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September 28, 2011
Dear GAIS Parents,
Thank you for supporting student enrollment growth through the school’s “Less Cars = More Kids” car trip reduction program. Included in this letter is information explaining parking on campus and placards for your vehicles.
Parking Placards
Families who have submitted vehicle registration forms will receive placards in their folders starting today. Please place these plastic cards on your vehicle dashboard so they are visible through the front windshield whenever you are at GAIS. There are four types of placards:
• Carpool– Green “C” placards for families who carry students from two or more families either in the morning or afternoon at least once per week. These cards enable families to park in the “C” carpool spaces in front of the school.
• Single Occupancy Vehicles (SOV) – Yellow “S” placards for Vorschule through 8th grade families who are not carpooling. These cards enable families to park in the main parking lot. Note that Preschool families have a separate placard.
• Preschool – Orange “P” placards for families who have only preschool children attending GAIS. These families may park in the main parking lot and in the dotted lines in front of the preschool after 8:30am Monday - Friday.
• Teachers – Blue “T” placards for faculty and staff. Staff parking is designated with a “T” in the back portion of the main lot.
Vehicle Registration Forms
Families who have not yet submitted vehicle registration forms will have one additional week to return these to the office. Please kindly submit your forms by next Friday, October 7th. Vorschule through 8th Grade families who have not submitted forms will automatically receive an SOV placard on October 17th. Preschool-only families who have not submitted forms will receive a Preschool placard. If you later form a carpool, please inform the office to exchange your placard for a carpool placard.
General Parking Comments
Please do not park on Elliott Drive or any of the surrounding streets around GAIS. We have an agreement with the City of Menlo Park and the surrounding neighborhood that parents will only park on campus. Please communicate this agreement to anyone in your family who is driving students to school. If you are at school and unable to find a parking spot, please wait in the lot until a space opens.
Please contact us for any questions. We look forward to working together as a community to support sustainable school growth through “Less Cars = More Kids.”
Sincerely,
Peter Metzger, Laura Gottsman, and Laura Vaughan (GAIS Traffic Taskforce)
Dear GAIS Parents,
Welcome to the 2011-12 School Year at GAIS!
This packet contains: an update on the GAIS Carpool Program, “Getting to GAIS” information and forms for Fall Semester 2011 and answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) pertaining to driving to GAIS.
GAIS Carpool Program – Update for Fall 2011
The Traffic Taskforce has been working with the City of Menlo Park and the Menlo Park School District over the summer on the ongoing traffic study and on creating alternatives to driving to GAIS (eg school bus and Caltrain shuttle).
Here is the status:
- Traffic Study supporting GAIS enrollment growth to >300 students: the City of Menlo Park and traffic consultants initiated a traffic study in May 2011. The study is in-progress, and expected to be completed in October 2011. We do not yet know how many trips GAIS will have to eliminate to allow us to grow beyond 300 students per day.
- However, the City of Menlo Park has informed us they will request that GAIS families carpool as much as possible to reduce car trips through the Willows neighborhood of Menlo Park. More details on carpooling to GAIS are in the section below.
- School Bus and Caltrain Drop/Shuttle for VS-8 Grade Students: these measures were desired by GAIS parents as an outcome of the Spring Traffic Survey. We would like to report that unfortunately Menlo Park’s school bus capacity is unexpectedly full with Menlo Park public school students, but work on a Caltrain-GAIS Drop/Shuttle continues. We plan to have more information on this option for Winter Semester 2012.
Getting to GAIS
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Less than 10% of GAIS students live within walking or biking distance to the school. Therefore, the majority of GAIS families need to drive students to school. Carpooling to GAIS is the preferred option for your child(ren) for “Getting to GAIS” this school year.
A carpool is considered to be one vehicle carrying students from two or more families either in the morning or afternoon at least once per week.
The Traffic Taskforce asks that all GAIS families set-up a carpool by October 1st, 2011
if at all possible.
To set-up a carpool:
- GAIS families can set-up their own carpools by contacting families directly. A student directory organized by city will be distributed to all families via email. For security reasons, the directory will not be on the school website. or
- If you would like help carpooling, please complete the attached “Carpool Offer or Request Form” and return to the office. The form will go to the GAIS Carpool Coordinator, Rachel Parikh, who will match families to existing carpools or create a new carpool.
- If you wish to always drive yourself (for example, because your children are young), but are willing to take other children in your car either regularly or occasionally, please fill out the Carpool Offer or Request Form. GAIS is considering awarding credit volunteer hours to families who drive others’ children outside of a shared carpool. This form is also available on the website.
- If you usually walk or bike and are interested in a rainy day pickup at your house, or if you cannot form a regular carpool but would pick up kids close to school in bad weather, please fill out the Carpool Offer or Request Form. The Carpool Coordinator will form “rainy day carpools” to reduce traffic in bad weather.
If you already have a carpool and/or after you have set-up a carpool:
- Please complete the attached GAIS Family Vehicle Registration form for each vehicle/driver in your family (also available from the office or located on the website), return it to the office and receive your “Carpool Parking Placards.” This card is placed on the dashboard of family car(s) and entitles you to preferred parking in the lot on Monday – Friday from 8-8:30am.
If you are unable to set-up a carpool:
- Please complete the attached form for each vehicle/driver in your family, return it to the office and receive your “Single Occupancy Vehicle (SOV) Parking Placards” for your family. This card is also placed on the dashboard of family car(s), with parking in non-carpooling and staff parking lot spaces.
More information on carpooling is available in the attached answers to FAQs.
We look forward to working together as a community on making carpooling the preferred method for “Getting to GAIS” to assure the school’s manageable growth.
Sincerely,
Peter Metzger, Laura Gottsman, and Laura Vaughan
GAIS Traffic Taskforce
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