International Walk to School Day Success!

It was a bit of an undertaking - fear of liability and losing students along the way, not wishing to walk in the rain, etc. but we did it! FINALLY after 3 years of trying to organize a safe "walk to school day" we managed to get 63% of our kids to walk to school. I had to corner some of the staff but thankfully they were willing and cheerful participants and helped to walk our kids safely to school today. It still needs a bit of tweaking but we seemed to have found a way to make it happen.
Because so many of our kids are bussed from Daycares we had to find a way to have them participate. The daycares involved were very supportive and one staff member even walked with us! They became the starting points of 3 different routes. For those kids that lived beyond those points we encouraged parents to walk or drive them to meet us and walk the rest of the way as part of our "walking school buses". The routes were designed to create catchment areas where many children that lived between the starting points and the school could join up with the 'bus" en route. We had the support of some of our parents too. A notice was put in the school newsletter and after no response our Parent Council sent out an email which managed to entice a few parents.