Editorial: Start of school brings new reasons for vigilance

Talk about it

As this issue of the Rosemount Town Pages reaches mailboxes we are just five days from the start of a new school year. When they’re not busy shopping for new clothes and notebooks, children and teens everywhere are busy trying to cram every last bit of recreation they can into the final hours before they return to structured schedules of school days.

The return of the school year will mean changes around Rosemount. It will mean adjustments to the schedules on which things run. The library will shift its hours to compensate for students who no longer have mornings free and now will come flooding in once the final bell rings to read, use the computers or just hang out. Friday nights will be structured around home football games.

Most important, though, the patterns of traffic both on the streets and on the sidewalks will change. Students will be out in the mornings walking to school and in the afternoons walking home. School buses will cruise city streets making sure kids get back and forth safely.

Maybe you’ve seen some of them out already making practice runs.

We all play a role in this process. We don’t drive the buses and we don’t hold the crossing-guard flags, but as drivers make their way from place to place there is new reason to be vigilant.

Watch for kids along sidewalks and at crosswalks. Pay attention to buses, and if you come upon one with its stop arm extended, wait for it. It’s the law, for one thing, and it’s common sense.

It is our responsibility to be alert at all times as we drive the roads of Rosemount. That doesn’t change now, but there is more to watch for.

Be careful out there.

Tags: opinion, editorial, rosemount, education