Opening Statement of Councilmember David Grosso

Committee on Transportation and the Environment

B23-393, The Safe Passage to School Expansion Act of 2019
November 25, 2019

Thank you Councilmember Cheh for holding this hearing on this important piece of legislation.

First, I want to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the traditional land of the
Anacostan People of the Piscataway Tribe.

Since I have been the chairperson of the Committee on Education, I have worked to hear from
students directly and to elevate their concerns. One of the most consistent topics I hear from
students is around Safe Passage.

While I recognize that the Deputy Mayor for Education has worked on this issue, I believe there
is more we to institutionalize the work and further improve student safety as they travel to and
from school.

As we continue to hear in hearings and roundtables coming out of the Committee on

Education, safe passage to and from school remains a major hurdle for students in getting the
best education they can.

Research from Guns & America found 177 shootings within a 1,000-foot radius of DC school
campuses during typical school hours during the 2016-2017 school year. 82% of these incidents
happened near schools on the east end of our city.

Students at five schools in Southeast - five elementary schools - were exposed to 10 or more
neighborhood shootings during school hours. Another nine schools experienced five or more
nearby shootings.

In just the four months since introduction, sadly, we’ve seen several other incidents of gunfire
near schools, including Aiton Elementary and Woodson High School.

Just this past Friday, Clarence Venable, a man training as a violence interrupter with Cure the
Streets, was shot and killed just a few blocks from Kimball Elementary School as he left the
Alliance for Concerned Men.

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Over the past several years, we’ve seen gun violence take the lives of multiple children violence
on their way to and from school.

We are failing our students if we can’t give them safe spaces to learn and safe routes to school.

Our communities and schools are working hard to make sure their kids get to school and back
home safely, and we’ll hear about some of this work today. I am continuously in awe of the
time, resources, and care that our school leaders, teachers, families, neighbors, and even
students themselves invest in these efforts.

But, as a city we owe it to our students - our kids - to do better.

By establishing an Office of Safe Passage and requiring the Mayor to provide a shuttle bus
from the metro station to a DCPS and public charter school with the fewest transportation
options, this bill aims to ensure students are able to travel safely to and from school every day.

With continuous and sustained safe passage programming, I believe our students, schools, and
communities will be safer.

I do understand that this bill is being heard before the Committee on Transportation and
Environment, and I want to thank you Councilmember Cheh for signing on as a co-introducer
for the bill and agreeing to hold this hearing.

But this is an education issue ¬– kids cannot learn if they are unable to get to and from school
safely.

On May 1, 2018 – on their first day of PARCC testing, a student at KIPP College Prep was
murdered at the NoMa metro station. Many of the witnesses were his classmates – also in their
testing cohort.

It goes without saying that this traumatic experience weighed on them as they took the
high-stakes test. And their scores that year reflected it.

This past fall, we celebrated a new set of PARCC scores, and KIPP College Prep saw significant
gains from the previous year. While folks celebrated this, I could not help but wonder what the
previous testing cohort would have done had they not witnessed their classmate’s murder.

Lives are at stake and we as elected leaders have a responsibility to do more. I look forward to
hearing from the witnesses today about how can indeed do just that.###

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