Georgia Walk/Bike To School Day Tomorrow
Decatur Metro | March 2, 2010
From Dan Magee at 231 Sycamore…
This Wednesday is the 1st Annual Georgia Walk/Bike to School Day. Join Decatur Active Living staff and parent volunteers at Clairemont, Oakhurst and Winnona Park Elementary Schools and Glennwood Academy as we greet students and parents before and after the school day. International Walk to School Day is Wednesday, October 6th, 2010.
Wednesday’s event is sponsored by the Georgia Department of Transportation’s “Safe Routes to School Georgia” program.
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Just a reminder to drivers in the Decatur area, all of the schools have walking school buses that will be participating tomorrow. Please drive carefully and keep our students (and adults) safe!
hey,
this can’t be the first annual. i remember doing that walkin’ school bus with mrs. roy barnes to westchester in the 1990s.. georgia walk/.bike to school that’s of course before they determined that westchester was not a walk friendly school ….
It wasn’t that long ago. Sonny was elected in 2002, and Roy was a one-term governor (so far anyway) from 1999 – 2002. Those were the days. Free Westchester…
Cranky,
It really doesn’t pay to have a long memory. But, god bless ya!
Since Westchester was to be the first Safe Routes to School pilot (for which it was rewarded by being closed before the program could even be implemented), I think we should ask that the staff working there please walk or roll to Westchester. If they live too far away, they could drive to the ample parking at one of the other elementary schools and join a walking bus to Westchester. Good leaders model the behavior they want to see in their followers.
Free Willie, free Tilikum, free Westchester…..
Which elementary school has ample parking? Not aware of one.
A little history is in order to set the record straight. Wednesday, March 3rd (1st Wed. in March) is the first annual GEORGIA Walks/Bikes to School Day. The national Walk and Bike to School Day is the first Wednesday in October (we like to call them Walk & Roll To School Day).
Mrs Barnes did do a Walk to School event at Westchester, but it was never a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) pilot location. Around 2000, five of us sat down and wrote a proposal to the Ga DOT for a $400,000/4 year SRTS pilot project in 4 elementary schools – 2 in DeKalb & 2 in Gwinnett. They accepted our proposal and Clairemont was scheduled to be one of the DeKalb pilot schools.
Between the time GDOT accepted our proposal and we finally received the funds, Clairemont was reconfigured as a K-3 school. We were able to convince GDOT to let us “count” Clairemont & Glennwood as one location and away we went.
I’m proud to say that Decatur’s SRTS program is one of the longest running SRTS programs in the state and a statewide role model. Many of the practices and procedures featured in the current state SRTS program are a direct result of Decatur’s pioneering efforts.
What was the other DeKalb school? At the time of the reconfiguration, I distinctly remember you saying that you were sorry that Westchester couldn’t serve as a pilot as planned (or hoped?). That must have been in the period when you were still waiting for the GDOT funds?
Off the top of my head I can’t remember the other 3 schools without looking back at some old files. I do seem to remember that they ceased doing SRTS activities once the funding ran out.
I also don’t remember Westchester in the mix. Some of the criteria for picking the schools had to do with the percentage of students on the free/reduced meal program, the volume of traffic near the school, and the number of students already walking/biking to school.
And thanks for the nice compliments about the SRTS program. I’m still championing it on all 3 levels – local, state & federal. I need to call out local Decatur resident Allison Adams who wrote most of the original GDOT proposal and played a big role in making the original grant happen. I have a nice photo of Allison and me receiving the resolution at a GDOT Board meeting and I have the framed resolution hanging up in my store on the wall behind the register. The document that started the Safe Routes To School movement in Georgia. Nice little bit of history.
Should have added that none of the variations in remembering the history takes away from what a great program this is and I appreciate Fred and others being incredible champions for it. Any of our schools, whereever they are in Decatur, whenever they are open or closed, benefit from it. They all are served by several side or back streets that are safe for cycling and sidewalks that are good for walking.