We Remember

Well, as a Buffalo Bills fan, this season is starting out like most of the others in recent memory, but Syracuse, my favorite college team, is showing some promise! Football season also means that kids are back at school.

Back to School: We had a terrific first week of school, and watching kindergartners get off of the bus for the first time NEVER gets old. A mom at one of the buildings asked me if I thought it was too much for her to be there taking a picture of her daughter getting off the bus for the first time. I told her that children grow so fast that anything you can do to capture a memory is the right thing to do!

I want to give our bus drivers, mechanics, and transportation administrators a super huge thank you. Their first week was just absolutely crazy. Bus routes are established and sent out to families around the middle of August. Because students are entitled to school transportation, routes are created for every student. It is still summer, so like I used to do, many parents leave the school mailings until the last couple of days before school.

On opening day, the drivers pre-check their buses and then 100 buses turn on and get rolling. Our mechanics get really pressed into service, and this year they also had the Department of Transportation in the garage inspecting buses as part of their routine inspections. While the drivers were out driving, parents were calling into the transportation administrators with changes; 200 to be exact, the morning of opening day alone. Somehow they make it all happen. They will drive 1,000,000 miles before the year is over.  Remarkable.

This week we will really know who is going to utilize their bus pickup and who isn't, and we will then make the final bus route and timing changes for the year. I certainly appreciate your patience and at the same time really applaud our people for getting the job done.

Remembering September 11: Tuesday is September 11. September 11, 2001 to me is always in the present, but to our students it is history. On September 11, 2001, I was a brand new Superintendent not knowing if we were under attack, and if we were, what I was going to do about it. One of our teachers spoke to her brother from my office. He was in Tower II and told her he would be fine. She hung up and about ten minutes later, Tower II collapsed. All I could do was tell her I was sorry, drive her home, and then get back to work and figure out what to do next. I remember that day like it was yesterday.

Our students don't remember that day at all but they learn about it in their history classes. It got me to thinking that life-changing historical events are generational and stick with some people like they happened yesterday. To others, they are events that don't hold the same level of emotion for them; but they are learned. There is no disrespect there; just perspective. I was not alive for John F. Kennedy's or Martin Luther King's Assassinations for example, but my parents can tell you exactly where they were when those events happened, just as they can about the moon landing. I had to learn about those events but deeply understand their significance.

When I visit with our older students this week I am going to ask them what events in their lives have occurred that were so moving for them that they remember exactly where they were and what they were doing. Should be interesting to hear what they have to say.

Thanks again for reading and have a great week.

Chris