SALEM SCHOOLS Officials to address safety issue

An alternative drop-off point may have to be arranged, a city official said.
SALEM -- City and school officials are expected to meet in the next week or so to discuss what some parents are calling a safety problem at Reilly Elementary School.
Several parents attended Tuesday's city council meeting to express concern about a new policy that they say bans parents from dropping children off in the school parking lot.
Prohibited from using the lot, parents are dropping children off along Ohio Avenue near the school.
But that solution has many children running across the street to get into the school building.
Councilwoman Alma Apicella, R-at large, said she has looked into the parents' concerns and agrees safety is at stake.
"There has to be a meeting" between city and school officials to come up with a solution, Apicella said.
Joe Julian, city service director, said the school district banned parents from dropping off pupils in the school parking lot because the school said the parents' vehicles were getting in the way of school buses.
An alternative drop-off point may have to be devised that wouldn't interfere with school buses but which also wouldn't have children running across Ohio Avenue, Julian said.
In other business, council agreed to have its first meeting of 2002 on Jan. 2, a Wednesday. Normally, the panel meets Tuesdays, but that would have conflicted with New Year's Day.