Since the start of the school year, Simpson County’s youngest students have been much harder to miss in bright reflective safety vests. 

Simpson County Schools Superintendent James Flynn said the decision to have preschool and kindergarten students wear the vests was the result of an increased focus on safety following a September 2015 incident in which Butler County kindergartner Jaden Hawkins was killed after the bus he’d been riding hit him as the driver was pulling away.

“It makes you see that this could happen anywhere at any time,” he said.   

Rachel Fairman, principal of Franklin Elementary School, said the goal is to make students more visible when they enter and exit the district’s buses.

“We wanted to make sure we were providing as much safety in our buses as possible,” she said, adding that when students are that young they need extra supervision.  

“Those are our smallest children,” she said. “They’re the ones that typically need the most guidance.”  

In the district, roughly 165 preschoolers and kindergarteners ride buses back home from school, she said.

While the district can’t ensure that students will leave home wearing the vests, staff at Franklin Elementary School will make sure each student has one of the vests even if that means providing them with a new one, Fairman said.  

They will always go home with a vest,” she said. 

The vests are funded by the district without any grant assistance, Fairman said.  

“They’re just a couple dollars apiece,” she said. “It’s a very minimal cost compared to the safety we want to provide for them.”  

Transportation manager Tammy Pendleton said children leaving home without their vests is fairly rare. 

“The parents are really good about putting them on (their children) in the morning,” she said.

Parents have been highly receptive of the vests, she said, adding that for the district and the parents, children’s safety is important.  

The district has a policy of not leaving preschool and kindergarten students at any stop unless a parent is there and the vests make it easier for drivers to determine which students need a parental pickup, Pendleton said. 

In the event that a kindergarten or preschool student’s parent or guardian isn’t on-site, the district’s policy requires the bus driver to radio the district, where someone will try to reach a guardian, she said. From there, if a parent or guardian still cannot be found, the child stays on the bus for the rest of the route and is taken to the transportation office for supervision until a parent or guardian can assume responsibility for them, she said.

The vests, by making the students easier to see, increases their safety and greatly reduces their chances of being left near their homes without a parent or guardian nearby, Pendleton said.     

“We were really excited to get this approved and get this implemented in Simpson County and I anticipate we’ll be using it for years to come,” she said.

Other school districts around the region have had the safety vests for their young students for a few years.

— Follow Daily News reporter Jackson French on Twitter @Jackson_French or visit bgdailynews.com.