FROM STAFF REPORTS

Fifty-two Shelby County Alternative School students recently signed the parent-teen driving contract and will be taking the contract home to discuss it with their parents or guardians.

SCAS Principal Mark Isley is on the parent/teen driving committee with the Shelby County Coalition for Safe and Drug free communities, in which he is on, and he said he came out a firm believer that the real problem is not the student — it’s the parent.

“We are the problem,” Isley said. “We would not want an airline pilot to fly us to Houston, Texas if he/she had not been properly trained. But, we parents provide a car to our children when they turn 16 with little or no training. And,

we wonder why more than 6,000 teenagers will die in 2008 in America directly from accidents while driving.”

Allstate’s Family Agency, Inc. provided students with T-shirts, literature and the parent-student contracts.