By Melissa Byrd, Orange County School Board District 7

What an incredibly difficult week for our community. 

Last weekend, our Apopka community suffered the devastating loss of three young students in a single car accident. The same accident left three additional young people injured and in the hospital at the time of this writing. 

By now, you probably know that two of the students who passed away were students at Apopka High School and one was a student at Kelly Park School. This incident is unlike anything I have experienced in my time on the school board. 

We have certainly lost students, but never three at once. Every time tragedy strikes and our community or schools have to grieve the loss of a young life, it hurts. It is a pain compounded by thoughts of what could have been. The lost futures, hopes and dreams. Utter sadness is the only way to describe it. 

For our schools to have to say goodbye to three young lives filled with all that promise is beyond what anyone should ever have to deal with. Yet our community shows strength and warmth as messages of comfort flooded social media in the wake of this tragedy from our entire Orange County community. 

Last year, our OCPS community lost two students in automobile accidents. At that time, I called on parents to have tough discussions with their children about driving safely. I’m going to ask the same this time.  

As a parent, I know that the most frightening thing to do is to turn those keys over to our children. It’s important to frequently remind young drivers of the great responsibility that comes with driving. 

The Florida Department of Highway Safety website has a lot of important information for teen drivers and many recommendations to keep kids safe, including limiting nighttime driving, the number of passengers, keeping music volume down, maintaining vehicles and of course making sure everyone in the vehicle buckles up. 

While I don’t know the circumstances of last week’s accident, I do know that we can all try to arm our children with every possible advantage to keep them safe, and frequently reviewing safe driving practices is one way we can do that. 

I want to thank our community for your support and kindness you have shown to our schools this past week. May we continue to be a source of strength for the families, students and staff affected by this loss.