Procedures for car-rider pickup at Hopkins County’s elementary schools have been standardized, start-ing this school year.
The purpose is to ensure student safety.

The elementary schools assign each student a number, which must be used by the parent or authorized person picking up the child. Also, parents are not allowed to park and walk to the school to get their children during regular car-rider dismissal. The schools that allow parents to pick up students using this method do so later in the dismissal process, and may require the children to be signed out.

"This is exactly what the Center for School Safety recommends doing," said Assistant Superintendent Steve Gilliam. "It’s all about taking care of kids, making sure they’re safe."

Previously, people had reported seeing close calls, with children nearly getting hit by vehicles, he said.
The majority of the schools were following these procedures prior to this school year. The biggest change has come at Southside Elementary. The combination of calling student numbers rather than names, and not allowing parents to walk to the school to pick up children resulted in some delays there during the first days of school.

These delays have lessened as children learn their numbers and people become accustomed to the new system, Gilliam said. If needed, additional adjustments may be considered that would allow more vehi-cles to load at one time.

Exceptions – such as walking to the school to get a child who has a doctor’s appointment – will be al-lowed, Gilliam said. However, parents need to talk to school administrators when an exception is needed.