Bringing A Walking Schoolbus To Willard Elementary

A few weeks ago, Willard Elementary in the Kensington section of Philadelphia was awarded a $1,000 Safe Routes To School minigrant.  Safe Routes Philly helped the school apply for the competitive grant (25 winners of 249 applicants this round), which will be used to start a Walking School Bus.  This is great news for a school facing many external environmental barriers to helping its students make healthy, active transportation choices. 


Willard Elementary is one of the 75 (and counting) Philadelphia public schools to have taught our Safe Routes Philly programming this academic year.  A K-4 school of 800 students, it faces significant challenges in encouraging its students and parents to make active transportation choices.  Neighborhood violence and four major thruway streets within its catchment area discourage parents from walking or biking their children to school.  Thus, despite a student population almost entirely living within one mile of the school, many parents drive their children to school.

This driving creates multiple problems.  First, it creates a congested and unsafe parking lot filled with cars, car exhaust, and children embarking and disembarking.  Second, it burdens parents with the daily vehicular transportation of their children to and from school.  Third, a one-mile (or less) walk to school is a perfect opportunity for parents and children to get exercise and strengthen community ties that come with active transportation.  That opportunity is being lost.

Willard parents and students participating in PACES Day (Parents And Children Exercising Together)

Despite these challenges, Willard is committed to helping its students and parents make healthy transportation and lifestyle choices.  Besides bringing Safe Routes Philly's curriculum to the school, Willard held a PACES (Parents And Children Exercising Together) Day.  They hold yearly walk and bike-to-school days, a Turn Off The TV Week, and have smoothie sales.  PE teacher Debra DeShields brought Safe Routes Philly back for an after-school bicycle rodeo.  Twenty parents showed up for a volunteer meeting.  The school community contains the potential for taking meaningful, positive steps towards improving its students health.

Safe Routes Philly Community Representative Megan Rosenbach, who works with Ms. DeShields, suggested that the school apply for a Safe Routes to School mini-grant to create a Walking School Bus.*  The school responded enthusiastically to the idea; Ms. DeShields and school nurse Agnus Bahm said they have been dreaming of starting a Walking School Bus for years.  The grant money will pay for Safe Routes Philly pedestrian safety activity books for the entire school, bright t-shirts and reflective safety vests for participating students and parents, pedometers, and promotional materials.

The Walking School Bus will ease multiple safety and wellness issues at Willard.  It will improve safety for students already walking to school.  It will encourage the estimated 150+ parents who daily drive their children to school to walk with, or allow, their children to walk to school.  It will ease congestion in the school's parking lot, improving safety there.  Responsible parents walking children to school at fixed times will deliver students to school safely and on time, helping alleviate an ongoing truancy problem at the school. 

Sometimes, something seemingly as small as a $1,000 grant is all it takes to catalyze a school community's latent desire to help into an established habit of helping.  Willard faces many challenges outside the control of the staff: the nurse reports 18% of the students are considered overweight.  Willard is located in a zip code where 46% of adult residents have not completed high school and 17% are unemployed.  What is within the school community's control is encouraging children to walk to school by making it easy and safe to do so.  The Walking School Bus will help them do just that.

*What is a Walking School Bus?  Interested in bringing one to your school?  E-mail diana@bicyclecoalition.org to learn more, or stay tuned here for a future post on Walking School Buses.