The School Bus Blockade: A Florida Teacher’s Daily Reminder of What Matters

Some mornings, when I take Southern Blvd on my way to school, I see it: Trump’s plane parked at the airport, blockaded by a line of yellow school buses.

The first time I noticed, I thought it was just bad timing—maybe a bus depot situation, some weird traffic shuffle. But no, they’re there on purpose. A security measure. A human-made barrier to diffuse potential violence, to prevent an assassination attempt. A row of school buses acting as shields for a president’s private jet.

And every time, the irony punches me in the gut.

These same buses will go on to pick up kids who will walk into schools with no such protections. They’ll unload students into buildings where locked doors and active shooter drills are the best we can offer against the very real possibility that, on any given day, someone with an AR-15 might walk in and open fire.

We have the resources to strategically position buses around an airplane to ensure the safety of a billionaire, but when it comes to keeping kids safe in classrooms? We get thoughts and prayers.

Florida’s leadership has decided that banning books is a higher priority than banning assault rifles. That teachers are the problem, not the lack of funding, resources, or actual safety measures. That arming educators is a more logical solution than just making it harder for unstable people to get weapons of war.

So, every now and then, I drive past this absurd scene—a billionaire’s jet, blockaded by the same buses that will drop kids off at schools where their biggest threat isn’t algebra, but gunfire.

And then I keep driving, past the blockade, into another day of teaching. Another day of doing the work that actually matters, even when the people in power refuse to.