Overview
Program
Schools
Kids
Traffic Busters Program

Pace Car for Kids

Smart Sneaker
Week

Adventure Book

Pizza Party

Walk-n-Wave on Wednesday (WOW)

Walking School
Bus

Program Events
Schedule
  1. Continue to sign up volunteers - NOW
  2. Participating schools will need to have one or more parents willing to volunteer as organizers.
    3.
  1. Train volunteer organizers - OCTOBER 1
  2. Volunteer organizers will be shown how the program is implemented and be trained in giving a classroom presentation.
  3. Meet at 4pm Gayles bakery, Bay Ave., Capitola.
  1. Classroom presentation - SEPTEMBER 27 - OCTOBER 1
  2. Volunteers do a 5-10 minute presentation in each class using a flip-chart.
  3. They give each child their Adventure Pack and get child to put the first sticker on the front "Sign up Pace Cars"
  4. The Adventure Pack contains the following:
  5. Information sheet with the specific walking arrangements for that school on one side and the Mike and Molly Cartoon on the other.
  6. The Pace Car Sponsor sticker with the pledge on the back.
  7. Sheet of stickers for kids that they use to keep track of their Frequent Walker Points.
  8. A fridge magnet to hold the Adventure Pack on the fridge
  9. A brochure for parents, including a survey of how the child got to and from school for the previous 5 school days and a permission slip, both of which must be signed and returned to Barbara Graves.
  10. At the start of the presentation, the presenter will do a classroom survey of how the children in that class go to school and this will be used to collaborate the results from the Adventure Pack Survey (it is highly unlikely we will get 100% return on these.)
    11.
  1. FIRST PHASE: Sign up Pace Cars - OCTOBER 4 - 15
  2. Using the materials in the Adventure Pack, children will sign up Pace Cars and keep tally of the points they earn on their Adventure packs.
  3. Postcards from Mike and Molly will arrive in the classroom a couple of times during this week. Each class gets a single postcard which may be delivered by the parent volunteer or children from the upper grades.
  4. The parent volunteer (or children from the upper grade) will either set up a Pace Car Service Center in the main office (lunch time only) to give out more stickers to those who have used all their stickers, or they will keep a supply stocked in the classroom.
    5.
  1. SECOND PHASE: Smart Sneaker Week - OCTOBER 4 - 8
  2. Children put new sticker on the front of their Adventure Pack, telling them this is Smart Sneaker Week.
  3. Children walk and use stickers to keep track of their Frequent Walker Points.
  4. Parent volunteers walk from drop-off points that are about 10 minutes walk from the school.
  5. Postcards from Mike and Molly keep the kids informed of what is happening.
    6.
  1. THIRD PHASE: Adventure Books - OCTOBER 4 -15
  2. Children return their Adventure Packs so the Frequent Walker Points can be counted for each class. The points are then averaged for the class (average points per child in the class.)
  3. Children make pages about their adventures for their class Our Walking Adventures Book.
  4. Parents make pages for the class Our Parents Adventures When Walking Book.
  5. Postcards arrive to remind them to make the pages.
    6.
  1. Finalization - OCTOBER 20 to NOVEMBER 1
  2. The Adventure Books are judged and the class in each school with the best Adventure Books wins a Pizza Party.
  3. The class in each school with the most Frequent Walker Points per student wins a pizza party.
  4. The judges award commendations for particular pages in the Adventure Books and these are used to create a school display to educate adults.
  5. One school will receive the ALL-SCHOOL BONUS PIZZA PARTY for the best overall score of Frequent Walker Points (per student) and Adventure Book excellence. This party might be scheduled in conjunction with a Halloween party.
  6. A follow-up survey is completed October 22 to measure the changes in travel behavior.
    7.
  1. Launch of WOW! - WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13
  2. Children are encouraged to keep walking but particularly on Wednesdays which is Walk-N-Wave On Wednesday.
  3. On the Tuesday evening children who are going to walk the next morning get a foam hand to carry to school the next day and to wave in the air as they walk.
  4. The motoring public is educated via news stories that every time they see a child with a foam hand, it is a reminder to slow down to make streets safer for kids.
  5. The child then leaves the foam hand in a box in the classroom for the next week.
  6. Parent volunteers are encouraged to come up with their own promotional ideas in consultation with the children to maintain interest in WOW! For example, kids who walk may get a discount voucher for an ice cream or some other product. The local radio station may do a broadcast from their school. Or there may be theme days such as Walk your Cardboard Cutout Dog, or Mad Hair Day.
  1. The Walking School Bus - a long-range goal
  2. The Walking School Bus consists of an adult with a cart (to carry students' heavy book bags) walking a prescribed route through a neighborhood before and after school each day. This program has been very successful in other parts of the world, and there's even a British-produced book on how to establish a Walking School Bus.
  3. As a result of mapping Safe Routes to School, we will be able to identify good walking routes to pick up students who live within a walkable radius from school.
  4. If their parents and schools are interested, the children we meet through WOW will be the first riders of the Walking School Bus in Santa Cruz County.