Cornwall Elementary to widen walking path, use for vehicles during child pickup

Cornwall-Lebanon School District (CLSD) has entered a contract to widen and pave a walking path at Cornwall Elementary School, which will be used for parent traffic during dismissal.

The CLSD school board awarded the project to Martin Paving for $93,365 at its Oct. 20 meeting, after opting to seek bids Sept. 15.

Once the project is completed, parents looking to pick up their kids will enter the path along Freeman Drive through the back parking lot, travel along the path, and exit back onto Freeman Drive after picking up kids. This will keep 65 to 70 parents waiting to pick up kids on school grounds and off nearby roads during dismissal time.

The path, to be widened from 6 to 11 feet, will span the school’s back parking lot along Freeman Drive to the front of the school. Total added impervious area is 5,500 square feet.

Outside of pickup times, the path will be restricted with a chain or fence, explained superintendent Dr. Philip Domencic over email, though the school may opt to use it for temporary traffic flow at other times if needed.

This comes as the district has been in discussions with representatives of Cornwall Borough regarding disruptions to traffic flow to Cornwall Center during and after the school’s afternoon dismissal.

During a work session Sept. 8, Domencic explained that the number of parent pickups increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic when contactless pickup was instituted. Though restrictions have subsided, large number of parents continue to pick kids up at the school, with borough councilman John Karinch estimating 75 cars each day right now.

“At one point, traffic used to enter the school off Freeman Drive on 419 and come in over towards the cafeteria for pickup and for drop off,” explained Domencic at that time. “We had to stop that back in 2020 because, well what was happening was traffic was backing up all the way up towards 72. We moved the traffic over to Alden Street. … Well even since 2020 there’s now more traffic that comes through here that continues to compound this; even though we have less drivers, there are now a lot more people back on the road, less people working from home.”

The current parent pickup route, which takes parents down Alden Street (with gravel installed by the borough alongside the side of the road for parents waiting for pickup), onto Burd Coleman Road, and enter school grounds from the front just ahead of where buses wait, then exiting onto State Route 419, Freeman Drive. This method, Domencic said, requires heavy coordination and staffing, as well as coordination with Cornwall’s police department.

It also still increases traffic around Cornwall Center during dismissal time, worsening an already-congested intersection and generating complaints about slow movement or even standstills.

Domencic confirmed that the Cornwall Center traffic concerns were a major motivator for the project, “along with the growth in development and traffic flow on the roadways around the school.” The district does not plan to utilize the path during the morning drop-off, with Domencic describing morning drop-offs as “a more gradual process.”

Cornwall Borough Council unanimously approved an exemption waiver for the project at its Oct. 16 meeting, as the project met requirements of impervious area.

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Much of the work on the project has already been completed, with the school expected to begin using the widened path Nov. 17.