Clairemont Elementary Will Be Feature School for Georgia’s “Walk to School Day”
Decatur Metro | February 24, 2011
Commissioner Boykin mentioned this in last Tuesday’s City Commission meeting. From Active Living’s Cheryl Burnette (via Downtown Decatur’s Facebook Page)…
Clairemont Elementary has been selected by GDOT ‘s Safe Routes to School Resource Center to be the featured school for the second annual Georgia Walk to School Day event on March 2, 2011. Based on the success of last year’s event, this year the Resource Center has selected a school to showcase. This recognition will highlight Clairemont’s 6-year commitment to the SRTS program and their countless successes in transforming student commuting behavior. Though Clairemont was one of Georgia’s first SRTS programs, their process can be adopted by any school that is looking to increase their walking and biking population.
After arriving at school on GA Walk to School Day, students will gather in the auditorium for the morning assembly. Highlights of the assembly include student-made videos of their experiences walking and biking to school, words of encouragement from Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd, and representatives from the Georgia Department of Transportation and the GA SRTS Resource Center.
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Having been part of the small group that convinced the Ga. DOT to fund a pilot SRTS program back in 2000, it is a pleasure to see that Decatur has continued with the program and – in effect – led the way for the rest of Georgia. The Safe Routes To School program has gotten us to look at how transportation issues affect our community and lifestyle issues like childhood obesity.
The SRTS program guided the City’s first major sidewalk initiatves in years and helped form the creation of Decatur’s Active Living Division. There have been countless volunteers that participated in the program and to this day, each participating Decatur school has a parent volunteer to help guide the program.
It’s great to see Clairemont – the first school in the pilot project – get recognised by the state for its long support of this great program.
Great job, and I wish you and the program continued success. It’s wonderful that these kids are learning early the value of walkable communities.
And the parents benefit, as well.
Thanks, Fred, for your efforts to keep this moving.
Love that logo but it needs to add a child scootering and a child unicycling and parents running madly behind to keep up.
Yes, walking is nice. It really is too bad, though, that The Decatrur School System has lost its way.Which school will your child walk to?….Westchester is a large campus that served the community very well, and is now administrative offices. Some may recall the major million dollar plus renovations it had as part of SPLOST were finished, the kids were back in classrooms, then oops…. we close it and 5th Ave as part of yet another re-invention of the educational process. Now 5th Ave is being renovated into a 4-5 academy-at what cost?- and Glenwood -the current 4-5 academy …now its not, its a K-3….(don’t blink) Think of swarms of kids walking to school in Decatur, but they don’t know which building to go to…Wise up Decatur citizens .Your taxes are alredy the highest in the area, can you really afford much more of this ?
I intend to make sure my kids know which school building to go before they leave the house!
I’m just glad so many kids have the opportunity to walk or ride or scooter and am happy to pay the taxes that make this, and a great education, possible.
I read you are happy to pay the taxes. Well,
Decatur schools standard test scores don’t prove that the education here is as good or better for districts paying far fewer dollars per student. The rubber meets the road when the kids take the ACT/SAT’s for college entrance and Decatur doesn’t beat either the State or national averages:
Average ACT Scores
‘2009-2010
Decatur vs. State Avg. Decatur vs. Nat’l Avg.
Composite -7.7% -9.0%
English -6.0% -7.8%
Math -8.7% -10.0%
Reading -9.1% -10.8%
Science -6.8% -8.6%
Source Georgia Dept of Education: http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/ReportingFW.aspx?PageReq=102&CountyId=773&T=1&FY=2010
I am just saying….good vibes, walking to school and perception don’t nessecarily mean educational excellence. Decatur citizens are paying full retail for results that are not superior.
I know, however, that some parents will say, but my child is doing fine. Maybe so. But you have to also think about how much better they might do somewhere else where the district performs at a higher level. It is certainly a choice. I just am not sure that the City Schools can prove out that more and more money spent is equalling anything close to better education.
The district is basically too small to get much of a bump from economies of scale and lower per student costs. It’s worth noting that the current enrollment is about 2,687. The census bureau estimates that the City of Decatur has a population of about ~3,200 kids ages 5-18. So the schools sytem doesn’t engage ~16% of the available school aged population. Why is that ? I have no quick answer, but it would seem apparent that some don’t see Decatur City Schools as an answer for their kids needs. That would be worth exploring. Of course the school system loses no basic funding because of this since property taxes are not voluntary. But I think if 16% or so of any group were not participating in a school system, someone should take notice. Perhaps this could become a topic of its own. Getiing past feel good perceptions will take some work. I think there is a bit of rationalization that any parent does once they’ve made a decision on where they will have their kids educated. Making them think, or re-think that is pretty hard.
I am wondering why, for your erroneous argument you picked just the ACT scores–why not the SAT scores? Or the CRCT scores for each grade? or graduation rates? Here’s why:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/biased-sample.html
You may have lived here longer, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have some other motive for trashing CSD and trying to convince parents that Decatur sucks. What ever that motive, you sound like a conspiracy of one.
Some might like to see the video Tom Dempsey created for the event ( I just filmed some of the video). It is great.
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/flI97v-L5Xm2XMNPJyuzXV6R_bsQPKGuYUlCmf0ZCbM?feat=directlink