Two Columbia advocates are traveling to New York to lead a two-day training session.
As students begin their walk home from school today, two Columbia healthy-living advocates, Walking School Bus coordinator Margy Tonnies and PedNet director Ian Thomas, will take a walk of their own.
The two will be walking with about 35 trainees around the Saratoga Springs Public Library in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to start a two-day training session on how to implement a Walking School Bus program modeled after Columbia’s program where parents walk groups of kids to school each day. In Columbia, Walking School Bus participants have encouraged the city to spend more money on sidewalks around schools.
The New York walk, which Tonnies called a “walkability audit,” will teach people from all over New York state who are interested in the program what to look for when planning safe routes for kids to walk to school, such as the availability of crosswalks and the safety of intersections.
Tonnies and Thomas were invited to conduct the training session after making a presentation about the Walking School Bus program at an Active Living by Design conference in Denver last spring. The training will consist of two half-day sessions today and Friday. Travel expenses are being paid for by a grant secured by Justin Booth of Be Active New York State, who is coordinating the training.
“We are always looking for new programs rather than doing the same old thing every year,” Booth said. “I saw that no one is doing this in New York state yet, and I saw that Columbia had a good model for this, so I wrote the grant for them to come. We are excited for them to deliver this training to people in the state.”
The training will conclude on Friday with a segment on planning routes. Thomas and Tonnies will hand out addresses to the trainees, who will then be required to make a mock route.
“It sounds easy, but it really can be quite difficult,” Tonnies said. “You have to look at a lot of variables — such as placing the right leaders with the kids, the quickest way that they can get to school, planning enough time for them to get to school — it’s really similar to a school bus system. It’s fun but it takes a lot of detail.”
The Walking School Bus program in Columbia began with a pilot program in 2004 and expanded the following year with funds the city received from a five-year, $200,000 grant from the national Active Living by Design program to strengthen community programs promoting healthy living. Leaders from each of the 25 communities involved in the program meet yearly to trade ideas.
Thomas said he has done a lot of preparation for the training and is looking forward to it.
“It’s exciting to know that other groups around the country are interested in doing the same thing,” Thomas said. “There are so many benefits, such as for the environment and for your health, and the kids have such a good time doing it.”
This fall, 145 kids on 16 routes at Grant, Russell Boulevard, Ridgeway, West Boulevard, Fairview and Lee elementary schools took part in the Walking School Bus program.
Registration forms for the spring program, which begins March 19, will be available today at parent-teacher conferences.
Thomas and Tonnies said they hope to enroll even more kids this spring.
“I feel honored that they contacted us to come provide the training,” Tonnies said. “Columbia has had a lot of success with this. People from across the nation have contacted us and wanted information. It’s like we have created a model program.”