We don’t often think about what goes into the journey to school. We usually assume a school bus is en route to pick us up, or we have a parent to drive us. However, sometimes it isn’t that easy.
In some parts of town, people aren’t so lucky with the city bus or school bus schedules. The school and bus routes do not stretch far enough to reach every student, and for those who don’t have parents who have the time to drive them, the question of what sort of transportation students can take begins to arise.
For those who live outside of town, the city bus only runs a few times back and forth, if at all, making it difficult to get in and out of town.
For many, missing the bus in the morning means they’ll have to wait until much later in the day to catch the next one. This can obviously become problematic for those who have to make it to school on time.
The school’s number one priority is student safety. We should be able to trust that from their homes to the premises, the school will take responsibility for us and yet, for a number of students, this just isn’t a reality.
Some students have to turn to hitchhiking to get to where they need to go. It’s a fearful thing to think of a young person having to hitchhike, perhaps putting their life at risk merely to get an education. Although some may just want to brush it off, we should think back to news stories of people getting kidnapped after hitchhiking.
This issue is not something everyone is aware of. Some of us have never had to think twice about how we could get to school in the morning or whether or not we could manage a safe ride to and from school.
The more we raise awareness to this issue the more likely we are to solve it. No matter what, every student should have a safe way of getting to school.
Macy How is a grade 11 student at Brooks Secondary School.
