Heather Barrett, a science teacher at East Hall High School, one of the SPDG GraduateFIRST project schools, has been working for years on keeping all her students alive long enough to graduate. “I definitely think our campaign reaches some kids. And I really do believe it has had an impact” she said. The campaign is the creation of the “Great Hang Up” group she formed to teach students about the dangers of texting while driving.

This has been an exciting learning experience for the northeast Georgia teacher and her students as well. On May 21 they were competing with 20 other US schools for a $10,000 national prize from actoutloud.com. The Great Hang Up team was hoping to take its message across the country. Unfortunately, they only came in 7^th place with 200,000 online votes.

Barrett is cheered by the successes her students experienced in this process. "We applied for a SADD (Students Against Dangerous Driving) grant through Pioneer RESA to continue the work that has already been done. I had one student cross the campus to tell me about their grandfather who got into a wreck while he was talking on his cell phone,” she said.

The group, according to Barrett, was completely run by the students under the leadership of a group of seven students who were “very involved.”   She said the students took the message about the dangers of texting while driving to every media outlet they could think of.  “We were on 11Alive television, WDUN radio...we even went to the Oprah show on April 30."  The Oprah show was specifically about texting while driving dangers and there were televised rallies in five cities. Barrett’s group attended the Ga. Tech rally. “We could see the banners on TV. They didn’t get interviewed, but they were so excited to see what they could achieve,” Barrett said. “The students were so in awe of the celebrities who attended Oprah’s No Phone Zone rallies. They will never forget that experience.”  They also received a letter from Ga. Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and got lots of hits on facebook.

Best of all, Georgia legislature passed texting laws which will go into effect on July 1, 2010.  The law prohibits anyone over the age of 18 from using wireless communication to write, send or read any text based communication while driving. It prevents anyone under the age of 18 to use a wireless communication device while driving. For more information on the law go to: www.drivinglaws.org/georgia.php

Barrett said she believes that the efforts of the Great Hang Up group helped to pass these new laws.

They are hoping to be present when Gov. Sonny Perdue signs the law.