Wauconda police partner with Dist. 118 for bus safety

Submitted by Wauconda Police Department

The Wauconda Police Department has teamed up with Wauconda Community Unit School District 118 and Wauconda Dist. 118 Transportation Services to ensure the safety of students being transported on their buses.

Due to the large volume of complaints from the bus drivers, the Wauconda Police Department decided to team up with District 118 to not only enforce school bus laws but promote awareness. Recently, the Wauconda Police Department created a Facebook post to promote school bus safety and driver awareness. The post received over 311,000 views within a few days and the responses from the community were overwhelmingly positive. In addition, District 118 students had an opportunity to bond with officers from Wauconda Police Department while officers rode their buses.

"There have been up to 12 violations on specific routes per day," said Rick Strauss, District 118 supervisor of transportation.

In addition to the stop-arm violation video camera on certain buses, the Wauconda Police Department has placed the school resource officer, Detective Wich, on the bus with the students. While riding the bus, Wich spots violations and calls them out to uniformed officers waiting in the area.

This partnership will be periodic and will continue throughout the school year. The goal is to reduce stop-arm violations to zero.

"The Wauconda Police Department is committed to the safety and well-being of the community," said Wauconda Chief David Wermes.

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