The Norwalk public school system is rife with issues that the BOE should be tackling. On the subject of leadership on the Board itself, its time for change, and I hope they pick someone who is willing to ask questions and lead.
But the BOE, oversight, transparency, teacher morale, operations and educational achievement are only part of the picture. Tonight I’m going to focus on the the venerable school bus. Until relatively late in life, I never had to take a school bus to school. I lived within a few blocks of my elementary schools and within 2 miles of the my middle schools. So I’m biased, for those who need hints, against school buses.
Norwalk is fortunate to have a bus mass transit option that is mostly underutilized. That is a shame. For me at least, a creative solution would be to reroute children needing transportation to schools through the Norwalk bus system. Amy school age child would get a bus pass, enabling them to ride free in the system. The need for a fleet of specialized school buses would be reduced. Because children use the buses, they might become adults using the system. Long term, less cars on the roads.
Helicopter parents would be fearful of kids actually learning how to independently travel in our great city, but the intrinsic benefits, other than maximizing use of mass transit, would be to free parents from the routine chauffeur tasks. Maybe those parents could attend a BOE meeting or two. Who knows. Kids who might have to walk to bus stops as they navigate town, might get more exercise than the current door to door options they have. That would free the BOE of worrying about childhood obesity. There are parts of Norwalk that might not have a bus route, but then with the possibility of the price crude oil hitting $150/barrel by spring of next year we might want to rethink transportation corridors that we could all benefit from.
