By: Kalyn Baldwin

During Oct. 22-26, Shelby County Schools will be participating in National School Bus Safety Week.

National School Bus Safety Week is an active and evolving public education program, that encourages parents, students, teachers, motorists, school bus operators, school administrators, and other interested participants to get involved in the importance of school bus safety.

The program gives tips to those in the community on how they can be safe walking to the bus stop while waiting on their bus, getting on and off the bus and how to be safe when driving on the road with buses.

Buster the bus, a robotic kid friendly bus, will be coming to each elementary and intermediate school in the system to show our kids how to sit safely on the school bus and to demonstrate what the safety zones are.

Shelby County Schools’ buses will also be piloting new stop-arm cameras to take a picture of the license plate of cars that do not stop for our school buses. They will operate like red light cameras and will be sent directly to the transportation services office to communicate with the sheriff’s department. The police will then move forward with writing a citation to the driver. Shelby County is one of the first school systems in the state to pilot this plan and hopes that this will cut back on this safety related issue.

“We want to make strides in safety, and make sure these safety tips stick with the community past this week,” Brent Copes, Shelby County School’s Transportation Supervisor states. “We have 11,000 students that ride our buses, and where there is a bus, there will always be children. We just want the public to be aware of their surroundings when they are driving so our kids can get where they need to go safely.”

For more information on National School Bus Safety Week, visit https://www.napt.org/nsbsw.