Remote Iowa schools find creative ways to participate in Safe Routes to School program

Safe Routes to School was created "by parents, schools, community leaders and local, state, and federal governments to improve the health and well-being of children by enabling and encouraging them to walk and bicycle to school," says the organization.

About 14,000 schools in the U.S. participate in the program, but one rural region in northeastern Iowa realized that the program offered no alternatives for rural students, many of whom live too far from school to walk or bike, or who would need to traverse dangerous ground to complete the journey, Tanya Snyder reports for Streetsblog. So officials in the Upper Explorerland region (right) are re-writing the rules and finding innovative ways to allow their students to participate in the healthy initiatives.

Ashley Christensen of Safe Routes to School for the Upper Explorerland, told Snyder, "We know no other region in Iowa had worked on one when we started and are pretty confident that statement holds true for the rest of the U.S., too."

The solution "was to do similar activities to other Safe Routes locations: walking school buses and bicycle trains chaperoned by parents; bike rodeos to teach bicycle safety and road skills," Allen writes. "But they also use techniques that might not be needed in denser areas, like remote drop-offs. A remote drop-off functions like a park-and-ride, where parents meet in a parking lot and walk their kids the rest of the way to school. All told, the programs reach 10,000 students from 20 school districts and six private schools in a rural area the size of Connecticut." (Upper Explorerland Regional Planning Commission photo: Students unable to bike to school can use the human-powered bike blender)

Students are also able to join mileage clubs, where they "earn rewards for walking around a track or in the gym," Allen writes. "Some teachers try to fit physical movement into their regular lesson plans, using techniques like 'Story in Motion,' where students act out stories. Some schools take school-wide activity breaks for the Chicken Dance or push-ups." (Read more)