Last night's walk.bike.schools meeting

[Clint Loper]

Hi everyone. Thanks so much to those who attended last night's walk.bike.schools info session. We had attendees affiliated with nine different schools with active or start-up walk/bike to school programs! Several of the agencies and organizations who are partners in these efforts were there as well. I also heard from a number of others who wanted to attend but had conflicts.

We had several great presentations and lots of good discussion as well. I will send out a meeting summary in the next few days, so everyone has at least an overview of the information that was shared and links to where to get more.

In the meantime, there is a lot of info available at the walk.bike.schools blog at http://walkbikeschools.wordpress.com/.

And the listserv is also a good tool for sharing information. Many of you are on it; but if not and you'd like to be added, let me know.

One item that came up last night was the walk zone maps that the school district publishes for all SPS elementary schools. These can be a good tool for planning walk routes and events like walking school buses. I did happen upon a link to the maps at
http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=232150 (thanks Feet First for bringing this to our attention!)

Thanks again, and more to come in the next couple of days.

Happy back to school season! And cheers to walking and biking!

Clint Loper

(Eckstein, Roosevelt)

[polly2]

Zoe, thanks. Any names or contact info for the SPS Transportation Dept staff who would have access to these? It can be daunting to navigate the bureaucracy without a name. The density maps would definitely be helpful to us in trying to expand our walking school bus program.

 

Side note, if anyone is trying to start a WSB and would like to see our “rules” or wants more info about how our walking school bus works, I’d be happy to oblige. Just email me and we’ll talk!

 

Thanks for a great meeting last night – inspiring to see what everyone’s doing.

 

Polly Freeman (West Woodland)

 

From: Zoe Harris [mailto:z...@feetfirst.info]
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 9:08 AM
To: Clint Loper
Cc: Walker Lockhart; Robin Randels; Mark Ruebel; Jennifer Litowski; isis...@hotmail.com; Harris, Ashley; Polly Freeman; Kimberly Christensen; Madeleine Carlson; csal...@gmail.com; bride...@gmail.com; hiba...@gmail.com; Shannon Koller; Tim King; walkbik...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Last night's walk.bike.schools meeting

 

Thank you all for including me in your meeting last night. It was wonderful to see such engaged and committed parents.

There were two questions asked where I was unable to provide sufficient answers. Hopefully the information below helps!

1. Walk zone maps with density: The school district transportation department will share the density maps with parents who reach out. These maps allow you to see exactly where families live and therefore help in planning walking school bus/bike train routes. We have found that the school district transportation department will not send these out but will give these to you if you schedule a meeting. It is also important to note that the school district transportation department is committed to supporting walking school buses at elementary schools, while they have not defined how they will show this support it is wonderful to reach out because the more requests they get the more they will strengthen their side of the program.

2. Remote bus drop off: Last night I had no Seattle examples of the remote drop off option, which is a great way to include students unable to walk to school in IWALK or walking school buses. Maple, Roxhill, West Seattle and Concord Elementary have all used the remote drop off. It works especially well if there is a park close by to the school and few streets to cross. Please contact Jen Cole at j...@feetfirst.org for more information on how to plan a remote bus drop off at your school.

Take care and I look forward to working with many of you this coming school year,

Zoe

Zoe Harris

Safe Routes to School Event Coordinator

Feet First

314 1st Avenue South

Seattle, WA 98104

z...@feetfirst.org

www.feetfirst.org

t: 206.652.2310 ext. 1

f: 206.381.1631

 

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[Shannon Koller]

Thanks again for facilitating the meeting, Clint.  I'm wondering if some of these resources that we want to share (samples of successful grant applications, W. Woodland walking school bus rules, etc.) can find more of a permanent home on walkbikeschools.wordpress.com under the Resources tab.   Would you be open to having us forward documents to you that could be posted to the site?

thanks, Shannon

On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 6:44 AM, Clint Loper <clint...@gmail.com> wrote:

[polly2]

Shannon, if you have info on running the Urban Cycling class for 4/5 graders that you did, when you have time, please add that to the resources list as well. Much appreciated!

 

Polly

 

From: walkbik...@googlegroups.com [mailto:walkbik...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Shannon Koller
Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 10:16 AM
To: Clint Loper
Cc: Walker Lockhart; Robin Randels; Mark Ruebel; Jennifer Litowski; isis...@hotmail.com; Harris, Ashley; Polly Freeman; Kimberly Christensen; Zoe Harris; Madeleine Carlson; csal...@gmail.com; bride...@gmail.com; Babette Saltzman; Tim King; walkbik...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Last night's walk.bike.schools meeting

 

Thanks again for facilitating the meeting, Clint.  I'm wondering if some of these resources that we want to share (samples of successful grant applications, W. Woodland walking school bus rules, etc.) can find more of a permanent home on walkbikeschools.wordpress.com under the Resources tab.   Would you be open to having us forward documents to you that could be posted to the site?

thanks, Shannon

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[Tim King]

Hi Shannon (& group)  - please forward those things to me. When I first built the site, I basically created (ie, made up!) the site's format and content prior to our first meeting. I emphasized the "blog" as our front page because it made it easy for the WalkBikeSchools site look "lived in." But it's been clear since about the second or third meeting that what people really want to see are tools and examples that will help them get (and keep) a program going. 

I've mapped out an updated framework for WalkBikeSchools that emphasizes these types of resources, but we haven't had the critical mass of docs necessary to go forward with it.

If people have these long term resources they want to share, I can start the reorg process. Every time we meet the group expresses a huge interest in sharing these types of items, but we can't share what we don't have.

Maybe this is the time it will happen -- Polly just sent me the West Woodland Walking School Bus rules, and Anne said she'd give me some of her example grants. A few more items and we'll have a good starter collection.

Just for clarification sake - when I talk about the "Resource" section, I'm referring to these "long term" resources and examples that will help someone build or create a program, such as the rules or grant info above. Polly also said she's working on sharing her "How to do a bike rodeo" doc -- that would be great for the section.

Shorter term (time-sensitive) info sharing -- ie, upcoming events or recaps, awards, etc... -- should probably be shared via this Google Group or sent along with photos to be posted on the blog.

Hope that helps. Please ask if you have any questions or have or have feedback or content to share.

Tim

Bryant/Eckstein

[Tim King]

Yes! Structured as a how-to with "what we learned" type lessons would make that a great long-term addition to the site.

Super idea. Keep 'em coming!

Tim

[Clint Loper]

Yes, definitely send any good "how-to" writeups to Tim. He is the architect, administrator, and general guru of the website. We've been intending to populate that resources page for a while now, and maybe we can harness this current momentum and get something together shortly. Tim is the guy who can make it happen! (With all of our help of course!)

[Devor Barton]

Have people in the Walk/Bike/Schools group been discussing the Growth Boundaries changes being considered by the Seattle Schools District? (link below) I'm hearing from neighbors in the South end concerns about their children being bused to schools further away than ones they can walk to as a result of the proposed changes. The Pedestrian Board has also been contacted by concerned parents due to the Walk Zone impact, and the Mayor's School Road Safety Task Force has been indicated as one of the groups advising on the changes. I don't remember this being a specific topic of conversation at the Task Force meetings but I can see how there may be some overlap. Anyway, I'm interested in hearing what the word is in other neighborhoods?

 

http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=294923

 

-Devor

--

[Clint Loper]

Devor -- I haven't heard those concerns, but it does seem worth looking at and considering. I'm hearing some buzz here in NE, but it's more related to the general capacity issue rather than the walk zone boundary changes themselves. But I could easily be missing something.

I'm not sure about the reference to the School Road Safety Task Force being consulted on walk zone boundaries. I don't believe we've discussed them at all in that venue.

Clint

[dgack...@comcast.net]

Clint and All-

Check out the articles linked to below regarding loss of walk zone for school kids on Beacon Hill.  Julie at the MidBeacon Blog has some maps that illustrate the issue pretty well.  

Best,

David Gackenbach

parent, Beacon Hill International School

http://ourschoolscoalition.org/2013/10/parent-finds-plan-disproportionately-affects-title-1-schools/#more-1792

--28% of Title 1 schools lose walk zones, compared to 8% of non Title 1
schools

--67% of Beacon Hill schools lose walk zones, compared to 10% of schools in
the rest of the city

Again, my source data is presented in tabular format at the bottom of this
post:

http://midbeaconhill.blogspot.com/2013/09/seattle-public-schools-to-shut-low.html

Thanks,
Julie
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From: "Clint Loper" <clint...@gmail.com>
To: "Devorm" <devor...@gmail.com>
Cc: walkbik...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, October 2, 2013 8:23:42 AM
Subject: Re: density maps and WSB