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“I don’t know this person! Call the police!” cried the chorus of small voices in Lusher Elementary’s gymnasium. The students were not in any real trouble, they simply followed the instructions of adults who led them through Safety Street, sponsored by St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Lusher Elementary is the first school in the Hazelwood School District to utilize this learning tool.

Set up in the school gym, Safety Street is an interactive facsimile of a town, complete with streets, working stoplights, sidewalks, a railroad crossing and carts on casters made to resemble cars, an ambulance, a Metrolink train and a school bus. Cardboard standees, representing dogs and strangers, faced the children in a few places.

Its goal is to teach children in kindergarten, first and second grade to navigate safely through their neighborhoods to cut down on injuries and fatalities related to motor vehicles and other challenges that children face in urban and suburban areas.

“This is our fifth year doing Safety Street,” said Michelle Mitchell, Safety Street’s coordinator. “We are really excited about working with the newer districts to the program, like Hazelwood. We target K-12 schools for Safety Street because the earlier you start, the better. The kids really remember what we say here.”

Lusher parent volunteers Diann Myers and Karen Bathke admitted children in groups of five or six and they started their lesson in front of the “school”.

Their goal is to get “home” safely. Students looked around wide-eyed as Myers and Bathke started their lectures and showing their charges around town. Many students already knew to stay on the sidewalk and to look both ways before crossing streets at the crosswalks.

The students’ motion triggered a sensor that played a recording of dogs barking near the “school.” Myers’ group quickly learned two things when dealing with dogs – if they bark, walk away and if chased by a dog, not to run but to get down on the pavement, face first and to cover the back of their necks with interlocked fingers. The nape of the neck is one of the first places a dog will try to bite, Myers said.

Mitchell and co-worker Jamie Zajac cruised past in Volkswagen Beetles, obeying the Safety Street stop signs and stoplights just as real drivers do. While they clattered around the town, a second group of students came into the gym with Bathke.

Other lessons the students received included what to do if approached by strangers, to watch for vehicles backing out of alleys and driveways and how to read stoplight and crosswalk signals. Myers and Bathke rehearsed the stranger response a few times with their groups to rid the children of their shyness and soon, several small voices cried out the new phrases they had been taught.

Students were tested on what they learned as well. Midway through town, one of the cars pulled up alongside the group and the Mitchell, portraying a stranger, tried to persuade the boys and girls to get into her car. She told them she had candy and money and the car’s air conditioning on so it was nice and cool inside. None of the kids took the bait.

At the end of the tour, students received coloring books and magnets to take home with them.
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