• Erica Rodriguez •
• Originally published September 16, 2010 at 9:24 p.m., updated September 16, 2010 at 10:55 p.m.

Genaro Macias III, an 18-year-old Victoria East High School senior, asked the school board for a safer route to and from his campus at the regular meeting Thursday.

"My main concern is trying to get people ... mainly VISD and the city, to make a second entrance for both East and West, and to make sidewalks so people can be more safe crossing the street," he said.

Macias walks nearly a mile from school in the afternoons to the nearest city bus stop along Mockingbird Lane to get to work as a library aide at Stroman Middle School.

For half of the walk, there is no sidewalk, and Macias was nearly hit by a car when he was forced to walk in the road. He hopes a sidewalk or second entrance would help.

"It would help me to be safe so I wouldn't have to worry about cars hitting me," he said.

Although board members could not answer, they later individually referred him to other entities.

"The Texas Department of Transportation and the city are the governing authorities about the places that he's concerned about," Keeling said. "Solving his issue would involve other entities other than VISD."

The corners of the East campus are not school district property, she said, which makes putting in a second entrance complex.

"I know we're looking at foot traffic and looking at what we can do to improve that," she said.

Community members also presented nominations to fill the seat of former board member James Murphy Sr., who died in August.

The Rev. Kevin Van Hook, pastor of St. Peter's Baptist Church, was nominated by two community members.

Murphy's son, James Murphy Jr., also spoke and nominated himself.

Murphy Jr. suggested the board appoint someone who is African-American to fill his father's vacancy.

The board will meet again in the next few weeks to set rules on how it will appoint someone, Keeling said. It has until March to do so.

The appointee will serve until May, when regular school board elections are held.

The board also approved three campuses which have large classes that required waivers from the state. Dudley, Torres and Schorlemmer elementaries have classes with a greater than 22:1 student-teacher ratio.

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