Safe Routes to School policy boilerplate

ChangeLab Solutions, a non-profit that works to improve livability, has created a simple Safe Routes to School policy builder tool for use by school districts to generate a boilerplate Safe Routes policy.

A written Safe Routes to School policy focuses school district staff in encouraging active transportation to school.

To use the online toolkit, all you need to do is plug in some basic facts about your local school district, and select from among one to four options available in the various policy areas. You then punch the GO button to generate your own Safe Routes to School Policy for adoption by your local school district board.

The tool also provides resources for discussion when you bring this up at the school board.

The user interface is a little bit non-intuitive. Once you get started, the “PREV PAGE” and “NEXT PAGE” buttons don’t seem to work; you need to select from the policy areas in the left sidebar. You choose the policy option you want by clicking inside of the gray text box.

Go have some fun with it.

One Comment

  1. Yeah, they’ve been around for a while now. It’s an impressive staff line-up…3/1, women-to-men, to make sure all that work gets done…that’s OK, they make up for it on the board with 4/1 men-to-women…to make sure all the right work gets done…yikes!

    I’ve been interested in school safety policy for sometime. Especially, as it relates to our legislators. Whom, I believe are ultimately responsible for what goes on. I’m not sure its getting any easier to manage it all, since the school system has collapsed over the years, creating greater traffic and safety related issues.

    Its always disturbing when you have a child killed out in front of their own school, by a parent of another student, as recently happened in the East Bay.

    Anyway, if interested, here’s a quick rundown of CA schools impacted by year:

    1999: Closed=(2,247), Merged=(981), Total=(3,228)
    2000: Closed=(50), Merged=(84), Total=(134)
    2001: Closed=(13), Merged=(3), Total=(16)
    2002: Closed=(17), Merged=(2), Total=(19)
    2003: Closed=(19), Merged=(2), Total=(21)
    2004: Closed=(36), Merged=(11), Total=(47)
    2005: Closed=(111), Merged=(37), Total=(148)
    2006: Closed=(29), Merged=(3), Total=(32)
    2007: Closed=(3), Merged=(4), Total=(7)
    2008: Closed=(11), Merged=(6), Total=(17)
    2009: Closed=(897), Merged=(11), Total=(908)
    2010: Closed=(32), Merged=(94), Total=(126)
    2011: Closed=(29), Merged=(), Total=(29)
    2012: Closed=(25), Merged=(1), Total=(26)
    2013: Closed=(567), Merged=(207), Pending=(22), Total=(796)

    Combined: Closed=(4,086), Merged=(1,446), Pending=(22), Total=(5,554)

    Current Active Schools: 11,677 from a Total of 17,231

    Top Ten most affected Counties:

    Los Angeles: Active=(2,401), Closed=(797), Merged=(324), Total=(3,522)
    San Diego: Active=(820), Closed=(236), Merged=(39), Total=(1,095)
    Orange: Active=(648), Closed=(183), Merged=(33), Total=(864)
    San Bernardino: Active=(606), Closed=(173), Merged=(65), Total=(844)
    Santa Clara: Active=(463), Closed=(245), Merged=(48), Total=(756)
    Alameda: Active=(438), Closed=(257), Merged=(49), Total=(744)
    Riverside: Active=(548), Closed=(102), Merged=(78), Total=(728)
    Fresno: Active=(396), Closed=(118), Merged=(98), Total=(612)
    Sacramento: Active=(406), Closed=(169), Merged=(31), Total=(606)
    Contra Costa: Active=(295), Closed=(135), Merged=(20), Total=(450)

    http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/si/ds/pubschls.asp

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