North Allegheny student wins bus poster trophy

Ananyasri Boddupalli, a first-grader at Franklin Elementary, won second place in the Pennsylvania School Bus Safety poster contest.

Ananyasri submitted the poster on her own when she was in kindergarten last spring and she was one of nine winners throughout the state. The contest was held by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and Pennsylvania State Police.

Ananyasri received a second-place trophy, an achievement certificate signed by the Director of PennDOT’s Driver and Vehicles Services Kara Templeton, and a citation from the state House of Representatives signed by Rep. Ron Mercuri, R-Wexford, and two others.

She traveled to Harrisburg earlier this month with Franklin Elementary Assistant Principal Tommie Guess to receive her awards.

“The Franklin Elementary School staff and students are proud of first grader Ananyasri Boddupalli. She took the initiative last year as a kindergarten student to enter the statewide School Bus Safety poster contest hosted by PennDOT and has won second place in her division. While her artwork is surely award winning, her participation in a school bus safety contest is to be commended,” Guess said.

Ananyasri won in the kindergarten through second-grade division. Other divisions included third through fifth and sixth through eighth grades.

“Thank you to Ananyasri for bringing school bus safety awareness to her classmates. Thank you to all of the bus drivers, school staff, and community members that help keep our children safe on their ways to and from school,” Guess said.

This year’s winners were chosen from more than 400 student entries from schools across Pennsylvania.

The first-place entries will be moved on to the national competition, which will be judged at the end of this month.

This year’s poster theme was “1 Bus + 1 Driver = A Big Impact on Education.” The third week in October is nationally recognized as School Bus Safety week.

As part of the National School Bus Safety week, members of the McCandless Police Department and Northern Regional Police Department spent the week following several district buses, observing traffic patterns and driver behavior during the bus routes.

“The safety of our children is of the utmost importance to the Officers of Northern Regional Police Department,”said John Sicilia, chief of police for the Northern Regional Police Department. “One offense we see most often and diligently enforce is (vehicles) passing a school bus once their red flashing lights have been activated. If stopped for this violation, the motorist can expect a $250 fine plus costs, 5 points assessed to their drivers license and 60-day suspension of their driving privileges.”

School buses are safer than driving a car, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fact page. Less than 1 percent of all traffic fatalities involve children on school transportation. But they are more at risk when boarding or deboarding a bus.

The North Allegheny Transportation Department transports more than 8,500 NASD students to and from school on a daily basis and almost 10,000 total students, including private and parochial schools, according to Mark Trichtinger, Director of Operations.

The school district said it is looking for additional drivers, said Trichtinger.

More information is available at the transportation page at the North Allegheny School District website at www.northallegheny.org/Page/299.