As we first introduced in spring of 2021 and continued last fall, as an augmentation to our Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programming, we hosted another Walk/Bike-to-School Challenge this October for students in area PSD schools to see how many days they could walk or ride their bike to school. We were super-excited to grow the school participation this time around by 300%, increasing from three schools to nine, including our first middle school. Back in late September, each of the following schools launched a challenge to their students to see how many days they could walk or ride their bikes to school during the month of October.
For the elementary schools, those who walked or rode to school at least 4 days earned a Bronze certificate and sticker to proudly display on a water bottle, notebook, helmet, bike or wherever they best see fit. Those who did so 5-8 days earned a Silver certificate and sticker. And those who walked or rode 9 or more of the 19 eligible school days in October earned the top recognition of a Gold certificate and sticker.
For Kinard Middle School, the numbers of days were slightly different, only because they had one more school day during the month (20 days total) than the elementary schools did. Thus, at least 4 days earned Bronze, 5-9 days earned Silver and 10 or more days earned Gold.
Also, as with last year’s Challenge, thanks to the partnership and generosity of Scheels one lucky certificate earner at each school will also win a special prize package of Scheels goodies, to be distributed at the discretion of each individual school.
The results are in–and are once again impressive. In all, over 500 students participated across the nine schools with nearly all earning certificates and nearly 80% of them earning “Gold.”
RESULTS SUMMARY
Based on the above results, factoring in just the minimum number of days required to achieve each level and a conservative 2 or 2.5 mile average round-trip per student to go to-and-from school, participating students this year walked or bicycled over 10,000 miles during the month of October.
Congratulations to each school and all the students who particpated.
A special thanks to each school’s P.E. teacher for coordinating the challenge within their school, and for all other school staff and teachers for supporting the Challenge and encouraging the students.
Don’t see your student’s school listed above? Feel free to share a link to this blog post with your PE teacher or principal, indicating you want your school to participate. We’d love to see more elementary schools and even middle schools participate in these Challenges.