Keeping Student Safety First – with Reflectors

--- Published on October 30th 2013 ---
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Schools

The message is simple: Safety first.

Every Natomas Unified School District student in kindergarten through eighth grades is receiving a school-bus yellow reflector to attach to their backpacks or jackets this week, improving their visibility to vehicles while walking or biking.

Most of the reflectors were distributed October 30th at elementary and middle school campuses. Reflective zipper pulls are available at high schools, too, as part of the district’s continuing efforts to keep students safe as they travel to and from school.

“Any time we can do anything for prevention, it’s a step in the right direction,” said Leslie Sargent, principal at Two Rivers Elementary School.  “Every little bit helps to get drivers’ attention, because there are parts of Natomas that are pretty dark.”

In distributing the reflectors, imprinted with a Natomas Unified School District logo, principals broadcast a safety message to classrooms.  “After receiving a zipper pull, don’t put it in your pocket,” they told students. “At your teacher’s signal, walk quietly to your backpack, attach it immediately,  then return to your seat. Please use these zipper pulls every day, because nothing is more important to us than you are.”

Students clearly got the message.

Asked why he was given a reflector, a first-grader at Heron Elementary School said simply, “So we will be more safe.”

In teacher Colleen Perry’s class at Two Rivers Elementary, fourth-graders used more words than the Heron first-grader but conveyed the same bottom line.

Nora, 9, said that Mrs. Perry had explained that zipper pulls reflect cars’ headlights and “show people that there’s someone there.”

Johanna, 9, said that drivers need to pay more attention, too. She walks to school with an adult, but some motorists don’t see the adult, she said. Natomas Unified asks everyone reading this to remind a neighbor to drive with our students’ safety in mind.