Seymour Community School Corp. has devised changes for dropping off and picking up students at four school buildings due to an expected increase in the number of students riding in cars.

The increase is a result of school officials encouraging parents to transport their children this year instead of having them ride on school buses due to social distancing concerns.

School Resource Officer Keith Williams presented the plans to the Seymour City Council during a meeting Monday at city hall. Several of the changes require new stop signs and traffic flow configurations on city streets.

The thoroughfare and drainage committee plans to review the requests and make a recommendation at the July 27 council meeting.

Williams proposed modifications at Seymour Middle School Sixth Grade Center, Seymour-Jackson Elementary School, Margaret R. Brown Elementary School and Emerson Elementary School.

“Our main concern that we got hit with is the social distancing,” Williams said. “How do you social distance 5,000 children in 10 different buildings, and then how do you get them there and how do you get them back home with social distancing?”

On a 90-passenger bus, only seven students would be allowed to ride at one time if 6-foot social distancing rules are enforced, but that isn’t feasible, Williams said.

But encouraging parents to drop off and pick up their children creates other traffic and safety issues, too, he said.

Parking lots at the schools are at capacity, already causing traffic jams and backups in the mornings and when school lets out in the afternoons.

“That’s a big problem we have right now,” he said. “With us encouraging parents to bring their children, we’re probably looking at another 50% to 70% of traffic on top of what we’ve already got.”

Williams said the corporation has invested around $250,000 to reconfigure parking lots and drop-off and pickup areas and improve traffic flow at the schools to keep students safe.

The corporation needs the city’s approval to move forward and wants to have the changes made before school starts Aug. 10.

“This is the best that we can come up with right now,” he said.

At the sixth grade center, Williams said the proposal is to move car traffic from the front of the building to the back on South Lynn Street and prohibit parents from lining up on school property more than 15 minutes early to pick up their children.

He requested the city designate a no parking zone on Wendemere Drive. That street would become a drop-off and pickup lane for staging vehicles.

At Emerson, Williams said they would like to create a designated drop-off and pickup lane on the north side of West Fifth Street to keep parents from using Emerson Drive.

The idea of changing Elm Street and Emerson Drive to one-way streets was suggested but shot down.

“One ways decrease property value on that street and make cars go faster,” Mayor Matt Nicholson said. “I’m not a fan of one-way streets.”

The changes at Jackson Elementary are requiring the most construction, Williams said.

“Currently, what we’re having to do is double stack parents to get kids into cars,” he said. “That’s not a safe situation running kids in between cars to get to their parents.”

With the new configuration, the area separating the vehicle drop-off/pickup zone from the bus zone will be removed creating one large area for vehicles. Bus pickup and drop-off will be moved to the east side of the building.

Williams said to help control traffic, a three-way stop is needed on C Avenue East turning into the west side of the school.

“That way, it starts alternating traffic and we can get people out quicker,” he said.

Nicholson said of all of the plans, Jackson’s is the only one he doesn’t like.

“I would rather see you force parents to make a right turn when exiting the school onto C Avenue,” he said. “This is the one I feel is majorly unsafe.”

At Brown, the plan is to open up the back parking lot and wind cars through to a driveway that will be built connecting to Marley Lane. Williams said a three-way stop would be needed there, too.

Nicholson said he doesn’t have a problem with that change because it’s going from a two-way stop to a three-way stop.

City engineer Bernie Hauersperger said he knows the changes will cause traffic issues until people get used to them, and if it doesn’t work, it will have to be changed again.

“I think we just need to test this out, do the best we can on paper and go ahead and let the schools see how it works out,” he said.