Grandparents argue Youngstown students walking to school face no sidewalks, speeding drivers, coyotes

Some folks are complaining about the lack of buses for kids living two miles or less away from Youngstown public schools.

Some grandparents complained about no sidewalks, speeding drivers, dumped dogs, coyotes, and other dangers kids must face on their way to and from school.

They also worry about winter with icy roads throughout the city.

"High speed, traffic, the animals, the visibility, and the narrowness of the roads. There are 13 registered sex offenders in the area within that distance," Tricia Floyd said.

Her daughter doesn't have a car to drive her children to school.

Floyd tells 21 News the route her 8 and 9-year-old grandsons take to school includes over a mile and one-half wooded area, with no sidewalks, and four-foot-deep ditches, one foot away on each side of the road.

She is asking school board members and the public to walk the route from Atkinson Avenue, to Liberty Road, to Martin Luther King Elementary School.

Another grandmother also took the school board to task for not providing transportation for her grandchildren in elementary school.

She voiced many of the same safety concerns to school board members.

Superintendent Jeremy Batchelor directed the YCSD supervisor of transportation to call the women who brought up complaints at Monday's school board meeting.