Why Carpool?
Sharing the load of school transportation with others provides numerous benefits. While saving time and fuel cost, carpooling families enjoy an increased sense of community as shared rides afford opportunities for multi-grade conversation and friendship.
Carpooling also benefits the broader MacLaren community. As more families carpool, MacLaren’s parking lot becomes a safer and more pleasant pick-up and drop-off experience for all.
Looking to Carpool?
We have several steps you can take to seek other MacLaren families who might be a good fit for carpooling.
- Natural connections– Get involved in our MacLaren community. Most successful carpools have been established through connections made naturally at school functions. Our Parent Service Association provides opportunities for parents to meet others in the area they live. We have hosted neighborhood meet ups, and “mixers” where parents are grouped according to the part of town they live so that these connections can be made more readily.
- Social Media – Join the MacLaren Parent & Alumni Facebook group. Parents often post their need or availability for carpooling within this group. Listing as much information as you are comfortable sharing will assist in making connections.
- Survey/Results – Fill out the short MacLaren Carpool Survey to indicate your need and availability. The questions help define how many seats are available in a carpool in addition to location and schedule. Once you add your information, you will have access to the results others have shared so that you can reach out directly where a match looks worth pursuing. Other parents on the list will be able to reach out to you.
- Registrar assistance – Email the registrar with your assistance request. She will look up your address in PowerSchool to locate neighbors near you and email potential connections with your interest in arranging a carpool. At that point, it would be up to the neighbor to reach out to you. For privacy, we do not provide contact information of neighbors without direct consent.
- Community Engagement assistance – If we notice a cluster of MacLaren families in the same neighborhoods or receive multiple requests from the same area, we send a blind copied email asking if any of them wish to connect for carpool considerations and follow up according to the response.
If you need additional assistance, email Joy Oram.