|
Urban Communities
Urban Safe Routes to School
Diverse Community Roundtable Meeting Notes
Hosted by the Safe Routes to School National Partnership
January 23, 2007
This national discussion on Urban SRTS programs was organized through the Safe Routes to School National Partnership’s Diverse Communities Committee, which is chaired by Melody Geraci of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. Robert Ping of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and Karen Hartke of WalkBoston facilitated the call. It was attended by nearly 50 participants who work for government agencies, non-profit organizations, universities, and consultant firms throughout the United States.
These notes are divided into the following sections:
1. Background Information
2. Existing Resources
3. Gaps in Resources
4. Next Steps - How to Stay Involved
1. Background Information
Melody Geraci, chair of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership’s (SRTSNP) Diverse Communities Committee, indicated that this series of national discussions arose from a collective desire to more directly address the needs of certain student populations that could benefit from SRTS. Ever since SRTS was first brought to the Bronx, New York, in 1997, there have been conversations about how students traveling in urban environments face unique situations and unmet needs. There are also other student populations—including students with disabilities and students who live in rural communities—that are difficult to define and have not been fully addressed by SRTS. (Calls regarding these populations occurred 1/24/07 and 1/25/07 respectively.)
The SRTSNP decided to instigate discussion and bring people together to network. This call was the first widespread effort to engage everyone who works with or is involved with students and SRTS in large urban settings—dense cities and municipalities with very diverse ethnicities and income levels. Urban areas often have a good walking network, but students encounter other challenges.
Robert Ping from Portland, Oregon, indicated that the Partnership conducted a survey recently to learn about urban school communities. We found these communities are characterized by:
-
High percentages of low income students
-
A variety of land uses (mostly dense)
-
Language and cultural barriers
-
High crime
-
High rates of walking already
-
Low bike ownership
-
Less parent involvement
-
High traffic volumes
-
Parents who have less time to walk with kids (many walking alone)
2. Existing Resources
A. City SRTS Program
Sharon Roerty of the National Center for Bicycle and Walking (NCBW) and the Active Living Resource Center (ALRC) reported on ALRC’s City-SRTS project, which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Click here to view the report for the project. They had funding for a one-year pilot program, and now have funding to continue for another year. The project looked for schools with a high number of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch. In one school, there was a high homeless population. The ALRC wanted to make sure that the federal SRTS money, and everything that goes with it, reaches its intended targets, including underserved populations. Federal guidance cites that funding should be available to underserved communities. They felt that existing SRTS programs and resources would not reach this audience without some help.
From June to August 2006, the ALRC conducted telephone interviews to learn what was being done in urban schools; what approaches worked best; how the schools were selected; the current state of the SRTS programs; and to vet the idea of the City-SRTS pilot program. Sharon mentioned that Appendix 2 of their report includes a compilation of what the practitioners said. They then developed a basic presentation. Over the course of three months, they worked with local organizers to understand needs, and to determine how SRTS programs could meet and serve the needs of the school and the community. It’s important to pay attention to what is going on locally, and work with the locals. In the fall of 2006, they conducted five pilot workshops/community meetings in Chicago, Illinois; St. Paul, Minnesotta; and Birmingham, Alabama. Highlights from the interviews are as follows:
-
To get a program started, think beyond the school. Go to where the people are, such as community centers, etc.
-
Ask for 10 minutes to talk at an existing community meeting where people are already gathered.
-
People are more likely to go to a meeting if it is held at a familiar place.
-
Food matters; it helps attract people and creates a communal setting.
-
In terms of participation, economic class was the single biggest predictor of if parents and students will participate. It’s hard to get parent volunteers in low-income communities, yet more kids are generally walking in these regions.
-
Once the SRTS program established a foothold in the community, it was easier to proceed.
-
When parents were hard to reach, we worked to reach beyond parents to "caregivers" (police, senior citizens, coaches, crossing guards, etc.).
-
Police can be one of the biggest assets to the program.
There was a lot of outreach before and follow-up after the workshops. Organizers should start at least three months before launching a program. ALRC’s advance preparation included working with local agencies (including advocacy groups), asking police to present at the workshops, observing student arrival and dismissal, photographing and videoing existing conditions, talking to and evaluating comments of crossing guards and neighbors, conducting mapping exercises with the whole audience to chart existing conditions and potential resources, and putting the mapping results on posters.
A big lesson for all of us is to listen, and try to facilitate the conversation in a community without dominating it. It’s important to have a good note-taker so all of the ideas can be recorded. Big post-it papers become the map. You don’t have to teach the audience how to be planners and engineers, and you don’t have to school them on the 5 Es. What matters most is having everyone work through the problems, the information, and available resources, to create a plan that works for them.
The ALRC will be conducting more pilot workshops throughout 2007, and is looking for cities and schools that want to work with them.
B. Lessons learned from Portland, Oregon (presented by Robert Ping)
-
In low income areas, where kids are already walking, emphasize education, and grouping kids together (walking school buses).
-
More staff time is needed as it’s hard to get parents involved.
-
It takes a while to develop trust.
-
Work with local community groups and cultural groups that already have credibility (neighborhood groups)—Boy Scouts, local churches, uniformed police (helps to alleviate fears).
-
Food is important. Eevening and weekend times are critical.
-
Childcare is also helpful.
C. Getting City Staff to Meetings
Some organizers reported that it is difficult to get city or county government staff to come to night and weekend meetings. Facilitators responded that it sometimes works to start meetings at about 4 PM, and to secure comments from agency people prior to the meeting if they can’t be there. Higher-level state agency people usually have allowances for night meetings. Keep calling around if you don’t get your first or second choice of staff people to attend meetings. It was also mentioned that you can sometimes entice staff to attend if there is a chance that the press might be there, so advertise your event. It was also suggested that if you can get the elected official who is tied in with your agency to be excited, then the staff will be excited, as staff answers to the elected officials.
D. Suggestions for Getting Parents Involved in Urban Settings
-
Use the PTAs as a resource, especially PTA Presidents. If you want to find contacts in your area, e-mail Whitney Meager of the National PTA, wmeagher@pta.org
-
Some low-income immigrant neighborhoods don’t have strong PTAs, but there are outside organizations that might be working on parent leadership. In other cases, SRTS can help to revitalize the PTA.
-
Some have had success if there is a local person on the police department who is a parent or caregiver. These people can become very strong advocates and can help reach out to the PTA and elected officials.
-
Do a walk-about process to identify the most important issues that need to be addressed and develop plans.
-
Identify if there is a Wellness Council at the school and work through this program to institutionalize SRTS.
E. Other Resources and Community Partnership Possibilities
-
Physical Education teachers are often good resources.
-
Neighborhood Service Coordinators are often associated with police departments. Oakland, California, has one for every police beat. They are the liaison between the community and the police department. They attend community meetings, know the community concerns, and can help with SRTS.
-
Service Learning Projects: WalkBoston is starting to work with students who are doing service-learning projects. A lot of graduate school programs have service-learning programs, and many urban areas have academic institutions that are seeking activities that are appropriate for student participation.
-
Social Workers: Schools often have their own social workers (or use ones that are based in the community). This can be a very good connection between school and home. The social workers are trusted people. One community involved social workers in a walking-audit since some community members were suspicious about people on the streets with notebooks.
-
Sports 4 Kids: The Transportation and Land Use Coalition in Oakland, Califonria, is starting to partner with "Sports 4 Kids," a program that provides schools with recess resources. Classroom teachers are often responsible for physical education. This non-profit provides services to schools, and is in other areas besides the Bay Area.
-
-
Music and Children: In Lansing, Michigan, children from a local school created a SRTS book and rap CD to accompany it. They created this project to produce a marketing piece to generate excitement about Safe Routes to School and explain the initiative to parents in the community. Students created drawings to illustrate travel to and from school by foot. The music CD lyrics were written by the literacy teacher whose creative impulse sparked the project. The teacher was aware that some parents in the community are not literate. The music CD was an alternative approach to communicating the purpose and spirit of SRTS to those families. The author may develop a short guide to explain how this project was completed in a short time and how other schools could undertake a similar project.
F. Encourage Kids to be "Street Smart"
"Making the Peace" curriculum is a 15-session high school curriculum (which can be adapted to younger grades) that examines the roots of violence and how to stop it.
There are several "untested" curriculum resources that aim to make kids more street-smart, including:
Books mentioned about Street Smarts included:
-
Protecting the Gift, by Gavin De Becker
-
Raising Safe Kids in an Unsafe World, by Jan Wagner
The National Crime Prevention Council also has resources: www.ncpc.org
In New Jersey, the Honeywell Corporation has developed a "Got 2B Safe" program.
3. Gaps in Resources
Funding SRTS Program Staff in City SRTS Environments: Big-city bureaucracies often face financial shortfalls and barriers to hiring new staff. So it’s important to be able to utilize the SRTS program, identify other funding sources, and enlist outside people to support SRTS. In Chicago, they’ve had success because there are reliable, paid individuals who can provide continuity over time, regardless if parent involvement waxes and wanes. The Logan Square area in Chicago has a strong neighborhood institution that has found a way to fund a walking school buses staffer. Having the ability to fund someone to take charge is key (and eligible under the federal SRTS program). In Washington, D.C., the non-profit Washington Area Bicycle Association has helped to fill this gap.
Curriculum for SRTS and Departments of Education: We need a curriculum that is focused to empower youth to make good and competent decisions on the streets. SRTS is supposed to build community. We need to work on building intuition instead of just being fearful. It will be important to have national networking in different state Departments of Education. There are standards in California on teaching kids about mapping. It’s important for SRTS Coordinators to advertise how their curriculum relates to different state standards. We need to explore how to get state departments to validate the SRTS curriculum.
Safety (Crossing) Guards: It’s important to have adequate crossing guards at key intersections. It’s often difficult to fund crossing guards (and this is not eligible through the federal SRTS program).
Low Income Schools Need Help with Applications: Most of the SRTS grants in states are going out via application processes, but the kinds of schools being served are self-selected. Many schools in need don’t have the resources to write the grants. We need more help with this nationwide. In some communities, non-profits are helping to fill this gap.
Measuring and Evaluation: In a lot of low-income schools, kids are already walking—often in very unsafe conditions. We need to develop evaluation methods so when improvements are made, schools can get credit—even if they don’t increase the number of students walking. If they increase safety, we should measure this. Measurement has to include infrastructure, crossing guards, reduction in injury, bullying, crime, etc.
Liability: How do you avoid liability associated with "safe havens" (locations where kids can go if they feel unsafe when walking or biking to school)?
Media: We need a coordinated press strategy—a way to push this through the mainstream media.
4. Next Steps - How to Stay Involved
Karen Hartke from WalkBoston indicated that this is the beginning of the Urban SRTS conversation. She asked how people wanted to stay in touch:
Conference calls are good. Suggested topics included:
-
Narrowing down the focus of the calls, perhaps around each of the 5 E’s.
-
Hearing more about fundraising and the kinds of grants that are available to accomplish what we talk about.
Having a working session on Urban SRTS programs at an upcoming conference would be helpful.
When asked who else should be involved, participants mentioned:
|
