Reasons for driving to Aspen schools

Regarding the article “City officials look to Aspen schools to help ease traffic” and the online comments made, here is a tiny list of reasons people drive:

• District employees going to work

• Preschool drop-off because preschool children do not qualify to ride the bus

• Bus pickup times are often not conducive to the parent needing to get anywhere by 8 a.m. (You can’t leave your 5- to 10-year-old at home alone so they can ride the bus)

• Shortage of bus drivers and bus overcrowding (Has your kid ever sat on the aisle floor of the school bus? Mine has.)

• Child disability (visual or not)

• Parent volunteers are critical at the elementary school. Field trips need extra hands. Parent volunteers give spelling tests, organize Friday folders, cut, glue, staple, copy, run the book fair and many, many more things.

• The school is not on a direct bus route to town making things like orthodontist appointments impossible to do without picking up or dropping off your child

I could list more, but this example is the most compelling. Two of my dad friends told me years ago that they choose to drive their kids to school every day. They both work in the restaurant industry. The morning drive is the time when they get to catch up with their kids since they are gone to work when the kids get home from school.

Please realize that parents are people too — people with jobs, people with doctor appointments, people with busy lives like everyone else. We are not here on vacation.

I am parent of two and this is my 12th year in the school district. I have spent countless hours volunteering at our schools.

Jennifer Tullar

Aspen