AJA Students Win $10,000

The Atlanta Jewish Academy student council has an extra $10,000 to spend on programming after the school won Landmark Automotive’s second annual Safe Teen Driver anti-distracted-driving program.

Student representatives received an oversized $10,000 check at a ceremony at the Morrow car dealership Wednesday, Dec. 14. AJA earned the prize by have the most safe-driver pledges among Atlanta-area high schools.

Last year, the academy finished second in the pledge competition and won $1,000, but the students immediately gave the entire prize to the winning school, Kennesaw Mountain High School, whose students said they would use all the money they won to support their Shop With a Mustang program, in which high school students take poor children shopping for holiday presents.

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Kennesaw Mountain finished second to AJA this year.

The AJA student council asked families not only to take the safe-driver pledge themselves, but also to provide additional email addresses of people who could take the pledge, school spokeswoman Barrie Cohn said. She said AJA marketed the pledge in its weekly parent emails and on Facebook.

Pledge takers promise never to call, text, tweet or post while driving and always to wear a seat belt, drive defensively and stick with safe speeds, among other good driving practices.

The student council promised to spend some of the prize money on a schoolwide Shabbaton in the spring.