Just yesterday, I reported about county vehicles parked in the student drop-off area forcing parents to drive around county vans blocking the entry into the school.

Lo’ and behold, today’s drop off was blocked by charter buses and yet another county van!

Parents have to double park to let students out on blocked crosswalk

It doesn’t matter that parents need to double-park around charter buses to safely drop off students who must then exit and walk in front of charter buses to enter school.

The student cross walk was blocked by the lead charter bus.

And to top that off, yet another county vehicle must park in the student drop-off area as well behind the charter buses.

County van parked in student drop off zone in back of charter buses. Let's make the student drop off one BIG parking lot!

Let’s just make the student drop-off one BIG parking lot!

Charter buses in student drop off zone at BCMS

Are we not supposed to drop our students off curbside?

And to think that there is a bus loop located directly next to the north side of the school which is specifically designed for bus drop off and pick up. Using the bus loop would not interfere with ‘regular’ drop-off and will help to keep the traffic flowing. Why won’t BCMS administration use the bus loop?

Why not leave charter buses in the actual parking lot until such time when student drop off has commenced?

Why isn’t someone from BCMS out there to help?

At Manatee School for the Arts the teachers take turns on ‘bus duty’. I know that Virgil Mills teachers alternate bus duty. Why can’t BCMS do the same?

Someone answer my questions…am I wrong?

Entrance to BCMS blocked by charter buses

Apparently my posts are ruffling a few feathers from readers but not enough to solve the problem of
keeping the drop-off area clear of all commercial vehicles at Buffalo Creek Middle School.  You can
read Mr. Sacc’s post here but I warn you, there is name-calling toward me and some foul-mouthed language used.

Today, I noticed county vehicles, again parked in the entry way into Buffalo Creek Middle
School.  Calling attention to the problem last week doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.

When parent cars came around the corner, many of us had to veer around the county vehicles and slide in front.  Again, it behooves me why the county vehicles cannot park several yards away in the delivery lot which was vacant with spots instead of parking in the drop off zone. (See photos, click to enlarge)

A parent was parked in the drop off zone making a phone call.  Again, another reason to have someone out there moderating the drop-off and moving cars along.

If the parked parent needs to make a phone call, there is open visitor parking lot with vacant spots to take care of any personal business.

But there is no one out there offering guidance and moving the line along. And that’s really the problem!

There aren’t any ‘no parking’ signs posted and further, there is a fire hydrant in that area of the drop-off zone so no one should be parking/standing/waiting there anyway. Just drop-off and GO!

Gratefully, school will be ending soon but I am hoping that next year the Principal will indeed show concern and create a safe and speedy drop-off area at BCMS.

Here are my suggestions to solve this problem before someone gets hurt:

1) Add no parking signs to the drop off at Buffalo Creek on BOTH sides of the drive-thru area. (Parents often park to let students out and sign them in. I used to volunteer in the media center at Buffalo Creek and I always parked in the lot…I don’t see why parents can’t either.)

2) Have someone moderate the drop-off in the morning and move the line along. There have been on a few occasions ”someone” moving the line along (I can count maybe 3 times in the past 4 years) but they do nothing other than stand there. They don’t move the cars along and give direction. 

3) Have the front desk tell vendors NOT to park in front of the school and use the delivery area…including county vans. Both times I brought the problem to the BCMS front desk my complaint was met with negativity. “Deputy has to park there so the students will see him” and “The delivery man was only delivering the mail. He was only a minute.” Like hitting a brick wall.

4) Designate an area for Manatee School for the Arts to be dropped off. I drop off my student to take the bus from the BCMS bus loop and when the cars are backed up and not moving along, I have to drive past all the cars and this is difficult as some parents don’t look before pulling out. Make the drop-off for MSA at the bike racks.  I can swing around there.

Here’s my February 14th, 2012 post with more pictures showing Office Depot and county vehicles making deliveries in the fire zone and in front of the student drop off zone.

Since I posted this past Februay, 2012 about the unsafe drop-off at Buffalo Creek Middle School in Palmetto, there has been one improvement…deputy has moved his police vehicle from the drop off area in front of the school. He used to block the fire hydrant but has now moved safely to a parking spot located only yards from his previous spot. Thank you! That’s one less car for parents dropping off student for MSA and BCMS to circumvent! (Manatee School for the Arts, Buffalo Creek Middle School)

However, for the past three days, May 22-May 24, 2012 at 9:00 am a county van has been parking on the left side of the student drop off making it even more difficult to drive through and drop off students. I noticed that he has been dropping off papers using a hand truck.  Certainly, he could have used the delivery area designated at the back of the school or he could have parked the van in one of the visitor’s spots located only YARDS from his illegal parking spot.

Here are some pictures (click to enlarge) taken from Buffalo Creek Park  on May 22, 2012 at 9:00 am looking down where the county van can be seen still unloading his delivery.

Envision that only minutes before, the right hand side of the drop off area was filled with cars dropping off students. And of course, there is no one to move the line along so some parents parked the car thus backing up others, leaving parents like myself forced to drive between the van and parked cars to drop off further down at the bike racks to drop off for Manatee School for the Arts pick up!

So frustrating, unsafe and clearly unmanageable!

So I called the county yesterday and a lovely women, Wendy listened to my frustration. She offered to pass this information on to the right person.

Please note that I have called the school, as my February 14th post indicates and I did post on the Manatee Board of Education Facebook page BUT the page is closed for comments, which is truly a shame that social media can’t be used to communicate with the academic community. So many good ideas (for saving money?) are lost because social media is not used by the Manatee County Board of Education. 

But I am grateful to have found a voice today.

Here are my suggestions to solve this problem before someone gets hurt:

1) Add no parking signs to the drop off at Buffalo Creek on BOTH sides of the drive-thru area. (Parents often park to let students out and sign them in. I used to volunteer in the media center at Buffalo Creek and I always parked in the lot…I don’t see why parents can’t either.)

2) Have someone moderate the drop off in the morning and move the line along. There have been on a few occasions ”someone” moving the line along (I can count maybe 3 times) but they do nothing other than stand there. They don’t move the cars along and give direction. 

3) Have the front desk tell vendors NOT to park in front of the school and use the delivery area…including county vans. Both times I brought the problem to the BCMS front desk my complaint was met with negativity. “Deputy has to park there so the students will see him” and “The delivery man was only delivering the mail. He was only a minute.” Like hitting a brick wall.

4) Designate an area for Manatee School for the Arts to be dropped off. I drop off my student to take the bus from the BCMS bus loop and when the cars are backed up and not moving along, I have to drive past all the cars and this is difficult as some parents don’t look before pulling out. Make the drop off for MSA at the bike racks. I can swing around there.

Here’s my February 14th, 2012 post with more pictures showing Office Depot and county vehicles making deliveries in the fire zone and in front of the student drop off zone.

There is a big problem at Buffalo Creek Middle School. Student drop off area is consistently blocked by county trucks and vendor vans.

I have called the school to ask if deliveries could be handled through the back of the school where a delivery area is specified. I was told by the front desk, ‘He was only dropping off mail. He was only in the school for a minute.”

So I decided to post pictures as proof that something needs to be done. No one will listen to me!

Today, a county van parked on the left side of the student drop off area leaving only a small area for parents to get through. While I don’t have a picture of today’s debacle, I decided to post pictures from other days.

Deputy parks against the fire hydrant. Solution would be to provide a parking spot for the deputy directly across in the lot near the student drop off.

Delivery trucks park right in front of the school making it difficult for parents to drive around the truck and for students to be let out of the car safely. Note that the truck is parked in front of a fire hydrant.

A view of another delivery truck in front of the school with no one from the school monitoring student drop off or pick up. Note the line behind the truck.

And here’s my favorite…Manatee County buses parked in the front of the school during student pick-up to load 8th graders for a trip; blocking parent drop offs when there is a bus loop located adjacent to the school! (This picture was taken after the school bell rang but all parents dropping off students had to drive around the buses. Some let their kids out next to the buses. Why should the students walk in front of buses?

Here’s my suggestions:

• Manatee County vehicles – mail deliveries and supplies – schedule these deliveries during school hours and after drop off and pick up. OR use the delivery loading dock located in the side of the school.
• Put up a sign that says ‘no parking’ right in front of the school. It’s a fire zone and no one, not even the deputy should park there particularly in front of the fire hydrant.
• Allow Manatee School for the Arts drop off to be located where the bike racks are at the end of the student drop off and put a sign up indicating ‘Manatee School for the Arts Drop Off’. Sometimes we are backed up all the way to the delivery zone in the mornings.
• Ask teachers to move the cars along and monitor the student drop off line. That’s the way it went when BCMS first opened, the first year. Since then it has been miserable trying to drop off in the morning.
• Send a notice to parents not to park in the front of the school. If they have to help a student with a project or walk a student in to be signed in, park the car which is only located across the student drop off area.
• Use the bus loop when students need to load for school trips.
• Turn away vendors who do not use the delivery dock.

Let’s make this safe for students and parents.

More Buffalo Creek posts and pictures here and here .

I received this an email today from Spirit Airlines.

I took this ad to heart due to the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Janine

Spirit Ad

Click on the image to enlarge.

Image via Wikipedia

Last evening, I took my son to see Avatar, the movie.

The movie start time was 8:45 pm but that is not when the movie itself actually began.

When the lights dimmed at 8:45 pm, I did expect that we would view a handful of commercials; maybe 10 minutes at most, but the ads and trailers actually ran for a total of 25 minutes.

The movie itself didn’t start until 9:10 pm.

We watched nearly half an hour of ads for candy, fast food, a brain cancer treatment center, shampoo, a car insurance company and soda before the credits started to roll.  Ordinarily, sitting through trailers for upcoming movies is not so bad, the problem is now these trailers are sandwich in between even more ads.   So annoying!

I paid $12.00 per ticket x 2 and $16.00 for one large popcorn and a soda for a grand total of $30.00 for two people to sit through 25 minutes of advertisement.

Each time I attend the movies, the ads just keep getting longer and longer and they are less relevant to being viewed in an entertainment environment. It was awful to sit through an advertisement for a cancer research center on an evening when I was paying to be entertained.

I understand that ticket prices would need to increase if ads were eliminated.  I am not a movie theater owner so I cannot say if raising prices is the only answer to removing or reducing the ads but I’m sure that is the easier solution.

I would have shown up at 9:10 pm if indeed I had known there would be so many ads.

Customers should be given the choice of whether or not they want to see the ads or at least reduce the ticket price.

Annoying Bravo TV Pop Up Ads from Your Virtual Wizard on Vimeo.

We purchased a large screened TV and turned it on expecting to enjoy movie-like quality programming.  Unfortunately, the sheer volume of pop-up advertisements at the bottom of the screen has completely ruined the experience.  Annoying pop-up ads are now viewable into the bottom third of the screen viewing area and these ads seem to grow larger by the month!  Purchasing a bigger TV simply exacerbated the problem because now the pop-up ads appear that much larger!

In addition to the distraction that the ads cause, the problem persists when the pop-ups cover up vital pieces of the storyline.

Just yesterday, while CSI Miami characters were pulling apart a car to discern whether a murder had occurred, the pop-up came right into the viewing area of the actual evidence that the CSI agent found which was a key piece to solving the case. I had no idea what it was that the agent had found because I simply ‘could not see it’!  A large pop-ad covered the evidence entirely!

A recent AP article entitled, “A growing TV cover-up: Obnoxious pop-up promos” explained the growing frustration with viewers like myself. “But almost any viewer can cite annoying instances where a pop-up ad has upstaged a show’s dramatic climax or obscured vital on-screen information.

Viewers hate the detective hero of “Monk” rising from the bottom left screen for eight or nine seconds of vamping, followed by a ghostly but distracting text line that looms for several long minutes to accommodate even the slowest readers: “Monk All New Tonight 9/8c.”

The author goes on to say, “You shelled out hard-earned money for a big, magnificent flat-screen — and the networks seem to be poaching more and more of it!”

The ads just get more obnoxious and intrusive. Over time I have noticed that they stay on the screen much longer and they move across the bottom covering more viewing area. Some of the ads depicting groups of people from a show actually ‘talk’…I can see their lips moving.  I expect that programming will eventually be interrupted entirely with pop-up ads speaking over the program itself.

There is a sounding board for viewers, though. www.StopTVPopups.com is the place to vent. People are angry. 

But what is the alternative? Turn off the TV?  Rent a movie?  Hulu? 

The only peaceful place to view programming is on PBS (public TV).  With just a short documentary-type commercial placed quietly before a programming it is a night and day experience to watch PBS versus cable TV.  It is a sigh of relief not to be bombarded by pop-up ads and the pleasant experience is noticeable.  The problem is of course, that we are used to having choices.  CSI Miami is not viewable on PBS.

Read the rest of the article here.

TV Pop Up Ads and Poorly Inserted Product Descriptions from Your Virtual Wizard on Vimeo.