Clermont elementary students work for safer walk to class

CLERMONT, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - After three years of work, students at Pine Ridge Elementary now have a sidewalk leading up the highway to their school, and did they ever work to make it happen.

For many students, the walk to school has long been a trudge through the grass and mud next to traffic on County Road 561. The road does have a school zone, but for most of the day cars are going about 55 on the stretch, parents said.

Juliet Van Scoyk said her oldest son’s class, along with several others at the school decided to take on the road as a class project. They studied it, wrote up statistics and plans and took it before the county to effort for the sidewalk to be put in.

This week the new sidewalk finally opened. Many of the students who fought to get it are now in middle school, but their siblings and the current students of Pine Ridge seem more than grateful for their work toward a safer walk to school.