"Why do they call it 'Rush Hour' when nobody's moving?"                        Robin Williams

Spend a weekday morning on Teays Valley Road between West Teays Elementary School and Hurricane High School, and Robin Williams will start to look more like a genius than a comedian.

Which is more than we can say for the people that plan for the morning school traffic on Teays Valley Road.

Monday through Friday, morning commuters get stuck behind hundreds of cars dropping off children at West Teays Elementary School and Hurricane High School.

There are a number of reasons for this:

1) Too many students that are too lazy to walk to school or ride a bicycle. (Yes, we know that our parents walked 40 blocks to school in the snow-one way. We've all heard those stories!)

2) Bad planning on the part of public officials.

Let's assume for a minute that parents are afraid to have their kids walking or riding a bicycle to school. Today, the fear of something happening to your child is legitimate.

So let's examine the other problem: poor planning by public officials.

Whoever put those schools on the same road, with inadequate turn-in lanes needs to take a class in traffic management.

Next to both West Teays and Hurricane High School there is room for a west-bound turn-in lane. Putnam County Schools needs to make that happen immediately. This would clear some room for people that are not dropping off children to pass the schools and get to work. Students would be able to watch the construction work every day and get real-life lessons in construction and traffic planning.

Where will the money come from? That's a good question. Here's the good answer: Rescind the planned raise for Superintendent Harold "Chuck" Hatfield. Paying a school administrator more than $100,000 a year is ridiculous. Cap administrator salaries at $75,000 a year. Use the savings for this special projects, classroom remodeling and additions. (Buffalo and Poca High Schools need a lot of work.)

Putnam County Schools officials also need to take action before they build the new elementary school down the street. Traffic around the schools is bad enough. Adding a third school to this mess is a lesson in bad planning. They will have morning commuters trapped in both directions unless something is done to prevent this.

The people of Putnam County have been great to our school system. We provide the excess levy to make sure our schools are properly funded. And our schools do a great job of educating our children.

Now the schools need to do a better job of letting people drive by their campuses every day!