Students in the Orange County School District head back to school next week, but before they do, school leaders and deputies want to remind the community to slow down.
It’s something that should go without saying, but every school year, a child is hit by a vehicle getting on or off the bus, or while walking to school.
A total of 902 buses will hit the road on Monday, cruising through 23,000 bus routes and picking up nearly 70,000 students.
Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said at a news conference Friday morning that there will be extra enforcement throughout the county, plus a zero-tolerance policy for drivers who don’t stop for school buses with the stop arms extended and those who speed through school zones.
Students will also be equipped with district-owned laptops.
“Instead of paper, pencil and textbooks, they’ll carrying laptops,” said Orange County Superintendent Barbara Jenkins.
Taxpayers paid for them with for a half-cent sales tax.
Jenkins said the laptops are secure and won’t be an easy thing for thieves to take.
“(A couple of) folks tried it last year. They thought they might be able to get away with one. We tracked one down all the way in Tampa. They are encrypted, they are engraved, they are virtually theft-proof,” Jenkins said.
“Anyone in this community that preys upon the most precious commodity we have, our children, and takes or steals one of these laptops from them, we are going to look to prosecute that person with the fullest extent of the law we can,” Demings said.
Cox Media Group
