AAA Honors Fairfax County Student With Outstanding School Safety Patroller Of The Year Award

HERNDON, VA (June 11, 2025) - AAA recently recognized 2024-2025 AAA Outstanding School Safety Patroller winner, Saanvi Vangapalli. Saanvi is a sixth grader at McNair Upper Elementary School in Herndon, VA. Her AAA School Safety Patrol Advisor, Ms. Kristen Luck, nominated her for this honor for her exemplary leadership qualities. Like thousands of her peers across the country, Saanvi has remained committed to keeping her fellow students safe and being a positive role model at her school.

As a Captain with the School Safety Patroller Program, Saanvi consistently takes the initiative and demonstrates dedication and commitment. In her leadership role, Saanvi reports dangerous student practices on her bus that interfere with the safety of others, as well as her bus driver.

“Saanvi leads with patience and flexibility, as her bus is the largest bus at our school this year,” said Ms. Kristen Luck, AAA School Safety Patrol Advisor and Physical Education Teacher at McNair Upper Elementary School. “She makes safety her number one priority, keeping all our Mustangs safe by obeying the bus and school rules.”

If an incident cannot be resolved, Saanvi does not hesitate to seek the guidance and assistance of her bus driver or Safety Patrol Advisor. “Saanvi remains calm in tough situations and always tries to problem solve. She is a hard worker who always gives her best effort and I am grateful that she takes pride in her position as a Safety Patrol and Captain,” Ms. Luck added.

For more than 100 years, the AAA School Safety Patrol has been the world’s largest school-based safety program. Patrollers around the world provide school-aged children an extra sense of safety and security during the school day’s busiest times: arrival and dismissal. As a peer-to-peer leadership development program, Safety Patrols are trained to recognize safety hazards to ensure a safer school environment. The presence of a AAA School Safety Patroller wearing the familiar belt and badge is a nationally recognized symbol representing more than 679,000 children throughout the country who participate in the program each year.

“It’s the dedication and leadership of students like Saanvi and countless others that have made the AAA School Safety Patrol program so impactful for decades, “ said Ragina Cooper Ali, Public and Government Affairs Manager for AAA.

Created to make schoolchildren safer while walking to school, the program has grown-up and matured with the times while remaining steadfast to its mission to provide a safer environment and leadership opportunities for millions of schoolchildren. The training that patrollers receive instills safety sense beyond street crossings, including bus and car drop-offs, monitoring hallway congestion, and teaching patrollers invaluable leadership skills.

“AAA is proud to support this critical safety program in Virginia and at schools across the country,” Ali added. “We provide these young people with training tools to help make their school safer. We are impressed with their leadership and initiative in implementing safety changes and improvements at their schools."

The leadership values and safety awareness have inspired many former patrollers to pursue admirable careers, including Presidents of the United States, astronauts, governors, Members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, Olympic medalists, and authors, like Diary of a Wimpy Kid author, Jeff Kinney. Many patrollers now serve as educators, executives, and community leaders.

Since 1920, AAA has been providing various equipment and education materials to patrollers, including reflective belts, patrol badges and training resources. The AAA model has been adopted in at least 30 other countries, including England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.