The Cupertino Courier
Education
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Aman Gupta closes the door of a minivan as part of the morning valet service at Faria Elementary School.
Welcome to Faria School: Need help with your bags?
By Erin Hussey
At approximately 8:17 a.m., the Faria Elementary School parking lot looks like the outside of an airport during the Thanksgiving holidays.
With more than 300 cars, mostly mini-vans, turning off of De Anza Boulevard onto Barbara Lane to drop off children, the school needed a way to help the traffic move quickly but safely.
The answer: student valet volunteers.
"We have a few parent volunteers who help direct traffic and open doors," says Steven Woo, principal at Faria. He adds that because Faria is one of Cupertino Union Elementary District's five choice schools, close to 90 percent of the children live outside of the neighborhood and must be driven to school.
"This year I thought we could get a few kids to help."
Fifth-grade students Aman Gupta, Anna Tepijanto, Vivek Joshi, Abhishek Sharma and Vinay Reddy signed up for the job.
"I think the hardest part of my job is coming early in the morning," says Aman.
Unlike the rest of his peers, who wake up around 7 a.m., Aman rises at 6:45. Once at school, he and the other volunteers put on orange vests and patiently wait for the trail of cars to start forming.
"Some of the bags are heavy," says Aman, referring to the various backpacks and roller bags the valet volunteers help lift out of the cars.
"The fourth- and fifth-graders have textbooks so some of those are super heavy."
The volunteers also make sure all students grab their lunch box, jacket and other miscellaneous items. They then close the car door and the driver proceeds to the exit.
"I want to make sure the kids are on time in school in their classroom," says Stanley Kou, a parent volunteer.
When Kou first started directing traffic six years ago, parents were allowed to stop, get out of their car and help their children out, which slowed the drop-off process significantly.
"The school does a very good job to make sure the parents are aware of the process. Now the parents never leave the car, and we come up, open the door, close it, and then they move on."
Parents do have the option of parking across the street and walking their children to the school grounds if they prefer.
"It can be backed up for about 2 1/2 blocks," says Kou. "So in that case, some of the parents will park in the temporary parking and just walk their kids in."
During the afternoons, when timing is not as crucial, the volunteers are not needed.
"We want to keep the traffic moving, but there is not the time crunch," says Woo, who along with several teachers directs traffic when school lets out.
As for the number of volunteer fingers slammed in a car door, so far, so good. The same goes for major fender-benders.
"It looks like the volunteers have speeded things up, but even if it hasn't, I think it's a nice way to involve some kids and a nice way to welcome the students to school," says Woo.
