Operation Click
Batavia High School and the Batavia Police Department are partners in Operation Click, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization that educates, promotes, and develops safe driving habits in an effort to reduce teen fatalities and injuries from motor vehicle crashes.
In a nutshell, Operation Click is a peer-enforced program that depends on students to monitor their friends’ driving habits. Teens recruit their peers to sign an “Operation Click contract,” which states that they will wear their seat belts at all times, they will not drink and drive, they will not ride in a car with a driver who has consumed alcohol, and they will not be convicted of any traffic-related violation. The teen leaders also perform seatbelt safety checks and distribute incentives on school grounds for students that show safe driving habits.
The following students served on the 2017-18 Batavia High School Operation Click executive board and were responsible for creating and implementing their own ideas to share safe driving habits:
- Allison Bleakley
- Julia Bobosky
- Kassie Hupach
- Thomas Larson
- Skylar Morris
- Emma Rydholm
- Rebecca Smith
- Christopher Theros
School resource officers assist the Operation Click executive boards within their schools. At BHS, Batavia Police Officer and SRO Justin Howe oversees the student executive board and is instrumental in the program’s success.
One of the items that the BHS executive board worked on with Officer Howe this school year was a safety belt survey. In the first survey, conducted on Nov. 1, 2017, it was revealed that 80% of Batavia student drivers were properly buckled. After several safe driving campaigns and repeated morning announcements at BHS, a follow up survey was done in April 2018. This survey revealed that 99% of students were properly buckled!
By securing proper safety belt compliance by the end of the school year and completing an end-of-school report to Operation Click, Batavia High School was eligible to be part of Operation Click’s $2,500 cash prize drawing.
Throughout the school year, BHS students were also eligible to win prizes from the high school’s primary sponsor, the Target store in Batavia, Ill. Sponsors play a key role in Operation Click, providing prizes to students who adhere to the terms of the Operation Click contract by following the rules of the road and making positive decisions in and out of school. This school year, Target Batavia gave $250 worth of prizes to BHS students as well as a grand prize iPad.
Incoming BHS senior Anthony Glisson was selected from the names of BHS students who signed the Operation Click contract to win the iPad. Anthony was presented with the iPad by Officer Howe and Target Batavia Senior Team Lead Jennifer Johnson and Executive Logistics Lead Maria Bermudez.
“I’d like to thank all of the students on the BHS Operation Click executive board who did an outstanding job encouraging students to sign the contract, organizing events at school to promote safe driving, and rewarding fellow students for safe driving,” said Officer Howe. “Our student leaders drive this program and work hard to bring valuable safety lessons to the entire student body.”
