Ken Carney, County Engineer, announced today that his office has developed a mobile educational safety program for local youth. The program is called the Engineer's "Safety Star" Workshop and will advocate safe pedestrian skills.

The workshop will interact with children in grades K thru 4, teaching and reinforcing the basic principals of safely crossing the street in a variety of situations. The Engineer's "Safety Star" team will be visiting elementary schools this spring as well as in the following school year throughout Lorain County.

To ensure the students can continually practice safety skills, our office will distribute information upon completion of the workshop for the students to take home. This information will reinforce what the students have learned in the workshop, while also encouraging the children to continue working on safety with their parents.

The idea for our program originated from the SRTS (Safe Route to School) Program. The intent of the SRTS program is to use a comprehensive approach to make school routes safe for children to walk and bicycle. Encouraging walking and bicycling will improve children's health; reduce congestion and air pollution around schools; teach bike and pedestrian skills.

The guidelines for this program have been developed by the Safe Route to School National Partnership, a coalition of national, state and local organizations, agencies and businesses advancing the National Safe Routes to School movement. These guide lines are the most important principals behind the execution of the national Safe Routes to School Program established in section 1404 of the 2005 federal surface transportation authorization bill, SAFETEA-LU.

This federal funding program is an important part of the larger Safe Routes to School movement. The Safe Route to School Program identifies the desired actions to be taken in the 5 E's:

• ENFORCEMENT
• EVALUATION
• ENCOURAGEMENT
• ENGINEERING
• EDUCATION

Our office has partnered with Clearview Schools, Elyria Township, Sheffield Township and Elyria Schools. Our program will satisfy the needs of the education portion of the SRTS program, but will be offered to any school that would like to utilize it. If the SRTS funds are obtained, our program will be expanded to incorporate grades 5 thru 8.