A crosswalk in front of First Coast High School | Google Maps
Published on August 18, 2025 at 9:10 pm
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A First Coast High School student was hit by a car while walking to school on Monday. District officials say the student did all the right things — pressing the pedestrian crossing button and crossing in a crosswalk — but the driver on Duval Station Road on the city’s Northside didn’t stop.
The teen, who was “not seriously injured,” was the third Duval student to be hit by a car while going to or from school in the first six days of the school year. A middle-schooler was fatally hit and another student was also hit last week.
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School Board member Darryl Willie, whose Northside district includes First Coast, says the school’s resource officer was the first on the scene. Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokesman Christian Hancock tells Jacksonville Today the incident, which happened shortly before 8 a.m. in the 500 block of Duval Station Road, was a “hit-and-run.” Further details were not immediately available.
“Slow down,” Willie says. “The last thing we want is a student to not be able to go home to their family.”
Willie says he hopes Jacksonville’s drivers will remember to be especially vigilant in the mornings and afternoons when students are in transit.
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“We all can play a part — like, every single one of us in this community here — driving anywhere around our city, there’s likely a school near you,” Willie says.
After the middle schooler was hit by a pickup truck last week and became Jacksonville’s 100th traffic death of the year, and a second student was also hit by a car last week, Superintendent Christopher Bernier sent a message to all district parents on Friday evening.
“No family should ever endure such a tragedy. As a parent and as your superintendent, I feel this loss deeply—and I know many of you do as well,” Bernier wrote.
A spokesperson for Duval Schools did not respond with comment by this story’s publication.
Seeking safer drivers
In January, the district introduced a campaign called “Be Safe. Be Seen” to help teach students and parents how to be safer pedestrians — and safer drivers. Willie says the district will continue to partner with the mayor’s office, the City Council and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority to raise awareness.
In the last school year, a student at Atlantic Coast High School was hit by a car while walking to her bus stop. That driver took the girl to the hospital himself, where she later died. School Board member Melody Bolduc, whose district includes Atlantic Coast, says she’s asked officials to invest in flashing lights for crosswalks and crossing guards for all middle and high schools.
“Know that I am doing everything I can to advocate for an increased focus and priority on students’ pedestrian safety,” Bolduc wrote in a text message to Jacksonville Today.
District 3 school board member Cindy Pearson says she’s been visiting the schools in her district, assessing danger. She’s particularly worried about a spot in San Marco where she’s noticed several Landon Middle School students cross Atlantic Boulevard about 100 yards north of a crosswalk. She says parents tell her that drivers don’t stop when students do use the crosswalk.
“They somehow think it’s safer for their children to weave through stopped traffic — going straight across to Thacker — than to go down to the crosswalk because people don’t stop,” Pearson says.
She says she’s asked the superintendent’s office to explore solutions like working with JSO to write more tickets at that intersection or add crossing guards.
“I want people to have confidence in the crosswalks because that’s where we are telling them to cross. That’s what the city is saying: ‘This is the crosswalk. This is where you’re supposed to cross,’” Pearson says. “ There’s an assumption of safety — but experience tells you it’s not that safe.”
