Cookie, left, and Chris Rolle look on during the beginning of their Christmas party at the Avondale Youth and Family Development Center in this 2013 file photo.
Letter from Hamilton County Transportation Supervisor Benjamin Coulter to parents concerning the bus stop at the Avondale Center.A battle is brewing around the Avondale school bus stop.
On one side is a couple who provides free breakfast to hungry kids. On the other is the county Department of Education, which says the couple is endangering the children they hope to help.
Chris and Cookie Rolle -- the children call them "Mr. and Mrs. C" -- set up a makeshift breakfast shop outside their Dodds Avenue home about a year ago. They saw children as young as 5 walking themselves to the Avondale bus stop in the dark each morning, and they worried.
So they rolled out the milk, and the oatmeal, and the fruit. They turned on gospel music. They set up tents and laid out the rules.
No horseplay. No bullying. No foul language.
The children know those rules, the Rolles said, and they respect them.
"It's been nothing but positive things that came out of this," Chris Rolle said Friday.
Teachers and parents have responded too, they say. Last year the Rolles served an average of 40 students free breakfast each morning. This year they're averaging 70.
"We got more parents who drop their children off at this bus stop now, because of the safety," Chris Rolle said.
But the Hamilton County Department of Education says the Rolles have created a safety hazard.
In a letter mailed to parents Thursday, Transportation Supervisor Benjamin Coulter threatened to move the Avondale bus stop.
"The children are standing in the middle of the street and not on the sidewalk to wait for the bus," Coulter's letter reads. "This is a dangerous situation for the children, bus driver, and all traffic coming thru the area. They need to be waiting on the sidewalk at 8 a.m. for the bus to pick them up. They do not need to be running to the stop or getting breakfast from across the street."
In a telephone interview, Coulter said the issues are timeliness and safety. Children scrambling to get their breakfast before boarding make the bus late, he said. What's more, Coulter said, students stand in the middle of the road to stop the bus from leaving without their friends.
Coulter said he thinks the Rolles are doing a good thing and does not want to move the stop, but will if children don't start arriving earlier.
"I'm hoping this will fix it," Coulter said.
But the Rolles say they don't know what else there is to fix.
Chris Rolle said the children played in the street more before they started serving breakfast. He doesn't think they are making the buses late, and says their rules help keep the kids in check, at least when they're in the Rolles' yard.
Since they have already pushed back the time they stop serving food and help kids across the street, the Rolles say they aren't sure how else to appease school district officials.
Chris Rolle pointed to the fact that parents feel the environment is a safe one, going so far as to leave their children near the bus stop early and bring them there from other neighborhoods.
Rolle said he met with someone else at the school district's transportation department after he heard one bus driver telling children that the stop would be moved. The representative told them they should not be serving food to children because of the choking hazard, Rolle said.
He worries that if the bus stop is moved, children who already see violence and tumult will be that much more disadvantaged.
A few weeks ago, Chris Rolle had to leave unexpectedly to deal with the death of his mother. When he returned, he said, the kids asked him to never leave again.
"Why take something from the children?" he asked. "These children have enough on their plates already."
Contact staff writer Claire Wiseman at cwiseman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347.