Lee este artículo en español aquí.
URBANA— Dozens of families drifted by tables at the park in Ivanhoe Estates during an Urbana School District 116 Neighborhood Night in late September.
At one table, Magdalena Lopez brainstormed ideas for a new bus stop in the neighborhood. She draws her family in orange marker. She wants the bus stop to fit all of them. Lopez adds a garden next to it in purple.
“I just want a roof that can protect them,” her father, Martin Lopez, said in Spanish.
CU Early Family Liaison Cheryl Crosby translated. Lopez said his kids have missed school because the weather was too bad to wait for the bus.
Lopez is not alone. Two years ago, social workers from the early childhood learning nonprofit CU Early learned that weather was a top reason kids from Ivanhoe Estates were missing school. Families were walking from all over the neighborhood to wait for sometimes half an hour at the uncovered stop.
In response to the need, District 116, CU Early and the University of Illinois started a project together to build a new stop.
The University of Illinois architecture professor involved in the project, Joseph Altshuler, did not want to design it alone. Altshuler asked to set up a station at the Urbana neighborhood night where students and families could write and draw out their ideas.
Urbana High School senior David Apolonio attended the event to provide live music with the district’s mariachi group, Mariachi Tigres de Urbana. He lives nearby and has taken the school bus for years. He says waiting in the rain and cold has made him sick before.
“Sadly, yes, I’ve been in those times before – very few since I do take shelter,” Apolonio said. “The problem is there’s some kids that get sick easily. And then they can’t go to school as often.”
Apolonio helped brainstorm ideas for the stop at the neighborhood night. He said the stop should be a place kids enjoy waiting. He suggested the shelter could be rainbow-colored and include pastel blue, orange and pink.
“Some creative signs in different colors, somewhat like a rainbow- we could say light colors like pastel blue, orange, pink,” Apolonio added.
Other ideas from families included games that could distract them while waiting, phrases to help parents learn English, a heater to help warm them in the winter, a mini library and a message board where residents could post things they want to donate or that they need.
Altshuler now has a month to turn families’ ideas into one idea that will be structurally sound and easy for the school district to maintain. He plans to present the proposal to the Urbana Board of Education at their meeting in late October.
Construction will not start until the spring. Children could be waiting under the stop they designed this time next year.