, addressed both concerns.

“First off, we always appreciate public interest and concern,” he said. “We try to reassure (the parents) that we took these things into consideration before the first shovel of dirt was overturned.”

Jones said the district administration took pains to ensure that most high school traffic would be off of Pole Line before elementary students embark on their journey to school.

The high school begins its day a full hour before elementary students arrive at school.

They also leave school half an hour earlier than the elementary students, and are unable to leave the premises during lunch.

Jones is happy with those precautions. He said this has been the quietest year he’s experienced at the high school.

The high school also had fewer drug incidents than last year, Jones said. And the school has had no instances of minors in possession of or consumption of alcohol.

“So far we’re at the lowest rate that I’m aware of, even for the use of tobacco,” said Jones.

Jones doesn’t have any concerns about drugs making it to the elementary school. To get off grounds, students require a pass or supervision.

Debbie Branson, a math teacher at the high school, agreed.

“I haven’t seen any kind of crossover between their property and ours,” she said.

The principal of Prairie View Elementary, Mike Koulentes, also agreed.

“I think that there was a strong administrative team here, which helps a lot,” he said.

Koulentes added that communication between the two schools has been excellent.

And Koulentes is not worried about high schoolers getting the opportunity to sell drugs to elementary school children. The children always are monitored, indoors and out, and visitors to the school can enter only through the main entrance and must sign in at the office.

Koulentes said he misses the presence of the resource officer.

Prairie View hasn’t had a police presence on campus since Pete Marian retired.

The problem is that Prairie View is located in the county, not the city, and the county’s resources already are stretched thin, he said.

The principal said he enjoys the presence of the high schoolers as a positive influence, from their mentoring and tutoring of the elementary school students to their assistance with the readerboard.

Mamie Lash, a fifth-grader, said she likes to have the high school students come and speak to her class about nutrition, fitness, or just to lend a hand with homework.