The promise of a school bus

This one happens to be on Route 122 in Barre,
part of the Quabbin Regional School District.

 A few weeks back, my morning trip to a school district put me behind a bus in a local district. It was an elementary school run, and so even in November, most stops had adults alongside waiting passengers of various sizes. There were last hugs, backpack handoffs, parting parental wishes before students joined their peers on board.

Is there anything we do that shows more trust in other people than putting our kids on a school bus?

I don't just mean putting our kids on a vehicle driven by a stranger; that's just the start. They will spend their day with adults who we trust with everything about them: their physical safety, their emotional well-being, their sense of self, and yes, their educational development. 

I think this is why so many of us are particularly appalled by someone driving past a bus with its lights flashing for a pickup; it isn't only that children can be hurt or killed (though it's certainly that). It's that we've agreed, tacitly, that we together keep children safe by all stopping for a bus that has stopped for them. It matters more than whatever the rush we may be in to get somewhere. Kids' safety comes first.

Except, of course, as a society, we have decided it doesn't, when on the eve of the anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, students studying for a final exam at Brown University are shot. 

Kids and their safety should matter more. But America has decided that it doesn't.