Safety should be the first thing on everyone’s mind tomorrow as parents wake their kids up for the first day of school.

There will be many kids out and about tomorrow who are new to the school system, and it is imperative that drivers keep this in mind while they are traveling through a school zone either in the morning or the afternoon.

The schools have already set out their safety plans for this year, including pick-up and drop-off zones for parents, which are separate for bus riders.

Buses are another big part of the first day of school that drivers should be aware of.

For the past few months, drivers have not had to stop behind a school bus while kids were loading and un-loading.

Tomorrow, there will be many buses out on the road having to make several stops for children along their routes.

If you are not used to the stops that a bus makes on the roads that you travel then remember not to travel too close to the bus in case it has to make a stop, don’t drive up on a bus too fast to ensure that you have time to stop your vehicle before striking the bus, and never try to pass a bus.

If your child was one of the many that have to ride a school bus to and from school, then you would follow these rules and would want to make sure that everyone else on the roadway followed them as well. When it comes to the lives of our children, we can never be too careful.

To ensure that people are following the rules of the road through the first week of school or so, many of the police departments are going to have extra patrol out either directing traffic through school zones or stopping people who are endangering children’s lives by breaking the law.

If our community works together during the school year, no parents should have to spend time worrying whether their child is safe while on the road to school.