The message has gone out in recent decades loud and clear: Parents, always check the back seat before leaving a car unattended.
Some people just can't imagine a parent carefully strapping a young child into a child safety seat, driving someplace, then forgetting entirely about the child essentially trapped in the back seat. We know someone who did it, but thankfully something moments later triggered their realization they had been in charge of taking the child to school that day. The result was a momentary panic followed by the relief only a parent can fully appreciate at finding their child safe.
The brain can, it seems, work its way sometimes into a rut, a condition of habit that can unintentionally move a driver into autopilot. In some of these cases, the result has been tragic.
It's as hard to imagine a driver somehow managing to leave a child unattended on a bus for hours after the child was supposed to have been delivered to school. That's apparently what happened in Bentonville recently, when a maintenance worker, a little after 11 a.m., discovered a kindergartner on an empty bus. The boy had boarded the bus about five hours earlier. The incident left the boy dehydrated, sweaty and thirsty, his mother recently told the School Board.
What a frightening experience for the child and his family. To receive a call hours after assuming he had been dropped off at school, realizing he'd been in danger the entire time ... that's a parental horror story. Thank goodness the boy has recovered.
The mom spoke to the School Board, driven apparently by a desire to make sure such an oversight can never happen again, with anyone's child.
In what can sometimes seem a rare response from school leaders anywhere, officials at Bentonville said there was no excuse for what happened.
"We're sorry," Superintendent Debbie Jones said. "We own our mistake and we will make it right."
"We will fix this," board member Willie Cowgur promised.
It was exactly the right response, which begs the question why some government officials have such trouble owning up to mistakes.
What does "make it right" mean? It's hard to say since the experience can't be undone. But we hope it means an intense examination of driver training and school district procedures to ensure no student remains on board when buses are parked and left unattended.
Mistakes happen, but this is a responsibility of the school districts in which there can be no tolerance for error. As the mom told the board, her son survived; the next child won't.
School districts sometime give meaning to the term "circle the wagons" when something goes wrong (see Huntsville, Ark.) We credit Bentonville for having the good sense to face the problem and begin working to make sure it doesn't happen again.