SDOC proposing New Student Driving Program

With the cost of their current program increasing, the School District of Oconee County (SDOC) is considering the adoption of a new program to educate students on safe driving skills. Drive Smart would also allow the district to tailor the program to individual school traffic patterns, explains Oconee County Schools Assistant Superintendent of Operations Steve Hanvey. “We’ve got a couple of our School Resource Officers; Adam Logan at Seneca High and Chris Roach at West-Oak High, who have worked on a driving class for our students. Currently they use Alive at 25, which is about a four hour class and cost our families $40 before they are allowed to park on school grounds. We would offer this class, still be about a four hour, same kind of thing; safe driving, preventative driving and we could also incorporate things that are more localized like the driving patterns for our specific schools. We would charge $25 to cover the cost of the School Resource Officer who is teaching the class and then we would put the remaining money in a fund to be used to re-stripe parking lots, help repave parking lots and to do general maintenance work on our parking lots. So, it goes directly back to where the students are driving. So, we hope that the board will approve that at the next meeting and we can move forward with that program. We are very appreciative of the work that Officer Logan and Officer Roach have put in to prepare this program.” The Board of Trustees for the SDOC heard a presentation on the Drive Smart program at their work session meeting Monday night. Pending final approval, the Drive Smart program would be implemented as soon as possible to start educating students. This program would replace Alive at 25 and be required in order for students to park at school in the SDOC.