CINCINNATI — Cincinnati City Council and Cincinnati Public Schools are holding a joint special meeting Thursday night at City Hall. Several topics, including money and busing, will be discussed — all with safety in mind.
There's an idea of expanding a "school safety zone" within CPS, so students feel safe walking to and from school on school days.
"I think we want to focus and see if there's not some problem-solving we can do about dismissal," said Eve Bolton, CPS Board of Education president. "The arrival time is still problematic, but the dismissal time, where all of these thousands of teenagers are being released or some hundreds in a particular school released at the same time, and then they're standing on the corner or in a neighborhood waiting for the regular bus to come along, that's just a recipe for a problem."
There are also calls to look at what schools need as far as more signage and crosswalks for students, as well as enforcing school speed limits on school days.
"The first thing we want to do is try to figure out every way you can to curb behavior toward safety," Bolton said. "The big concerns are traffic and crossing, big concerns are also the reality of violence near our schools."
Last April, CPS canceled school after someone, or some people, shot two students outside of Woodward High School during dismissal. The victims, ages 16 and 17, were shot right after dismissal near the intersection of Reading Road and Seymour Avenue, Cincinnati police Lt. Jonathan Cunningham said.
There are also calls for CPS to bring back driver's education after the district eliminated it about 15 years ago. Council member Mark Jeffreys said officers noted more than 100 people ticketed during CPD's traffic blitz in October 2022 did not have a license. Bringing back driver's ed might address those tickets and traffic concerns.
"Anecdotally, all of us have seen some pretty crazy driving out there on the roads, and so I think it's an opportunity to (address it) ... we got away from making sure that folks go through drivers ed and especially in schools, as I said, CPS eliminated it," Jeffreys said.
While Jeffreys and Bolton both acknowledge funding will be the difficult part, they are counting on community partners to become part of the solution.
"Obviously, you have institutions like AAA, but there could be other private funders that I've talked to that might step forward to help subsidize it for families who can't afford it, because it's a couple hundred dollars, which for some families, they can afford, but for a lot of folks in our community, lower income, that's not an expense they can afford, so we have to figure out a solution to that," Jeffreys said.
Bolton said they could also look at car dealerships or insurance companies who could help.
The meeting is at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
