Irvine Trustees Move to Limit Off-Campus Trips

Rejecting appeals from more than three dozen high school students, the Irvine Unified School District Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday to push forward a proposal that allows only seniors to drive off campus for lunch.

The board, concerned with the safety of students off campus during school hours, will make a final decision at its Aug. 10 meeting.

“This is a good compromise and we can revisit it at the end of next year,” said board member Steve Choi.

District officials decided to revise its open-campus policy in March after a Woodbridge High School sophomore was killed in a car crash while returning from an off-campus lunch break. Kristin Godfrey, 16, died after the car in which she was a passenger slid on a rain-slicked street and struck a pole.

Students have said they often must rush back to school to avoid being late after lunch.

A task force of students, parents, teachers, administrators, police and city officials recommended that only seniors be allowed to drive to lunch and the number of passengers be limited by the number of seat belts.

Juniors would still be allowed to drive to and from school, but not at lunch. Students with parental permission would still be allowed to leave campus.

More than three dozen teens went to Tuesday night’s board meeting to tell the school board that the policy change would be unfair and ineffective.

Emanuel Lucban, 17, questioned the feasibility of checking every passenger of every car that leaves school.

“Basically, this is something that is impossible to enforce,” the Woodbridge High School senior said. “This has just gone a little overboard. It’s not good for students, teachers or anybody.”

Spencer Wong, 17, agreed.

“Accidents can occur before and after school,” he said. “I’m just wondering, if someone walks and gets hurt, are they going to close the campus completely?”

Board members also cited the large traffic growth in Irvine as another reason to review the open-campus policy that has been in place for years.

“A number of kids have expressed frustration that we are overreacting,” said board member Margie Wakeham before the meeting. “I agree that we are acting, but I don’t think that we are overreacting. The question now is how we pay for it.”

A concern is the proposal’s annual $100,000 price tag and $125,000 start-up costs. The district must hire personnel to cope with the extra students forced to eat lunch on campus and hire more monitors to make sure that only seniors are driving cars and that all passengers have parental permission to leave campus.

About $100,000 of the cost would be offset by a new $90 per year student-parking fee that the board tacitly approved on a 4-1 vote. The board will vote on final approval of the fee at its Aug. 10 meeting.

Board member Karen J. Preston, the lone opponent of the fee, said: “Unless we start washing and waxing the students’ cars while they’re parked on campus, there’s no reason they should have to pay a parking fee.”