Be Safe

For the past two days my school has been participating in the "Every 15 minutes" program. For those of you who don't know what it is about the premise is that every 15 minutes someone in the US is killed or injured because of alchohol. Yesterday morning the grim reaper claimed 28 students at VVHS. Later the entire school witnessed a rescue call for a drunk driving accident in front of our school. In the "accident" were five of those kids who had already been pulled out of class. It was hard to watch students who I know pulled from the wreckage of the cars. One of them was field sobriety tested and then arrested for drunk driving. On was taken away in a body bag by the local morticians and corriner (sp) while three others were taken to the local hospital in ambulances where one of them later "died". Today was the culmination activity where we held a mock funeral for all of those who "died" yesterday. We watched the footage of yesterday's event. It was all filmed and put into a news report format. We heard from a mother who lost her only child to a drunk driver five years ago and from our principal whose life has been greatly impacted by drunk driving in his life and who obviously cares about the students of this school. At this point My head hurts from crying so much and all I can say to my students as they leave my class is to be safe this weekend. I am so grateful for this little valley where life is sometimes so crazy but where I know everyone puts the lives of our children at the forefront. So my wish for all of you, all of my friends and family to please be safe. I don't every want to witness these events in real life.