At a meeting of the New Paltz Board of Education last week, Greger shared a presentation on school bus safety, his Eagle Scout project, which will not only help him attain the highest rank in the Scouts BSA program but will also give young students in the district now and in the future a relatable lesson about the importance of school bus safety.
“Riding the school bus was kind of one of those important things to me as a kid,” said Greger in an interview with Hudson Valley One. “I was always the one who helped the bus drivers and the substitutes who didn’t know the routes. I was there guiding them. And over time, I started to learn their names, their bus routes. Bus drivers connected me to school, they were part of my day … So I wanted to do a project that really was meaningful to me and that was going to make a difference, and I thought, why not the school bus? Something unique.”
Like many districts in the Hudson Valley, the New Paltz Central School District covers a lot of geographic territory, with its buses traveling over one million miles per year. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there are over 17,000 school bus-related injuries per year around the United States. The top causes of school bus-related injuries are around boarding and exiting, distracted driving caused by student behavior, injuries outside the bus and evacuating in an emergency.
“Kids sometimes rush to get on the bus, and sometimes the bus is not fully stopped, or they rush to get off the bus and they trip,” said Greger at the Wednesday, December 4 school board meeting. “And hopping around in seats, having a good time on the bus, that can lead to distracted driving, which actually causes injuries. And injuries outside of the school bus, where basically it’s called the danger zone, which we drivers know as the blind spot, is a 10-50 foot radius all around the bus where the driver can’t see the student.”
Last week, Greger said he considered three or four different ideas for his Eagle Scout project before deciding on school bus safety. The project fits the criteria of an Eagle Scout project in that it’s a community service project, it demonstrates leadership skills, displays project management skills and provides organizational and presentational skills.
For his project, Greger created a school bus safety video geared toward younger students, who, if they learn the basics at a young age, can take these tips with them throughout their elementary and secondary school careers.
“Over the summer I went on a Lenape summer school bus route where I filmed a route of kids getting on and off the bus, getting out of the bus in an emergency and being safe around the bus,” Greger said. “And I also recorded a voiceover at the Duzine Elementary School to compose about a five-minute video for the district.”
In the video, students are seen demonstrating poor school bus safety behavior, followed by them doing it the right way. Greger received permission from the parents of all students who participated in the video project.
Greger, who is part of an early college high school program, is both a New Paltz High School senior and a full-time student at SUNY Ulster, and he used editing software he learned this year to create the video.
Though he was unable to share the full video at the school board meeting, Greger did provide a transcript of his voiceover, which shares commonsense tips about how students can play a part in ensuring everyone is safe on the school bus.
“Your attention to safety makes a big difference,” concludes the voiceover. “Let’s make sure every ride is safe and enjoyable for everyone.”
Greger also created gift bags for kindergarteners, which include a coloring packet, a school bus safety pencil and a school bus safety bookmark. He will distribute those to Duzine kindergartners soon.
District officials were impressed enough that they plan to share the completed safety video on the NPCSD website and social media channels. Greger will also have to impress a panel of three Boy Scout leaders as part of the Eagle Scout project review, which will take place sometime after his 18th birthday next month.
After that, Greger hopes to polish his video enough so that it has a local appeal beyond New Paltz.
“The original plan was for the New Paltz Central School District, but there’s no reason why it can’t be used as an example for other schools,” Greger said. “So it’s not just a local impact, it’s actually kind of a regional impact, specifically in the Hudson Valley. It takes the whole level of the project and what it affects and who it impacts on a whole other level, which is great.”
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