FORT MILL -- The Fort Mill school district will consider making voluntary safe driving classes for students mandatory after a pair of deadly crashes in the last nine days involving Nation Ford High School teens, school officials said Tuesday.
The deaths have sparked “overwhelming concern from parents,” over safety and have pushed police and school officials to plan a parents-only meeting for 6:30 p.m. Oct. 29 to promote the safe driving class called “Alive at 25.”
The Fort Mill Police Department's school resource officers in high schools have been “bombarded with questions from parents” over the safety program in the last few days, said Cpl. Millie Little, instructor of the Alive at 25 program and a school resource officer at Fort Mill High School.
The Oct. 29 meeting will tell parents from both district high schools what teens can learn in the Alive at 25 program. Little describes the program as a “behavior of driving” four-hour class that has been offered for the past year-plus as an optional class costing $35.
Luke Hoover, a 17-year-old senior at Nation Ford, died Saturday night after a crash on Holbrook Road. On Oct. 12, junior Michelle DiBernardini, 16, died after a crash in which she was a passenger.
Almost 900 students at both the district's high schools regularly drive to school, Little said. Last year, school board member Pat White urged the school district to make the Alive at 25 class mandatory for all students who want to get a school parking pass.
The district decided to make the program voluntary because of the cost to parents at a time the economy was in rough shape, said Beverly Bowman, Nation Ford High principal. The schools advertised and promoted the program from its inception, Bowman said, encouraging teens to take the class. Bowman said Tuesday she supports all student drivers taking the class.
After DiBernardini's death last week — but before Hoover died — White asked the school board through e-mails to other individual members to reconsider making the class mandatory. With another death, there is no time to waste, White said Tuesday.
“In light of what has happened, it is time to take a stand,” White said.
Discussion of making the Alive at 25 program mandatory has been added to the Nov. 9 school board meeting agenda, said Keith Callicutt, district superintendent.
“If it helps save a student's life, it is worth every effort,” he said.
Alive at 25 focuses on young drivers that statistics show get in far more collisions and die far more often than any other age group of drivers, said Steve Deibel, traffic safety coordinator for the South Carolina Chapter of the National Safety Council. The council is a nonprofit group that administers the Alive at 25 program and charges a fee to pay for instructors and course materials.
The program, which teaches about seat belt use, the distractions of cell phones and text messaging, alcohol and drug use, speeding, weather, the distractions of passengers and other driving factors, has produced striking, positive results statewide since its inception in 2007, Deibel said.
Almost 19,000 people ages 15 to 24 have taken the class in high schools, technical colleges and in the court system in the past two years, Deibel said, with five fatalities afterward involving people who took the class. South Carolina has seen 570 fatalities for people in the same age group who hadn't taken Alive at 25, he said.
Neither of the teens who died in the past nine days took the class, Bowman said. However, neither of the teens who died was on the way to or from any school-related activity.
About half of the state's 41 school districts who offer Alive at 25 make it mandatory for student drivers, Deibel said. The Oct. 29 parent meeting will include National Safety Council staff, he said.
“The recent events have caught people's attention, so we want to do all we can right now to try and get the word out,” said Little, the school resource officer. “We want to promote the program and give parents information that this is a class that could help keep young drivers safe.”
Alive at 25 has proven to be successful and can be a plus not just for school safety but community safety, said Jeff Helms, Fort Mill Police chief.
The next Alive at 25 class is scheduled for Nov. 7 at Nation Ford, but Little said more classes could be added if demand increases.
Andrew Dys 803-329-4065
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