Every school day counts when it comes to attending school and a strong future for students. But they have to get to school first to attend, learn, and grow. A new fact sheet jointly released by the Departments of Transportation and Education reports that rates of chronic absenteeism, missing 10 percent or more of the school year, have rocketed nationwide. Chronic absenteeism increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, jumping from 17 percent during the 2018-19 school year to 31 percent in the 2021-22 school year. This absenteeism is plaguing school districts of all sizes from urban to rural to tribal. Creating partnerships between school districts, cities, transit agencies, and Safe Routes to School can help highlight routes and ways for students to get themselves to school.
It is important to remember that not everyone can or has access to a motor vehicle. Ensuring that schools are accessible to all students in their community should be able to access school grounds beyond the yellow bus and private vehicles. Too often schools communicate to families the least annoying way to drive up close and drop off their students without emphasizing or providing information on walking, biking, or rolling to school. If schools and cities took an active transportation first approach to school travel it could reduce the dreaded car drop-off line, improve air quality around the school, increase physical activity for students and their families, and help build a sense of community around the school. You can’t wave and say good morning to your neighbor when you’re stuck in a car.
Safe Routes to School projects are great tools for schools and communities to ensure students have access to and the resources to choose active transportation to school. A first great step is to start with a walk and bike audit of your school to identify the good, the bad, and the ugly about getting to school. This can help highlight areas of improvement and identify the best routes for students to take. With data in hand, safe route maps, like those in Dubuque, can be made avaliable to the community to help highlight the best ways to walk and bike to school. A big tool is to establish a school street which designates a road outside a school for temporary restrictions on all traffic during school drop-off and pick-up times. This improves safety and reduces congestion. Check out the factsheet here to see other great tips and figure out which ones best fit your community.
In Iowa, this fact sheet comes none too soon with the introduction of new truancy laws. It would behoove school districts, municipalities, and communities that no student misses school because they do not have a safe way to get to school independently. We should empower students to go out, explore, and get to school independently whenever possible. Encouragement and Safe Routes programs can help transform schools and communities to increase the ways students can get to school, and let students get some light exercise on the way to school, while also reducing car traffic around the school. This helps provide independence back to young students and frees up their families from having to be de facto chauffeurs. How well does your school promote active transportation? Do you want to start changing how students get to school in your area? Reach out to matt@iowabike.org with any questions on Safe Routes to School.
Iowa Safe Routes to School is funded through a matching grant, help us raise our 20% of the grant here to continue our efforts to expand active transportation opportunities across the state. Thank you.