As we prepare for long-weekend fun, I would like to appeal to you personally to help me NOT write one particular story next week.
Wednesday is back to school for thousands upon thousands of local students across the region with all the fun and excitement, and sometimes anxiety, over new beginnings and the thrill of the year of discovery ahead.
It also means a major shift in our traffic and pedestrian movement patterns, with school zones about to become major hubs of activity again for the next 10 months.
For administrators, teachers, staff, parents and children alike, it is a day filled with wonder and magic, prospects for new friendships and activities and journeys of self-discovery.
All of that can be lost in an instant, however, if those bright young minds don’t safely arrive at their destination.
If you are on the road next week around a school bus or a school itself, I urge you to be extra cautious and on the lookout for children at all times.
Many will be distracted. Some don’t know the rules yet. For some, they are at new schools with new bus routes or are facing other challenges in their personal lives that may leave them looking inward instead of out into traffic.
Every year at this time I dream of a routine day where nothing bad happens and every child is welcomed safely home at the end of the day, but I need your help for that to happen. The alternative is a harsh lesson that could have been avoided, and a story that I wish I long never to write.
I’m Paul Martin and that’s what I see looking Beyond the Headlines.
