School Offers Busing to Help Parents Get Involved

With administrators in constantly looking for vehicles to help parents become more engaged in their child’s education,  in Romeoville has discovered a new vehicle.

Literally.

A bus.

“A lot of our bilingual families want to come to school events but can’t because a lot of the dads are working two jobs and the moms don’t drive,” said Principal Laura Noon whose school houses bilingual students living in the , and Skoff attendance areas.

When it came time for a Skoff committee to plan the school’s late-October Titan University, committee member Horalia Escobedo suggested they try to find a solution for the problem.

“I had the thought in my head about ( Principal) Dr. (Keith) Wood and how he got a bus and went around his community to visit incoming sixth graders this past summer,” Noon said. “And I thought if that could happen, maybe we could get a bus to pick up our families.”

So Skoff’s Denise Gray and Transportation’s Gladys Martinez went to work on figuring out how to provide a bus at no extra cost to the school, while the committee worked on pickup locations and schedules.

“We looked at areas we thought they could get to by walking and then we would pick them up and transport them to school,” Noon said.

In all, the group wound up with pickup points at the Romeoville Jewel, the Romeoville Recreation Center, Irene King school and the (formerly Des Plaines Valley Library). Nearly two dozen parents and children made the round trip on the bus.

“It made a huge impact on those people,” Noon said. “One mom came to us in tears saying she has never been able to get to the school before. We’re not her home school. Irene King is. She had no way of getting here but wanted to.

“We’re going to have to figure out a way to get buses for each of our events,” she added. “The fact that we got families in here who have never been able to get here before makes you realize how many of our families are struggling with that. We need to find every way possible to make sure they feel like they’re a part of it. And we need to build those relationships.

"This was well worth it.”