Spring!

Spring is my favorite season. Late spring is particularly inviting when warms up and begs people young and old to go outside and play. However, spring haunts me with several bad memories as well and it’s important that we talk with our kids about the dangers that come with warm weather in Boise.


30 years ago this spring, my neighbor and one of my schoolmates was walking home from school when another schoolmate dared him to walk along a canal pipe running across a canal. My friend, Emilio, slipped and fell into the Ridenbaugh canal. All of the families on our street either helped search or comforted the family. Searchers found Emilio the next day about a mile from where he had fallen in. His official cause of death was drowning but it appeared that he hit his head on the rocks below when he slipped. That year the PTO used the funds they had saved all year to build a fence to keep kids out of the canal where Emilio had gotten in, slipped on the pipe and drowned. My mother still remembers that as the “most excruciating weekend” of her life. Canals are incredibly useful tools for farmers but are incredibly dangerous for people. Canals are not swimming pools. They run in unpredictable currents, with swift undercurrents and hidden dangers below the water like large rocks, fences and concrete structures. What’s more, it is private property. If your child is playing in a canal, they are trespassing and committing a crime. Talk to your kids about canals and tell them whatever you have to tell them to keep them out of canals and safe.

Walk This Way…


Recently, Whitney PTO members conducted a walking and traffic safety study to examine areas of concern for students walking home. With the warm weather, we do see more students walking or riding their bikes home. For the most part, cars did a good job obeying the rules in the school zone, there were a few that need to learn how to yield to pedestrians but the next time we perform a traffic study we can take down license plate numbers to ensure that message is conveyed. However, the safety issue that is most striking arises when examining our students’ behavior around cars. Most of the near misses observed were due to students darting out into traffic. I personally witnessed several students dart in front of a garbage truck (and then three more grey hairs sprang up on my head). Please, please, please have a conversation TONIGHT with your kids about safely walking to and from school. Walking to and from school is great exercise, it’s good for the environment and reduces traffic in the neighborhood but it should be

Here are some safety tips for walking to school:


1. Plan a safe route and practice it together in advance: Before school starts, plan the most direct route to school with the fewest street crossings. If the school has an adult crossing guard to help the children at a busy intersection, instruct your children to cross with the guard. Walk the route several times with them until they know how to do it safely.






2. Teach your children the following pedestrian safety rules—and, when applicable, be sure to model these practices yourself:


• Whenever possible, walk to school with a parent, sibling, neighbor or friend.


• Walk on sidewalks, if available. If there are no sidewalks, walk on the far left-hand side of the road, facing oncoming traffic. When riding a bike, ride on the right side of the road.


• When walking on the sidewalk or street, beware of cars pulling out of driveways.


• Cross the street safely:


o Be sure that children younger than age 10 cross with an adult.


o Always cross at the corner and in the crosswalks, if available. Do not cross in the middle of the block or between parked cars.


o Follow the traffic signals, if available. Know the meaning of the signs for walk/don’t walk, and the green/red lights.


o Stop at the curb before crossing. Look left, right and left again to make sure no cars are coming. Cross when the traffic is clear, and continue to look left and right for cars while crossing.


• Never accept rides from strangers, even if they say they’ll give you candy or money, they need help finding a lost pet or that your parent told them to pick you up. (Have a secret password that someone needs to tell your children if you’ve asked them to be picked up.) If someone follows you or bothers you, scream for them to get away from you and run to the nearest house or store for help.



TerraCycle Item of the Month: A Sticky Note


It’s the end of the school year! Do you have an empty glue bottle or two? TerraCycle.net will give Whitney .02 cents for EVERY glue bottle we send to them! Because you cannot recycle glue bottles in your blue recycle bin, glue bottles end up in the landfill. You can divert them from the landfill by dropping them off with your child’s teacher or in the TerraCycle tub outside the school on Friday afternoons. When TerraCycle receives the glue bottles, they turn them into reusable bags and fencing materials that you can buy at places like Home Depot.


So far we have earned over $20 from Ziploc bags and toothbrushes!


Next month’s highlighted item: Toothbrushes and Toothpaste!