A current article posted on New York Times online entitled "Boston School-Bus Drivers Return To Work Amid Uncertainty" allows Katharine Q. Seelye to explain to her readers the crisis of Boston school-bus drivers going on strike and leaving numerous children stuck at home, absent from school, due to having no transportation. This was a huge deal to the city of Boston concerning the education of the youth; children need reliable and adequate transportation to and from school to be able to pursue their education.
Stated in this article, readers learn that "about 18% of students missed school Tuesday...about three times the average absentee rate." These drivers made immature decisions based on there feelings towards recent changes made to their salary administrations as well as health care changes. While people do have the right to go on strike, doing so should not effect the means of education to the students that rely on school/state provided education.
Readers also learn that the drivers decided to go on strike based on "a new GPS system that allows parents to track the location of their children's buses in real time through a smartphone app." These Boston school-bus drivers did not necessarily have adequate reasons for going on strike. In an economy like the one of today's, changes will have to be made to salaries and health care. These changes sometimes become necessary whether or not the bus drivers like said changes or not. These drivers were wrong to effect the education of the students based on there unreasonable emotions.
The Mayor of Boston stated that these school-bus drivers "agreed to a contract, a very good contract, and now they don't want to live up to that contract." This is a ridiculous and outrageous way for these drivers to protest. They are effecting not only students, but the parents of the students as well. Many parents, relying on their children to be able to attend school, had to skip going to work in order to stay with their kids. Adults should act responsibly toward situations like these and not make decisions that will hinder students; situations become hard but adults should not handle these situations like children.
This protest also inconvenienced parents that were unaware the the strike was even taking place. Myisha Johniken stated to reporters that she "waited with her autistic son for a half hour at the special bus stop in front of her home...unaware of the strike." She was upset by the fact that she had to resort to using public bus transportation to take her son to school; which in turn, highly distressed her autistic son. Situations like these should not be happening and it has outraged many people despite the fact that the drivers did reluctantly return back to work.
What are we to do when the public school bus-drivers do not even show concern about the education of our youth in America? Bus drivers play a very important part in our nation's education system, and should be responsible enough to understand the importance of their job! Hopefully, these drivers can find other, more responsible means, to work through the problems they have with the system they work for.
