FCPS takes a blow against childhood obesity . . . Get up and walk.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/17/AR2009111701665_pf.html
Everything old is new again
Fairfax officials want more kids to walk to school
By Fredrick Kunkle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 12:45 PM
Almost everyone has a grandparent who claims to have walked two miles to school every morning. Uphill. In the snow. Etc.
In Fairfax County, it could soon be your teenager trudging to school.
Hard times have a way of making old ideas seem new. With nothing but grim budgets ahead, some members of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors want their schools to save money on buses by encouraging more kids to walk to school, perhaps by moving back the boundaries for bus-riding eligibility.
It's an idea that has received more attention nationwide in recent years as a way to fight child obesity, reduce air pollution and ease traffic. It became especially popular when diesel fuel prices climbed to $4 a gallon a year ago, and it's popular now as local governments struggle through the worst recession in generations.
The cost of putting a school bus on the street is approximately equal to keeping a teacher on staff, says Linda P. Farbry, director of transportation for Fairfax public schools.
It also doesn't hurt that the widespread campaign -- especially the cleverly marketed "Walking School Bus" that encourages parents to coordinate neighborhood routes, don safety vests and share escort duty -- fits with the Baby Boomer habit of reviving practices of their childhood. An oft-quoted study found that in 1969, 41 percent of students walked or bicycled to school. By 2001, that figure had dropped to 13 percent.
Supervisor Jeff McKay (D-Lee) has his own clear childhood memories.
"The schools do nothing to teach the benefits walking and biking to school," McKay said. "Somehow we got away from that, because when I went through the schools, they had presentations by police and others talking about the importance of walking and biking to school. If they're not being encouraged at school to do it, they're not going to do it."
McKay's suggestion that more kids walk also reflects the growing financial tensions between the School Board, which sets school policy and answers mostly to parents, and the Board of Supervisors, which controls school funding and answers mostly to taxpayers. McKay said that one of the biggest complaints he hears from constituents is about the number of half-full school buses they see.
Distance, safety concerns
But there are also plenty of reasons why bucking a 40-year trend of transporting kids to school is not going to be easy. Fairfax, which occupies 400 square miles, was built around the automobile.
Noreen C. McDonald, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill who studies children's transportation habits, said walking has declined as distances to schools have increased, the percentage of working mothers has doubled, and attitudes about safety have changed.
"People have some very strong fears about leaving their children unsupervised," McDonald said.
Those fears were heightened recently with the reappearance of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who had been kidnapped as an 11-year-old child while walking to her school bus stop in 1991. Last month, 7-year-old Somer Thompson, a first-grader from a Jacksonville, Fla., suburb, went missing during the 10-minute walk to school. Her body was later discovered in a Georgia landfill.
Susan Mosios, 47, a substitute teacher and jewelry designer who lives in Lorton, said she allows her 9-year-old son, Jacob, to walk to school, but only so far. "I'd like it to be like the old days when people could walk. But I worry about the people who could take the child," she said outside Laurel Hill Elementary School.
Fairfax County transportation officials understand the concern. "We're already having difficulty with parents who live inside these boundaries saying it's already too far for a kindergartner to walk a mile," Farbry said. "And we don't dispute that."
Under current regulations, elementary students ride the bus if they live more than a mile from school. Middle and senior high school students are entitled to use buses if they live more than 1 1/2 miles from school. About 10,000 students who live inside the boundaries are eligible for busing because they face particular safety hazards on their route, such as a major highway crossing, have disabilities or belong to special programs.
The district -- which buses about 64 percent of its student body -- has tried to squeeze savings on buses, often to the dismay of parents. It has eliminated some neighborhood stops and tweaked schools' daily schedules. Its goal is to cut its fleet by 90 buses, or about 8 percent, from 1,150 last year, Farbry said. So far, the district has taken 54 buses off the street.
Two years ago, the district also conducted a study that suggested extending the distance middle and high school students walk by half a mile would save $975,000 a year. Yet moving the boundaries back would probably cause more parents to drive their children, clogging neighborhood streets, Farbry said.
Montgomery County's School Board also explored a similar maneuver to save money, voting in June 2008 to grant officials emergency powers to extend the bus boundaries if fuel prices rose further. Brian Edwards, a schools spokesman, said no change has been necessary, and the school continues to use boundaries of 1 mile for elementary school children, 1 1/2 miles for middle school students and 2 miles for high school students.
Financial incentives
Since 2005, the federally funded National Center for Safe Routes to School has been encouraging more students to walk or bike. The program has given Virginia $13.3 million for traffic improvements and educational promotions. Maryland has received $10.3 million and the District about $5 million.
Evidence that the program is working has been mostly anecdotal, such as the Boulder elementary school that increased the percentage of walkers and bikers from 41 percent to 70 percent, or the Auburn, Wash., school district that cut its fleet of buses from six to one.
Fairfax is hunting for any savings in the face of a $315.6 million gap in fiscal 2010 that has forced County Executive Anthony H. Griffin to call for cuts of as much as 15 percent in some agencies.
More than 54 percent of the county's budget goes to its school district -- probably more when programs such as crossing guards in the police department are included.
Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon S. Bulova (D) supports the idea of having more children walk if they can do so safely and noted that considerable sums have been invested in trail and pedestrian improvements.
At Laurel Hill Elementary, for example, three-quarters of its population walks, largely because it's close to residential housing. Principal Suzie Montgomery said about 600 of 800 students walk.
"I think it fosters a sense of community," said Christine Morin, 39, a parent at Laurel Hill who has coordinated a fairly elaborate schedule with four other families to escort their children to school, including her second-graders, twins Ben and Chase.
On a cold blustery day last week, Morin gathered her gang at the school entrance and headed into a light rain.
"Everybody here? One, two, three, four, five, six -- okay," she said to herself, after negotiating an intersection with help from a crossing guard. Hidden under rain-whipped umbrellas, the six young walkers looked like walking backpacks as they headed down Western Hemlock Way into a subdivision so new it's still mostly treeless.
Meghan Wommack, 8, braving puddles in sneakers and a fuchsia slicker, said she liked walking, even in the rain, and certainly more than taking the bus, as they used to do. For one thing, she didn't have to bother with older kids.
Ben Morin, 8, agreed. "Walking is better because people on the bus were cursing all the time," he said.