The process of getting on the right school bus just got a lot easier for local junior and senior kindergarten students. Southwestern Ontario Student Transportation Services is introducing an upgraded safety program this September for their youngest riders. General Manager Maureen Cosyn Heath tells Heart FM the students were mailed out colour coded bus shaped tags in late July to attach to their backpacks. "The colours are coded to match the sign on the inside window of the bus. So a little one with a blue tags gets on bus number 2 which is the blue bus. A little one with a purple tag gets on bus 7 which is the purple bus." "We introduced a green jk, sk tag a number of years ago to identify the littlest riders because they take longer sometime to get on the bus, they need help, the stairs are very high when they are just three years old and they need to be met at the bus stop by a responsible person so we needed a way to identify them." Heath says students are younger now, sometimes just three years old. "Hopefully one of the early things they learn how to do is match their colours and we hope this is a good blend of early literacy skills and a great safety feature for our users." Over 5000 tags have been mailed out for September. A School Bus Safety Day is also planned for the kids on August 17 from 10-noon at St Marys high school where parents can take the first bus ride with their child.

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