What to Know
- Students of Pine Road Elementary in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania were stranded on a school bus from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
- Principal Brian Swank diffused the situation by ringing up the students via FaceTime and reading to them.
- "I wanted to get their minds off the current situation," Swank said. "Make sure they know we haven’t forgotten about them."
Thursday's snowstorm let some schools out early, but for Brian Swank's Montgomery County elementary school students, the early dismissal turned into a unique extended-reading time instead.
Nearly 45 kindergarten through fifth-grade students from Pine Road Elementary in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania, were stranded on a school bus for at least three and a half hours as the driver fought gridlocked traffic brought on by the storm.
Amid the pressure of worried parents and bored students, Swank, the school's principal, diffused the situation like only a former school teacher could — with reading.
Gathered around an iPhone, the principal entertained his pupils by reading two books over FaceTime.
"Kids love being read to," Swank said in an interview Friday. "I still get a kick out of reading to kids."
For 20 minutes, the bus was silent as the crowd of children focused on the reading, rather than the storm raging outside.
"I wanted to get their minds off the current situation," Swank said. "Make sure they know we haven’t forgotten about them."
Swank read "You Belong Here" along with "Oh! What A Surprise!" He felt the two books summed up the themes of the unexpected afternoon.
"The message of 'You Belong Here' wasn’t about belonging to a place, but to the people you're with," he said.
