CTE criminal justice students safer drive awareness campaign wins 1st place

CTE criminal justice students safer drive awareness campaign wins 1st place

West Shore School News is a presentation of West Shore Educational Service District in partnership with Mason County Press and Oceana County Press. 

VICTORY TOWNSHIP — The West Shore Educational Service District’s Career Technical Education (CTE) criminal justice program recently won first place in the Strive 4 A Safer Drive awareness campaign.

Strive for a Safer Drive (S4SD) is a teen driving initiative sponsored by Ford Driving Skills for Life and the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning. It aims at reducing serious traffic crashes, injuries, and fatalities among Michigan’s most inexperienced drivers – teens.  The campaign runs from December through mid-April.  The campaign focuses on educating teens and the community on the dangers of impaired driving and how drugs and alcohol slows your reaction time and affects your ability to process information.

One of the components of the campaign is the creation of a billboard. This year’s billboard, drawn as a cartoon by criminal justice student Taylor Bolton, a student at Ludington High School, has been on display on the north side of US 10-31 east of Brye Road in Amber Township. 

Additionally to the billboard, the 25 students in the program created a website and ran a series of informational social media videos discussing the effects of impaired driving. They also hosted an awareness event at West Shore Community College in early March. 

“Representatives from the Ford Motor Company and the Michigan Office of Highway Safety Planning (OHSP) were very impressed by the quality of your team’s campaign,” Kayla Thomas-Wright, program coordinator for Strive 4 A Safer Drive, wrote to instructor Chrysten Gregory. “It is the creativity and effective programming from schools such as yours that continue to set the standards high. We truly appreciate all of your hard work.”

In recognition of their efforts and success, the West Shore CTE team will receive a cash award of $1,500. It will also participate in the Ford Driving Skills for Life hands-on event June 3 and 4 in Carleton. 

“Your group of students worked extremely hard to make a difference in their peers’ safe driving habits and their ambition throughout the campaign was very inspiring,” Thomas-Wright wrote. “A team’s ability to have a lasting impact relies on the assistance of their school system and we greatly appreciate your support throughout the school year.”