Commentary––

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By Joyce Hannah

I used to live six minutes from Newtown High School but we’ve drifted apart. For a few hours on weekday mornings it’s four times father away.

Teenagers find that riding the bus is distastefully plebeian or inconvenient so they drive if they have a car. Most do. Or convince parents to drop them off. As in China, there seems to be a one-child policy. One child per car. So a convoy of SUVs clogs the bottleneck at the intersection of Route 34, Interstate 84, and the school driveway.

Regular suit-and-tie commuters make matters worse. One particularly tedious morning, there was construction on Berkshire Road, no traffic guard, and no operating traffic light. I could see the high school sliding north on its way out of Fairfield County approaching a lower mill rate.

Add to this, testosterone-boosted young men displaying mating behavior in an early morning rendition of a survivor show or Death Wish. Fender benders and near misses put the building farther toward the horizon. I might as well consider driving to Minneapolis.

To avoid aggravation, I tried leaving a bit later when I know that high school is in session. Error. At this hour dutiful moms coast Ford Expeditions to bus stops to shield their children from the elements and predators no matter that the bus stop is only one door away and the weather fine. Outward Bound-type moms cluster together, coffee mugs or umbrellas in hand, to begin the day with a good dose of neighborhood gossip or household hints. Children wearing cartoon character backpacks and OshKosh and Gap clothes cavort with the family dogs.

When the bus finally stops, holding up traffic, myself included, the parents shepherd the kids to the bus, offer a few words of good advice, greet the driver, and saunter back to the house or vehicle. The bus never gets out of first gear before stopping again and again. During this time of the day, NHS is only twice as far away.

I have a radical idea. Let’s have all the kids ride the buses. Give the commuters a break, ensure that students arrive on time, reduce the parking violations, save gas, mend the hole in the ozone layer, avoid insurance claims. And encourage those moms to develop self-motivated learners by having their children walk to the bus stop. The dog will keep an eye out for perverts.

Then, floating back to its rightful location, the high school will be only six minutes down the road.

(Joyce Hannah is a teacher at Newtown High School.)