Parents want Millenia Gardens Elementary bus route to avoid dangerous walk

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Parents in an Orange County neighborhood say their children have to walk on unsafe roads to school and want the district to add a bus route.

The Orange County School District’s policy states students who live within two miles of their school won’t be provided transportation.

But Casey Harris and other parents at Buchanan Bay Townhomes want an exception for the more than 20 children who live there and have to walk to their new school, Millenia Gardens Elementary, if their parents can’t drive them.

The 1.8-mile route that takes about 35 minutes.

Students have to walk down Texas Avenue, Americana Boulevard and John Young Parkway.

“Regardless of if there are school guards or anything, these are elementary students walking this distance. It’s not safe at all,” said Harris.

The students have to cross six lanes of traffic on John Yong Parkway.

“John Young Parkway is a place where cars, trucks run 45 miles to 50 an hour,” said parent Emmanuse Occenat.

Last year, their children were zoned for Palmetto Elementary.

“From here to Palmetto, it’s a safe walk,” said Occenat.

But with the opening of the new school, they were rezoned.

The students also have to walk by a Publix that was the site of a shooting in 2014 and on the same sidewalk where a kidnapping was reported last year.

Numbers from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office show almost 800 violent crimes were reported last year within a two-mile radius of the complex.

Cox Media Group