25,000 SJ students start school with traffic safety top of mind for parents, city officials

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- Twenty-five thousand students in the San Jose Unified School District's 41 schools started school on Thursday.

Sixth grader Jordan Rios started middle school at Willow Glen Middle School.

"I'm a little excited and happy," Rios said. "I'm excited to go to my new school."

Sixth grader Mia Capiral can relate to the mix of emotions.

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"Exciting and nervous," she said. "'Cuz it's new to me."

For parents, safety is top of mind.

"I always walk them to school," said Jose Rios, father of Jordan. "So, I always get out of my car and take them to school. And see them off and then leave from there. That's just my routine."

"So far, we didn't find any trouble on crossing, all the way to Malone (Road) to here," said Ivan Capiral, father of Mia. "So far, the traffic is good."

San Jose is urging drivers to slow down when they're around school zones and look out for students walking to and from campuses.

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Colin Heyne with the San Jose Department of Transportation said the police department is going to be stepping up enforcement around schools. And there's more:

"We're going to be rolling out electronic message boards near school sites where we know there's high traffic volumes or high traffic speeds nearby," Heyne said. "We also have a school safety initiative that has begun a long project of upgrading hundreds of crosswalks near schools to high visibility crosswalks."

He said those crosswalks are referred to as ladder style. They have lines on each side.

Heyne said this makes the crosswalks more visible to cars from a greater distance away.