The Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) announces that, beginning in January 2009, students from three Sacramento County high schools and three middle schools will be helping promote traffic safety among their peers.
Funding from the California Office of Traffic Safety and provided through the California Friday Night Live Partnership office will allow student-led projects offered by SCOE to teach teens and their families about traffic safety.
Students at Franklin High School and Cosumnes Oaks High School, in the Elk Grove Unified School District, will focus on traffic safety and underage drinking prevention to increase student, parent and faculty knowledge and improve behaviors related to these issues. Students at these schools will conduct a "Click It Challenge" to encourage students, parents, school staff and the community to increase seatbelt usage. An underage drinking prevention campaign will educate students, parents and school staff and involve a Parent Pledge drive as well.
Student leaders with the FNL chapter at Rio Americano High School, in the San Juan Unified School District, will work with adult allies to create change through parent education, community forums and events, and other activities to enhance the message delivered by the Every Fifteen Minutes program. The Every Fifteen Minutes program is an educational experience focusing on the dangers associated with driving while impaired.
The Rio Americano FNL chapter will follow up the Every Fifteen Minutes program with a campaign that builds upon the anti-drinking and driving message delivered through the Every Fifteen Minutes program. Among other activities, the chapter will host an assembly before graduation to emphasize the anti-drinking and driving messages.
Sixty students from Will Rogers Middle School, Del Campo High School (San Juan Unified), Will C. Wood Middle School, Hiram Johnson High School (Sacramento City Unified), Grant High School, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Tech Academy (Twin Rivers Unified) will promote traffic safety messages and a Seatbelt Safety Challenge. High school student mentors will guide middle school student proteges in creating traffic safety campaigns for their school communities. Students will involve parents in their activities, including conducting a Parent Pledge event at each school's Open House event in the spring.
For more information about the program, contact Joelle Orrock, Coordinator, Friday Night Live/Club Live, at (916) 228-2418.