As students and parents in the Castle Country area rejoice over the start of school, one important topic lingers in everyone’s mind, school safety. Whether it be traveling to or from school, or when the students are at school, safety is always on the mind. Aiding the crusade for school safety is School Resource Officers (SROs). Frankie Tapia is one of those SROs, and he joined Castle Country Radio to give some tips for back-to-school safety for students and citizens alike.
Opening our conversation, Tapia explained what an SRO is,” all the SROs in the district work together. So there’s an SRO at Carbon High School, the middle schools and elementary schools, but we all have our respective schools.” He continued,” Our job is to stay in the schools and handle any problems that arise and to make sure that the security is good for the schools.”
Jumping into the topic of safety for students, Tapia gave out the following tips,” It’s pretty basic as far as going to crosswalks, and making sure that you stop at those crosswalks. Look both ways and don’t cross the road behind vehicles. If you’re riding your bike to school, always ride in the same direction of traffic and wear your helmet. And then also just be wary of all the vehicles on the road.”
Tapia then shifted his attention to measures the community can take to protect our students,” I would have them slow down. I know it’s easy in the summer, you drive by a school and you’re not thinking much about it, but now there are tons of kids out walking and exiting or going to activities outside the school. So I advise people to slow down and pay attention.” Tapia also shared,” Take that extra minute to get to work and watch out for those kiddos, they don’t always make the best decisions about running across the road; so we’ve got to be ready as far as drivers go.”
Another point of emphasis for Tapia was properly following the laws around school buses,” The law was updated this year that if any drivers do not obey the school bus stop sign, and they proceed to drive through it, it’s a severe penalty now to do so. That’s another reason for you to stop for those school buses.” Penalties for these violations can include up to a $1,000 fine and 20 hours of community service for a first offense, and up to $3,000 and 40 hours of community service for each subsequent offense.
Ending our conversation, Officer Tapia left everyone with this,” I just hope the kids have a great school year and I’m excited to be a part of it. Go and support all of our kids and their activities throughout the school year, whether it’s Carbon High, the middle schoolers or the elementary schools.”