Brentwood Homeowners Association News

Paul Revere Charter Middle School Works to Reduce School Related Traffic

Paul Revere Charter Middle School Works to Reduce School-Related Traffic

Brentwood’s own Paul Revere Charter Middle School is one of the shining stars in the Los Angeles Unified School District.  Because of its consistently high academic and athletic results, students from around the southland clamor to gain admission.  Paul Revere’s status as a charter school allows any student in California to attend – but they must be lucky enough to win a spot through a lottery.

Today, students from 99 different zip codes attend Paul Revere Middle School.   Students travel from as far away as Downtown LA, Venice, the San Fernando Valley and Santa Monica and close as Brentwood and Pacific Palisades for the opportunity to learn at Paul Revere.

While this is fantastic for the students, school-related traffic does impact Sunset, San Vicente and surrounding Brentwood streets.   Recently LAUSD appointed Tom Iannucci as the school’s new principal.   Mr. Iannucci is very committed to reducing school-related traffic.   As a public institution which does not have the ability to mandate carpooling or bussing, his job is a difficult one – but he has risen to the occasion in an impressive way.

Even before he became principal, Mr. Iannucci had formed a Traffic and Safety Committee that includes parents Matthew Rodman, Kimberley Brame, Lisa Meyers-Kunis, Dani Shear, Behnanz Naeim (who is also a board member of the parent support group PRIDE); Andrew Wolfberg, a neighbor who lives on Allenford; and Bruce Jugan, a parent and member of the BHA board of Directors.  Together with school administrators Justin Koretz and Lori Vogel they created a multi-pronged approach to reduce traffic and congestion.   Their efforts include:

  1. Filling Existing Busses – it turns out that there are many empty seats on existing busses that service Paul Revere. The Committee reached out to Councilman Bonin and LAUSD School Board President Steve Zimmer who were helpful in setting up a meeting with the top LAUSD officials in charge of bussing.  LAUSD is working to fill the empty seats on the existing busses.
  2. Arranging private parent-chartered yellow bus service.   For the second year, Lisa Meyers-Kunis has organized a parent-funded yellow school bus to pick up and drop of over 50 students from the Holmby Hills area.  Following Lisa’s guidance, parents are arranging private chartered yellow bus service to and from the Palisades, Brentwood, Westchester/Venice and other parts of the city.
  3. Encouraging Parent/Student Carpooling. Iannucci wants to create a “culture of carpooling” where the students and parents expect that they will not drive alone to school.  Justin Koretz, an assistant principal at Paul Revere has developed some clever ways to encourage carpooling including:
    1. Creating a student competition to design a car window hanger that says “I’m cool I carpool.”
    2. Having homerooms compete for prizes for the most students who carpool – each student who either arrives by bus or in a car with two or more students receives a raffle ticket and the homeroom with the most tickets will win a prizes.
    3. Having parents host parties to meet families who live nearby and arrange to carpool.
  4. Meeting with the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus to extend service to the school immediately after dismissal. SMBBB has been very supportive and agreed to extend bus service up 26th Street to the school after instruction ends.
  5. Encouraging faculty and staff to carpool or take public transportation by creating an internal rideshare program and partially subsidizing Metro bus passes (Tap Cards.) This effort will begin in earnest after the light-rail Metro line begins operation in 2016.
  6. Creating signs at the drop off areas that encourage drivers to move all the way to the end of the drop-off area and to quickly load and unload students. Also, staff and parent-volunteers aide student loading and unloading.   When drivers safely and quickly drop off or pick up students, the traffic congestion diminishes.
  7. Coordinating City Services. Working with Sharon Shapiro from Councilman Bonin’s office the traffic committee has sought to:
    1. Reschedule trash pickup so that it does not occur during the peak morning hour;
    2. Request Traffic Control Officers (TCOs) at Sunset and Allenford and San Vincente and Allenford. During the morning peak period these intersections are overwhelmed and TCO’s would make it safe for everyone.
    3. Request DOT to repaint the crosswalk on Allenford at Brinkley, directly in front of the street to make it the ladder-style cross walk which is more visible and safer.   DOT has agreed to this and should repaint it very soon.