CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The West Virginia Board of Education is a driving force behind keeping students safe on the road.  On Wednesday the board adopted  updated state driver education content standards to add rigor and address distracted driving that poor use of today’s technology can cause.

Updates to Policy 2520.8, Next Generation Driver Education Content Standards and Objectives for West Virginia were suggested by teachers during the West Virginia Safety and Driver Education Conference in March. Teachers who worked on the proposed changes said the growing use of cell phones, GPS, and other technologies while driving has made distractive driving an issue soon to surpass driving under the influence as the major cause of car crashes among teenagers, accounting for 25 percent of all accidents, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“In this electronic age, distracted driving is leading to more and more accidents,” said state Superintendent Jorea Marple. “It is our responsibility as parents, students, bus operators, motorists and school administrators to do what we can to keep our children safe.”

The changes also incorporate 21^st century learning and rigor to strengthen the standards.

For more information, contact the Office of Communications at (304) 558-2699.

--The West Virginia Board of Education and the West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) are committed to ensuring all students in the state are college and career ready when they graduate from a public school. What West Virginia students are learning in school exceeds national and international standards. Through the WVDE’s 21^st century learning plan called “Global21: Students deserve it. The world demands it.,” West Virginia is seeing better student performance on the West Virginia Educational Standards Test 2 (WESTEST2); the SAT and the ACT college entrance exams; the job skills assessment called Work Keys given to career and technical education students; and in a high school graduation rate that exceeds the national average.