Safe Routes to School

Steps for crossing the street safely:

• Stop at the edge
• Look left
• Look right
• Look left again
• Is it safe to cross?

Learn more on the Safe Kids website.

Safe Routes to School offers a bicyclist education program for 4th and 5th grade students. Students receive both classroom lessons and on-bike lessons, using the district's bike fleet. Topics include the benefits of bicycling and physical activity, helmet use and fitting, bike handling, communication with other road users, and traffic awareness.

Program Options

The full program is 330 minutes of classroom and on-bike lessons, but options are available for shorter and less expensive programs. Though the program has mostly worked with PE specialists within the PE schedule, it can also work with classroom teachers to meet their PE minutes responsibilities, with an ideal lesson length being 55 minutes. The program is for 4th grade and up, with 5th grade being the target audience. Instructors are contracted by the day, so as many lessons and grade levels per day as may reasonably be scheduled is most efficient.

Cost

The bicyclist education program is available to core schools on the current ATP/Safe Routes to School grant (these are Cottage Elementary, Coyle Avenue Elementary, and Peck Elementary). It is available at a reduced cost to non-core schools within the grant (these are Cowan Elementary, Mission Avenue Open Elementary, and Sierra Oaks K-8). Other schools wishing to provide the program must pay the full cost, which is primarily the expense of League Cycling Instructors, plus a small bike maintenance fee.

Bike Fleet

The bike fleet is owned by San Juan Unified School District and was purchased under a federal cycle 3 Safe Routes to School grant and additional funding.

• 32 widely adjustable bicycles (BikeFriday OSATA)
• 3 widely adjustable balance bikes (BikeFriday OSATA)
• 4 small balance bikes (Strider ST4 and SS1)
• 1 small pedal bike (IslaBike CNOC 16)
• 2 push scooters (Razor)
• program helmets to fit each student (students may wear their own helmet)
• schoolyard course elements: cones, tennis ball halves, stop signs, spray chalk
• maintenance tools and supplies
• trailer for hauling bike fleet

League Cycling Instructors

The San Juan Safe Routes to School Bicyclist Education Program is instructed exclusively by League Cycling Instructors (LCIs) trained in the nationally recognized League of American Bicyclists Smart Cycling program. The Safe Routes to School Coordinator (Dan Allison) is a LCI, and the district contracts with individual LCIs to instruct the program. A pool of LCIs is shared with North Natomas TMA Project Ride Smart and other education programs in the Sacramento region.

LCIs are trained through:

1. Traffic Skills 101, a nine-hour class with classroom, bike handling skills, and on-street experience
2. League Cycling Instructor Seminar, a 23-hour plus homework class, focused on teaching techniques
3. additional training in working with youth and schools, separately or on-the-job

With Traffic Skills 101 training, PE specialists, PE teachers, and other school staff may offer the classroom portion of the program, and act as an additional instructor for on-bike lessons. With LCI training, they may act as a program lead and act as an additional instructor for on-street lessons. Program costs will be reduced significantly for schools with trained staff.

Traffic Skills 101 is offered about three times per year in the Sacramento region, while the League Cycling Instructor Seminar is offered about once per year. If there is sufficient interest, both Traffic Skills 101 and the LCI Seminar may be offered specifically to school staff. For information on future training, contact Safe Routes to School Coordinator Natalee Dyudyuk, natalee.dyudyuk@sanjuan.edu.

On-Street Lesson

The San Juan Unified  Safe Routes to School Bicyclist Education Program offers a street ride during the final lesson. The street ride is optional for a school, and not required. However, as the culminating lesson of the program, it is very valuable since it provides the students with practical experience of the skills and traffic awareness that they have learned in earlier on-bike lessons and classroom lessons. Our ultimate goal is that every student has the knowledge, skills, and experience necessary to ride their bike to and from school when they are in sixth grade in middle school or K-8 school, though we recognize that some students will end up riding only in their neighborhoods or nearby parks.

Safe Routes to School encouragement activities include:

 

• Walk to School Day is celebrated by schools throughout the United States. Some schools set up remote drop-off spots, so that students who are ususally driven to school have a chance to walk with their school mates. Even if walking not part of the regular schedule, this is a chance for student to experience the job and independence of walking. Family are encouraged to join in. Some schools call this Walk+Bike or Walk n’Roll to encourage all forms of active transportation. (http://www.walkbiketoschool.org/)
• Bike to School Day is a similar celebration of the joy and practicality of bicycling.
• Walking School Buses are organized groups of students under the supervision a parent or community volunteer (fingerprinted and background checked) along a pre-defined route to school, picking up students along the way, arriving in time for morning meal programs and school. These can occur as seldom as once a month during nice weather, and as often as every week year-round, or every day. Bike Trains are similarly organized, but move at the pace of bicyclists.
• Walking Maps can be developed with the school and students that show safer routes to school, avoiding high speed arterials, intersections without appropriate pedestrian protection, and streets without sidewalks, while using pleasant, low speed and low traffic streets to and from school. Bike lanes and low stress bicycling streets can be shown.
• Bike Clubs can be organized at middle school level. They include and reinforce the same bicycle skills and traffic awareness developed by the 4th/5th grade bicyclist education program, but emphasize group riding and adventure.
• Transit Use is encouraged for middle and high school students as an alternative to motor vehicles and overly long walks to school. Not every school site has a bus route close enough or schedule that work, but those that do offer great alternatives. Students can get discount passes, and very low income or disabled students may receive free passes. Most transit trips start or end with walking or bicycling, so transit use also encourages active transportation.