The new school year is barely a week old, and already parents and students have received stranger danger reminders from Millard, Westside and Elkhorn.
Parents wanted to use the alerts to remind their children about safety when traveling to and from school.
“It makes me really nervous and kind of sad that the kids can't just walk to school by themselves and we have to call from work and check on them to make sure they got home okay,” says Shelly Anderson.
Anderson has five kids who go to school nearby - three of them go to Millard South -- a school which sent a stranger danger alert last week. She says she talked to her kids about being more vigilant with their surroundings while commuting to school.
“I've talked to all of them, if they see anything or if someone approaches them, I told them to make loud noises, to scream, to run to any of our neighbors houses, we know a lot of them around the corner and down the street and to just run and pound on a door and just get as much attention you can on yourself,” says Anderson.
Mallary Armstrong-Douglas says she’s had to become a stricter mom and walks her son to school every morning.
“There's this chalkboard next to our door now so that we're constantly in contact with him, and we were like that before, but even more so knowing that we're in the area. We want to make sure we always know where he’s at and that he’s safe,” says Armstrong.
Bernie Recek has lived near Millard South for nearly 30 years. He says he’s noticing more parents escorting their kids to school.
"Traffic here in the morning and afternoon is unbelievable,” says Recek. “They go back and forth and the people around here can't even get out of their driveways because of the parents parking here to take their kids to class.”
Christopher Leyva, a fifth-grader says he too has become more conscious of his surroundings and uses the buddy system to walk to school.
“In the mornings, I started doing this thing where I pick up some friends and we start walking to school and then when I walk back home, I check out if there's any truck or anything alarming,” says Leyva.
