thepowerofme

As the mayor of my small community, I feel it is my responsibility to provide for the well being of our citizens.  That being said, I have to wonder what has been running through the minds of some of our school principals and superintendents of this school district.  See a long time ago, the school board voted to close our High School, and our Junior High.  By doing so they have started busing the students forty miles a day round trip to a neighboring town.  That being said they have to drive on all sorts of road conditions.  I know that living in the state of Wyoming there will be times that it snows, or the wind blows and have to expect that type of driving adventure.  What I do not understand is when the roads are too bad to be open why in the world the school gets permission by the highway patrol to run a school bus on a closed road.  That’s right folks, they have gotten permission to run the buses on closed roads.  Not once this week but twice so far.

Now, I know what many of you might be thinking.  So what, the road must not be that bad so they just let them go any way.  Well a follow up to that question is this.  If the roads are really not that bad then why do they not allow those of us that commute to work each day go as well.  See I commute to work 120 miles round trip and every time I ask to go to work they say NO.  The town maintenance workers commute the same distance as the school bus and when they ask to come to work they reply with a resounding NO as well.  But it is safe enough for the teachers, faculty and students to make the trip each and every time.  While I drive a small SUV and have four wheel drive it is unsafe for me, but as a person that drives a bus knows, it is much more dangerous for a forty passenger, high profile bus to go even more so.

While I understand the importance of a well rounded and solid education I have to ask myself at what cost.  When does the need to educate, supersede the right to protect our children.  In the days of email, faxes, and computer Internet there is so much that can be done differently.  They could bus the students to the elementary school here in town and bring over the other teachers that commute as well so they can have school here safely on those days.  They could also store extra books for every student so that they would be able to keep up with the lessons the rest of the class are working on.  There can be numerous actions taken to protect the well being of the students, faculty, and staff with out jeopardizing their education.

I close with this.  All across this country schools are closed for below zero weather, but not in Wyoming.  In other places they get closed for high amounts of snow, not here as well.  But one thing I am sure never happens in another part of this great country is to send a school bus full of irreplaceable children on a closed highway just to keep things moving as status quot.