It depends on the Galesburg City Council giving its approval, but the Galesburg School Board has already given its blessing to a solution to keep traffic flowing around one Galesburg elementary school, while keeping students safe.

The Galesburg School Board this week okayed its portion of a plan to ease congestion during the opening and closing bells at Silas Willard Elementary School, by agreeing to the building of a new lane for bus parking on Willard Street, making Fifer Street one-way between Seminary and Willard Streets, and buying portion of the parking lot at Midwest Regional Home Care across the street.

District-205 Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations, Paul Woelke, tells W-G-I-L there's a reason why Midwest Regional Home Care had to be involved in the process.

"The way things work right now is that parents tend to use their parking lot for pick up and drop off periods on school days," Woelke said. "So we reached an agreement with them. They have made a very generous offer to us, to sell us a small portion of their parking lot for one dollar for the purpose of us being able to improve the traffic flow around Silas."

Woelke says a sidewalk will be constructed on Fifer street in front of Silas Willard, so that parents can drop off their kids and not have to cross in the path of a vehicle, which was the main concern that led to the proposal.

The Galesburg City Council must still vote to accept the changes to Fifer and Willard Streets; they'll consider it on first reading Monday night, and finalize it in July.