Walking school bus

Coordinators' guide

Full print version: The walking school bus (PDF, 636 KB, 24 pages)

4. Which approach will work best?

The neighbourhood approach generally results in one walking school bus at the school, at least initially.

The meeting approach may result in more than one walking school bus, depending on how well attended the meeting is, where the people live and how many are willing to volunteer as drivers. However, it requires a lot of effort at the meeting to sort out such things as where people live and who will volunteer.

The network approach is likely to generate the most interest among parents. It is recommended particularly if the school community wants to make some impact on traffic problems at the school gate. This approach requires the most preparation and organisation, but it is effective. For example, Paparoa Street School in Christchurch used the network approach to establish nine walking school buses involving 73 children.

Step-by-step guide to the network approach

This guide helps you set up a network in your school, although it works just as well for one bus – just follow the step-by-step instructions. There are six steps to starting up a walking school bus network.

1. Survey

Use the letter and survey form in this guide to collect the information you need to start a network at your school.

• Fill in the date you want to have the questionnaire completed and returned by in the letter and survey form.
• Photocopy and distribute it to each family in the school.
• Post the material out with the school newsletter or other regular school communication.
• Place a notice in the newsletter explaining what is happening and reinforcing the due date.

If you photocopy the survey to be double sided, it will be easier to use the results to map routes and fill in the route information forms later.

The survey asks people who don't want to join the walking school bus scheme to give their reasons. Among other things, this could provide useful information on areas for safety improvements around the school neighbourhood, which you could then discuss with your local council.

2. Map routes

Once the questionnaires have been returned, they need to be sorted into potential walking school bus routes:

• Sort the questionnaires by street name.
• Obtain a map from your local council (the council's road safety coordinator or sustainable transport team should be able to help with this). It's helpful if the map shows street numbers and names so you can precisely locate each interested family.
• Use two different coloured pens to mark the location on the map of each child and volunteer.
• Considering the location of children and the number of available volunteers, trace out potential routes on the maps and give each route a name, letter or number. Write this on the individual questionnaire. Remember that parent volunteers are key to the success of any walking school bus. It's often best to pick an area with the highest concentration of parent volunteers rather than the most children. (While any number of children may be on one bus, we recommend a ratio of one driver to every eight children. Some walking school buses require one parent from each family to volunteer as driver for a day, while others do not make this mandatory.)
• Now is a good time to contact the road safety coordinator and/or traffic engineer at your local council. They can walk the route with you to identify any safety hazards and help you work with your local council to address any problems. (If a route has too many potential problems, another route should be taken until the problems have been fixed.)
• When you check the route, record how long the journey takes and the times between each ‘bus stop’. Keep in mind the trip could take more time with a group of children.
• Fill in the route plan with all the bus stops and road crossing points. To work out the time you will be at each stop, work backwards from the time the bus needs to arrive at school (aim for around 8.45 am). For the afternoon, work forwards from the time you want the bus to leave the school.
• Use the questionnaires to fill in the route information forms in this guide (see the parent and child rosters). You will also need to fill in one volunteer roster for each parent volunteering as a bus driver.
• Make plenty of copies of the rosters to distribute to all parents at the meeting.

3. Have a meeting

Organise a meeting (promoting it in the school newsletter) for everyone who responded favourably.

At the meeting, sort people into their route groups. Each route is then finalised by the families who are going to use it and they decide the schedule, driver roster and contact person for their route. Use copies of the walking school bus rules form in this guide to assist in this.

Bus stops can be someone's house or driveway, or a local landmark or dairy. Remind people that the times and stops can be adjusted later if need be.

At the end of the meeting, you can discuss the basic rules and responsibilities of the walking school bus. No matter how well you plan, there are always teething problems. For this reason, we recommend you start with only a few routes, even if there is demand for more. Once the initial routes are well established, others can follow very quickly.

4. Responsibilities

Walking school buses should be fun, flexible and safe for everyone. This means putting some common sense road safety practices in place to help volunteers feel comfortable with their role.

Setting out everyone's roles and responsibilities at your first meeting is a good idea. We suggest the following rules or practices as being sensible and easy to implement:

• Parents are responsible for their child's safety to and from the designated bus stops.
• Drivers must remain with the group on the authorised route. If there's a problem on the route (such as road works or other changes that make the route potentially unsafe), it should be reported to the bus coordinator and a decision made about how to handle the situation.
• Drivers and parents must take care when children join and leave the bus. Each route group should decide what will happen if a child is not met at a designated stop by a parent or for a child who misses the bus. Everyone needs to know what to do in this situation. Many walking school buses make it the parents’ responsibility to notify the bus driver (in the morning) or the school (in the afternoon) of any changes to their child's regular travel pattern.
• Some walking buses request written parental consent before a child can use it. The consent form at the back of this booklet sets out parents’ responsibilities, records the days the child will and won't be using the bus, and can include emergency contact details.
• It can be helpful to give your volunteers some basic road safety training. Your local road safety coordinator, community constable or sustainable transport team can help with this. Stress the potential danger of crossing driveways, especially as drivers may not easily see small children. A friendly letterbox drop to houses on your route advising people that a walking school bus goes past their house may help with driver awareness.
• Children on the bus need to know how to behave. They especially need to know that the leader is in charge and that they must listen to them (or risk being banned from the bus).
• Have a system in place in case a driver can't take their turn. This could be as simple as contacting the bus coordinator (who will find someone else to lead the bus that day) or asking leaders to organise their own substitute.
• Before the bus is launched, the walking route and stops should be assessed for any hazards and risks. Ask your local council's road safety coordinator for help in addressing any problems or alter the route to avoid them, if possible.

5. Vetting volunteers

Most volunteers will be parents at your school. Interested parents will be identified through your original survey. Some schools have also recruited volunteers from their community or through preemployment schemes. The school should ensure volunteers have undergone a vetting procedure to determine whether they are suitable.

The police offer a service to check for criminal convictions. School staff are required to undergo such checks before their employment, as are any contractors such as electricians and plumbers who work on school premises. (See the forms for more information.)

Volunteer training

We recommend you hold training sessions with your volunteer leaders before the bus starts. Your local road safety coordinator may be able to help.

The main things to cover are:

• the specific bus route
• bus stop locations
• any hazards identified on the route
• the role of the driver
• the walking school bus practices already developed by the school, including how to deal with late passengers or behavioural issues.

6. Launch your walking school bus

When you're ready to launch, send home a copy of the walking school bus rules and the route information sheet.

Organise the launch date, announce it in the school newsletter and get walking!

You may want to involve some well-known people (such as sports figures, local councillors or MPs) or the media in your launch.

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Page created: 8 July 2008