Kentucky’s Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman visited Danville Thursday to present a $535,000 ceremonial check from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to the Danville Independent Schools district for safety initiatives around Danville High School including crosswalks and sidewalks — connections along East Lexington Avenue and Wilderness Road.

This project is one of the 70 safety improvement projects across 44 counties funded through the nearly $23 million in highway safety projects Gov. Andy Beshear’s office is investing into areas surrounding Kentucky schools.

Chad Luhman, principal of DHS, was present and gave a short speech before Coleman’s presentation.

“Being an independent school district, many of our students travel to school by bike or on foot,” he said. “Many of our high school walkers take East Lexington Avenue and Wilderness Road to school daily. Our core belief at Danville Independent Schools is success for all. It is important that we ensure our students that they are safe as possible as they travel to and from school, no matter if it’s by car, bus, bike or on foot. As we return to in-person instruction, we aspire to continue to be pioneers of raising awareness for making decisions that contribute to our students’ health and well-being.”

Superintendent Tammy McDonald introduced Coleman, who in addition to presenting also gave a speech.

“We are an education-first administration, and that means more than what goes on in the classroom,” Coleman said. “Certainly it’s founded there, but it’s about the whole child, getting to school and home from school safely. It’s about nutrition, it’s about academics, athletics — the whole package.”

She said the $535,000 will go toward design construction and new sidewalks and other pedestrian improvements at and around the school, which she said would increase accessibility to the school.

McDonald, closing out the presentation, said, “It will be a huge asset for our entire school system, not just Danville High School. Our middle school is literally less than a mile from the high school, and we will have students walking to the high school through this route that’s going to be improved from our communities in that direction, but we also have several subdivisions and communities behind and to the east of the high school to where we’ll have middle school students walking the route in the opposite direction to our middle school, so it’s going to be a huge benefit for our district not just to Danville High School but to our middle school. So we’re honored; we’re excited.”