By Gary Lloyd
CHALKVILLE — A longtime dream for Chalkville Elementary School is starting to come true.
Construction of sidewalks began at Chalkville Elementary School last Tuesday. That sounds like any other project, right? Not exactly. This construction has been years in the making, and for a significant purpose.
On April 5, 2006, Larry Bevis, the school crossing guard, was struck by a car while directing traffic on Chalkville School Road. He later died of his injuries.
“We started working soon after the accident to make our school zone safer for our students,” said Principal Rod Johnson. “Almost immediately after the accident the JefCoEd superintendent (Phil Hammonds) recommended that our school system pay two deputies to assist with directing traffic on Chalkville School Road. The board approved the recommendation and has paid for deputies since that time.”
Over the years, Johnson wrote letters and emails, and made phone calls to a number of people, asking for help in making the school zone safer.
“My ultimate goal was to have sidewalks constructed along Chalkville School Road and along the school drive, which leads up to our school,” Johnson said.
Johnson soon heard about the Safe Routes to School program, created by the Alabama State Department of Education, the Alabama Department of Transportation and the Alabama Department of Public Health. The purpose of the program is to enable and encourage students in grades K-8 to walk and bicycle to school; to make walking and bicycling to school safer and more appealing; and to facilitate the planning, development and implementation of projects that will improve highway safety and reduce traffic fuel consumption, and also reduce air pollution in the vicinity of schools.
Federal funds are used to pay for the program, and the school faced two major obstacles in receiving them: a complicated application process and funds only being available on a reimbursement basis for approved projects. Because Chalkville Elementary School is in an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, the school needed support of the Jefferson County Commission and the Jefferson County Board of Education in order to move forward with an application.
Johnson then almost gave up on the project when he received an email from Nick Sims on Dec. 16, 2011. He introduced himself and offered his assistance in helping the school complete the application. At the time, Sims was employed by Communities Putting Prevention to Work, which was funded by United Way.
“If not for Mr. Sims, I don’t think we would have been able to navigate the SRTS waters,” Johnson said. “Mr. Sims worked to complete the application for us and the project was approved.”
Johnson said that somewhere along the way, the “ball was dropped” and while others who had applied for funding were seeing their projects come to fruition, nothing happened at Chalkville. Johnson contacted Jefferson County Commissioner Joe Knight and asked for his help.
“Commissioner Knight picked up the ball and ran with it,” Johnson said. “He organized meetings with ALDOT and worked tirelessly to make sure that our project would not be overlooked.”
The grant totals $132,525. The Jefferson County Board of Education in December 2013 approved an application for construction submitted by Chalkville Elementary School.
The project will result in the construction of two sidewalks. One sidewalk will run along the school drive from the entrance to the school up to the Bishop Building. The other sidewalk will be across the street from the school, running along Chalkville School Road from the Tammera Place Apartments up to Park Brook Apartments.
“It will make it much safer for those students who walk to school,” Johnson said last year.
If money ever becomes available again, Johnson would like to have a sidewalk built that would run along Chalkville School Road from the entrance to the school drive up to the entrance to the Center Point Ballpark.
As for the construction that began last week, Johnson said the company has 45 working days to finish the project.
“Hopefully the weather will cooperate and they will be finished by Thanksgiving,” he said.
Contact Gary Lloyd at news@trussvilletribune.com and follow him on Twitter @GaryALloyd.