Safe Routes to School Coordinator, Daina Lujan highlights International Walk to School Day and San Mateo County Safe Routes to School approved providers highlight services available to San Mateo County Schools
2. www.smcoe.org
Agenda
Activity Time Purpose
Introductions 5 Minutes To meet one another
International Walk to
School Day
15 Minutes To highlight key preparation details and
creative ideas
Evaluation 5 Minutes To review evaluation tools
Storm Water Pollution
Prevention
35 Minutes To highlight ways to engage students in
environmental pursuits
Safe Routes Service
Provider Presentations
20 Minutes To increase awareness of vendor
offerings
Wrap Up 5 Minutes To share additional resources
3. www.smcoe.org
International Walk to School Day (IWTSD) Basics
October 9, 2013 Walk Event
•Approval
•Routes
•Volunteers
•Advertise
•Welcome Children as They Arrive
•Travel Counts
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1k9mq0-r-
9nruszr5AAqjxKPDtsji-cwXN3iQk9p8Ddc/viewform
4. www.smcoe.org
IWTSD Fun Ideas
• Fire Up Your Feet
• Local Celebrity Crossing Guards
• Local Television
• City Resolutions and Proclamations
• Music, Chalk Art, Student Art
11. YBike History!
• 2003: Rides & repairs for
members
• 2004: 3 lunch-time bike clubs at
middle schools
• ‘05 & ’06: Mechanic workshops
at 2 middle schools, Earn-A-
Bike, Bike Festivals, formal
evaluation developed
• ’07 & ‘08: Expansion, helmet
give-aways
• 2009: summer bike camps,
2,500 students at nearly 30
schools served
• ‘09-’12: P.E. departments
buying fleets of bikes, sharing
bike club responsibilities with
other programs
• 2013: New branches:
Peninsula, Marin
25. About SVBC
• In existence since the 1970s.
• Mission of “Promoting the bicycle
for everyday use in Santa Clara and
San Mateo Counties.”
• Advocacy: working with city and
county governments to improve
conditions for bike riding.
• Programs: Promote bike culture
through activities, events, and
education.
26. About SVBC
Helps employers create an environment that welcomes
and encourages bike commuting.
Our most visible event got over 30,000 people to bike
to work in 2013.
Our ongoing efforts to promote responsible roadway
behavior has now developed into Vision Zero: Silicon
Valley.
29. Safe Routes to School
• Programs and events in: Los Altos, Santa Clara, San
José, Belmont, East Palo Alto, Menlo Park,
Millbrae, Redwood City
•Over 6,000 students received SR2S instruction in the
last year
• In-class and outside education
• Family fun days
• Bike and walk to school days, encouragement
• SR2S program management
• Community outreach
31. Upcoming: Free Family Biking
Workshops
• 5-10 Family Biking Workshops
to SMCOE schools
• Encourage bicycling as a family
activity for recreation,
transportation, and fun
• Street, trails, paths
• Bikes on public transit
• On-bike instruction, bike repair
36. AN ADVENTURE AND
EXPLORATION DESTINATION
FOR KIDS
Through bicycling we promote
self confidence
leadership
fitness
environmental stewardship
personal awareness
38. BICYCLE ACADEMY
Skills & Knowledge emphasis
Bike handling & control
Awareness & responsiveness
Predictability
Etiquette
Preparation
Rules of the road
39. BIKE HANDLING &
CONTROL
Starting, stopping, braking
Balance
Straight trajectory
Control at various speeds
Scanning
Signaling
Skillful riders tend to be safe riders
40. ON-CAMPUS PROGRAM
After school – 8 week program
Weekend event – 1 day
Elementary and Middle School
All skill levels
Kids/schools provide bikes
& helmets
41. BACKGROUND
Founded in 2010
Over 1,000 kids served
League Cycling Instructors (LCI)
Staff with child development,
teaching, coaching experience
43. www.smcoe.org
Meeting Feedback
What information was most useful to you?
What topics would you like to know more about?
Would you be interested in sharing highlights of your
Safe Routes Program? If so, please leave your name and
contact information.
As I imagine everyone in this room knows, International Walk to School Day is coming on Wednesday, October 9. How to host a basic and successful event is highlighted on the Set-Up Sheet in your packets. I’m going to briefly highlight the key ideas and give you some seed idea that others who are using to go above and beyond and make this event a little more special than the average walk to school day.Most of what I will highlight is summarized on the two page handout-International Walk to School Day Set up.As with any event, the first most important step to take is to chat with administration. As most people in this room are aware, if a principal isn’t on board, no matter how great the idea or intent, no forward progress happens without a principal’s blessing. If you are at the district level, you still need to get principal approval, as you know or you wouldn’t be at the district level, but the other key piece is that if you are at the district level, you also need a parent leader or teacher leader at the school site who is going to own the event. If there isn’t one, then while you’re running this by the principal, you’re also going to want to get the name of a person or two who can run with the event. If you are at this district level, once a teacher or parent is in place, you are now support for all of the other pieces I’m going to mention.Once you have approval, the next few steps happen some what simultaneously and will unfold differently depending on how you are tied into the school. The parent or teacher champion needs to identify meeting locations for walking groups-parks, church parking lots and shopping centers are obvious ones. Other meeting locations have included intersections and the edge of golf courses.You’ll need volunteers who will meet people who are walking with walking groups. You may want to supply volunteers with vests and/or stop signs so they look more official, but maybe not. Additionally, you need to advertise and then advertise some more. The most powerful plug comes from teachers and from kids who directly ask their parents. Backpack mail, E-mail blasts, website postings, Patch articles, posters, have all yielded positive results as well.The other key busy day is the event itself. As welcome groups arrive, it’s nice if there is a welcome table with treats for kids and adults-hot cocoa, coffee, little charms. It’s also great to get travel counts as children arrive.Travel counts: Pull out travel form…Two ways to collect travel countsPost up construction paper with one image at the top and provide each child who arrives a coding dot to place on the construction paper when they arrive. Count the results and enter onlineMake copies of the travel form. Have a student group such as student council visit each class and collect travel data from classrooms. They turn over their sheets to a upper grade class or a math class who uses the math period to find the sum for each category. This addresses CCSS 4.NBT (Numbers& op. in Base Ten).4 and if a teacher wants to go above and beyond, students can calculate what percentage of those surveyed walked, biked carpooled, what percentage of those surveyed used a green form of transit, and then compare the number surveyed to the total school population to see if the number surveyed constitutes a representative sample of the school population. This would align with CCSS 3.RP (Ratios and Proportions). 3c and depending on where a teacher went with it, 6.SP (statistics and probability).5, 5a, 5b, 5c, 5d The coordinator can use the sums to enter online.
Fire Up Your Feet is a Fundraising campaign sponsored by the National PTA, Kaiser, and the National Safe Routes to School program that PTAs, clubs, or schools themselves can take on. In short, school raise funds for kids and adult participants being active outside of school through pledges from friends and family members. So, for instance, I agree to give my friend Joyce 0.10 for every minute she is active during the fundraising period. So, if Joyce is active for 30 minutes, I give her school $3. If she is active for 600 minutes, then I give her school $60. This has seen great success in schools that are trying to raise money for things like [playground equipment-essentially, in purpose goals that will benefit everyone.In the Pacifica School District, they are gathering local celebrities not just to lead walks or pass out incentives, but to also play the roll of crossing guard so the significance of keeping kids safe is put at the forefront-they are working on the mayor, chief of police, the fire chief, a local video game coder, and local surfer celebrity-their goal is the placement of at least one local hero at each school site to play the roll of crossing guard for the morning. The parent champions have drafted a press release to be featured in the local paper to help get the event more traction. Gwendoyln of the Pacifica School Distrct got this idea from the Walk to School Day website.Other fund ideas include music-play a CD or having a band welcome kids, drawing chalk feet to direct where students should gather to be welcomed by a celebrity at the start of school, or in Belmont-Redwood Shores, last year, to get kids to come early, they organized parent and staff led PE stations, so once kids arrived, they got to engage in fun games. Some song ideas and PE station ideas are included. Also at a few school sites, club leads like Girl Scout leaders had their troops make posters and banners to carry during the walk
To help you with your events, SMCOE is providing the things listed above.
The last thing I want to touch upon before I turn this meeting over to our special guests is evaluation. Evaluation was touched upon at the orientation and some people have already contacted me to let me know that they have scheduled district and or school evaluation windows, so I don’t want to belabor this point, but I also don’t want it to slip through the cracks.So, the short of it is, sometime between the start of school and the end of December before the winter break, we are looking to gather Fall Evaluation Data. This includes parent surveys and two days worth of student travel data. Parents complete the parent survey-ideally online. Ways to help make this happen: coordinate data collection with Fall Conferences so when parents come in, while they are waiting to chat with the teacher, they go to the library or computer lab and fill out the survey in the language of their choice. For middle schools, I have heard that school loop is a great way to put this on the radar of parents-parents can complete the survey on their phones if access to a computer is a problem.For the student travel data, the two days of data can be stored and recorded online so there’s no need to even use an intermediary unless students will benefit from the visual aids. Teachers can enter their information, enter day 1 data, and then click DONE. When they go back to the site to collect the data from the second day, all the previous information will be there. After entering day two data, they should select DONE again.Go online-all of this is listed under resources-click on Appendix A or send directly to sites-tried to make the names logicalOutside of this, event data is also nice to have. It paints a very clear and helpful picture when I’m out presenting to boards and explaining why Safe Routes needs to be funded (have you seen the traffic lately) and he impact the dollars make. Go to website-meetings and events
In 2003 Presidio YMCA member Andrew Johnson, saw space at the Y’s gym and offered to fix up bikes and offered rides to other members.
Introduce bicycling to elementary school students• Fun, hands-on way for kids to learn basic bike safety,handling, and communication skills.• Stress the importance of seeing, being seen, andremaining in control at all times when riding a bike• Are a series of bike handling drills and simulatedtraffic situations, such as intersections• More experienced riders are introduced to trafficsafety and the navigation of basic traffic situationsWe add a wonderful, fun, enriching element to any school fair or neighborhood celebrationby facilitating a fun course that emphasizes safe bicycle riding and good traffic etiquette.