The beginning of the school year is an excellent time to launch Safe Routes to schools programs: the weather is dependably nice, enthusiasm is high and year-long habits are easily formed.
Getting the Word Out
First of the year materials packets, parents meetings such as PTO or Booster Club, and back to school events lend themselves to distributing and explaining safe routes information.
Safety is everyone's number one concern. Fliers which help adults know what is expected of motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians at and around the school can be particularly useful. It is also helpful to provide information about how to teach children to be safe in traffic. View one of the sample fliers called "Children in Traffic" (PDF) or see other resources in the Enforcement section of this toolkit. There are pedestrian safety curricula in the Educate and Encourage section, including the Transportation and Land Use Coalition's "Out of the Box" curriculum.
Using Back to School Events to Gather Data
Survey data about how children arrive at and leave from school is critical to good planning. It is also necessary for applying for formal Safe Routes funding from the state or federal government and useful in applying for other local grants as well. For example, schools receiving funding are required to evaluate the success of their programs by showing an increase in the number of children walking and biking to school or a decrease in the number of vehicles driven to school. Back to school events, which draw large numbers of parents, provide an excellent opportunity for gathering such data
which can then be supplemented by in-class surveys of the children themselves. For more examples of surveys and local survey results, see the Evaluation
portion of this toolkit.
Identifying a Strong School Team
Taking the school bus, carpooling, walking and biking to school can all be encouraged and facilitated by a committed school community. Such a commitment includes clear, supportive, administrative policies, encouraging teachers and staff who serve along with parents as roles models, and finding and supporting some volunteer "champions" who take responsibility for organizing an aspect of safe child transportation. Materials for developing such a team are available in the Educate and Encourage section of this toolkit.
Putting a Fall Event on the Ground
International Walk to School Day (IW2SD), which takes place in October, is a wonderful organizing tool. There are many professionally produced, ready to use materials available that will make launching a safe, fun event easy. These can be found in the IW2SD section of this toolkit.