Cumberland County, Stone Memorial, and Van Buren County High Schools honored as gold award winners in the Tennessee Highway Safety Office’s Reduce TN Crashes program.
Criminal Justice Teacher Kylee Johnson supervises the Stone Memorial chapter, which finished 10th in the state. Johnson said the Criminal Justice Club has been headlining the program, which encourages students to practice safe driving.
“That’s just something we take near and dear to our hearts,” Johnson said. “Or even just an injury of any sort to any of our students, it kind of, it’s very impactful to us. So we want to do anything we can to keep our students safe and spreading the word of safety while they are driving.”
Johnson said several former Cumberland County students have lost their lives in crashes. She said even one traffic death is too many. Johnson said the program has helped students become more mindful of traffic laws.
Johnson said texting and driving is a point of emphasis, as is wearing a seat belt. She said program students are educated on the consequences of these things, as well as some real life application.
“They have really stepped up and started practicing safe driving due to the way we have reached out to them and spoke to them about it,” Johnson said. “And giving them some real life examples of incidents that have happened here locally, even.”
Johnson said the school system is a great place to educate students about safe driving because of the amount of time students spend there. Johnson said outreach outside the classroom has come through social media and community involvement.
“We have students signing pledges to drive safe, and we kind of go to all these events,” Johnson said. “The Cumberland County Fair, the rivalry game locally here between CCHS and SMHS. We partner with CCHS who is also another top school, and we usually do these events together.”
Johnson said the program has helped students take ownership of their safety on the roadways, as well as the safety of their peers and classmates.
Stone Memorial High School received the gold award because it earned over 3,000 points through Reduce TN Crashes activities. It placed tenth out of 16 qualifying high schools. Cumberland County High School placed 12th, and Van Buren County High School was 16th.
