Scott Bremner

It wasn’t a big story.

It didn’t affect all that many people.

In fact, I didn’t even cover it.

But every once in a while I’m reminded, through the complaints and the short staffs and the headaches of the daily grind, just why I do what I do.

It started with a small but clearly pained email.

It came from a woman from the Albion area, who finds out just five days before the start of school that her child would not be receiving bus service to Our Lady Christian School, a parochial school within the Erie Catholic Diocese.

It was the Girard School District and its superintendent, Dr. Jim Tracy who made that call.

Yes, fair reader, that is very astute of you.

Why would a child from Albion deserve a ride to a Catholic school from the neighboring Girard District?

It came from a deal made when St. John’s school, which is in the Girard district closed.

Girard is required by law to bus Girard students to other schools within a ten mile radius, and they expanded the deal to include a small group of families impacted by the St. John closing.

This year Superintendent Tracy concluded that Girard taxpayers no longer need to bear that burden and sent the notices.

Unfortunately, those notices went out five days before the start of school.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where both parents have to go to work, leaving no one to drive children to school.

The immediate reaction from the families involved was, well, unfortunate.

We sent a young reporter named Stephanie Schelkun to the west county to speak with the parents, who were clearly at a loss as to what to do.

One mom, a school teacher, suggested quitting her job, arguing that her child’s education was worth the loss of income.

Airing the story led to a flood of emails from other parents caught in the same situation and all lamenting a lack of options on short notice.

Late the next afternoon after the story aired, Dr. Tracy sent out word that he had reconsidered, and will offer the bus service for one more year.

The service may well end after this year, especially in an environment of huge transportation costs, but at least the families will have fair warning that it’s coming.

And a young reporter had a chance to feel, perhaps for the first time, what it’s like to use journalism not as a sword to publicize death and mayhem, but as a shield to make a significant change in the lives of your viewers.

I walked into my office and smiled.

Oh yea, I remember now.

That’s why I do what I do.