Walk+Roll to School Day - COMPLETED

Each year we hold Walk+Roll to School Day Challenges in Fall and Spring. These days fall on the first Wednesdays of October and May.

We invite all Tigard schools and students to join schools from around the world to celebrate Walk+Roll to School Day on Wednesday, October 5, 2022! Walk, roll, or bus to school and win cool prizes!

Contact your school for more information - we often need volunteers and parent champions! Events are organized by Tigard and Tualatin schools in partnership with the Safe Routes to School Program and the Tigard-Tualatin School District.

Walk+Roll to School Day raises awareness of the need to create safer routes for walking and bicycling and emphasize the importance of issues such as increasing physical activity among children, pedestrian safety, traffic congestion and concern for the environment. The events build connections between families, schools and the broader community.

Bike Rodeo 2022 - COMPLETED

• Saturday, 9/24/22, 10 AM-12 noon @ Tualatin Elementary
• Sunday, 9/25/22, 10 AM-12 noon @ C.F. Tigard Elementary
• Saturday, 10/1/22, 10 AM-12 noon @ Durham Elementary

Kids and families are invited to join our Bike Rodeos each year. Our Bike Rodeos provide instruction on basic pedestrian skills and how to be safe bicyclists. The Bike Rodeo includes a bike safety inspection and a series of skills stations directly related to everyday bicycling situations. Participants will practice starting and stopping, the safe way to exit a driveway, how to look for traffic, negotiate an intersection, and avoid common road hazards.

Bring your own bike and helmet or use a bike from our fleet and get a free helmet!

What is an Action Plan?

We are working with parents, school staff, and the school district to develop school specific Action Plans. Action Plans identify the key barriers to walking and biking and then prioritizes strategies to address these barriers. Strategies can be encouragement events, education, engineering/ infrastructure, and enforcement.

• Steps to writing a Safe Routes to School Action Plan

What are your barriers?

In order to develop an Action Plan that will fully address the barriers to walking and biking to school, we need to hear from you!

• Use this online geoform survey to submit information about the barriers or issues you face in the walk or bike to school.
• See the fully interactive SRTS Barrier Map for all Tigard-area schools.

Tigard is home to the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Program for the Tigard-Tualatin School District. SRTS is a framework for parents to join with teachers, school administrators and city officials to encourage active transportation to and from school. We believe walkable neighborhoods are strong neighborhoods! Some students don't have an option to travel actively to school and in those scenarios we encourage bussing and carpools! We've learned that single-family car rides to school create congestion, carbon emissions and parking challenges, and keep children from exercising their bodies and minds. Let us know if you need help finding your best route to school - we're here to help!

Our SRTS Coordinator works with all schools in the Tigard-Tualatin School District, including 10 elementary, 3 middle, and two high schools (plus 2 alternative schools)! The goal is to initiate Safe Routes to School Programs at the schools where there is not already some kind of presence; and to broaden and deepen the programming at the schools already involved in the initiative. The SRTS Program is sustained by creating systems that can be easily replicated and delivered.

Here are some great resources for utilizing healthy and active forms of getting to and from school:

• Safety in Numbers: get a group of kids from the neighborhood to walk or bike together.
• Take it one step at a time: drive part of the way and then walk the rest, to get the feel for walking to school on a comfortable route.
• Pedestrian Safety Lessons: this is a great time to go over pedestrian safety skills with your child.

Traveling to school safely is everyone’s priority and the SRTS Program is here to help!

Pedestrian + Scooter Safety Education (2nd Grade)

Elementary schools have the opportunity to include a Pedestrian + Scooter Safety Education course for their 2nd grade classes. The 5-hour course includes 3 classroom and 2 outdoor lessons, ideally spanning a single week (M-F). Teachers complete three classroom lessons with a provided curriculum and the SRTS Coordinator completes two outdoor lessons utilizing a fleet of scooters! The purpose of the course is to provide students with the basic knowledge and skill practice necessary to be safe pedestrians.

The following is a program review provided by Metzger Elementary:

"The Pedestrian and Scooter Safety Program was a remarkable opportunity for our second graders. During the program, each student received a helmet, hands-on pedestrian and scooter safety lessons, hand signal instructions, and personalized attention while learning how to safely ride a scooter. It was an engaging and rewarding experience for all ability levels. Hendrik has a gift for ensuring that students and teachers feel comfortable, prepared, and excited about the lessons and activities. We are thrilled that our students were able to have this opportunity and would love to invite Hendrik back every year!"

Bike Safety Education (5th Grade)

Elementary schools have the opportunity to include a Bike Safety Education course for their 5th grade classes. The 10-hour course includes 4 classroom and 6 outdoor lessons, ideally spanning two weeks. Teachers complete four classroom lessons with a provided curriculum and the SRTS Coordinator completes 6 outdoor lessons utilizing a fleet of 30 bikes! The purpose of the course is to teach students basic traffic rules and regulations, the skills needed to cycle effectively, and how to communicate and ride predictably on the road.

Note: We are limiting Bike Safety Education to a max of 3 schools this year.

Become a Parent Champion

The SRTS program relies on parent volunteers and is a vital connection to increasing the number of students who walk, bike or roll to school. Parent volunteers work to organize events, spread the word to other parents and school staff, act as liaisons between the SRTS coordinator and their child’s school and much, much more.

Tigard’s Safe Routes to School program hopes that more parents (and grandparents too!) will get involved and act as Parent Champions for their schools.

Please view our menu of ways to get involved and how the program can help encourage more participation at your school.

• SRTS Menu - English
• SRTS Menu - Español

Contact

If you couldn’t make it to the event, but would like to know more, contact our Safe Routes to School Coordinator.

Hendrik Broekelschen, a program coordinator for the City of Tigard, talks about the return of Streets for People, the debut of Move4May, and the continuation of Safe Routes to School.

We're providing FREE yard signs to residents who want to encourage safe driving in their neighborhoods. You can pick one up for free at one of the following locations:

Tigard Permit Center
13125 SW Hall Blvd.
503-718-2708

Additional Information

• Signs should be placed on private property in your yard.
• Please don’t place the sign on someone else’s property without their permission.
• Make sure not to block driver visibility for pulling out of driveways, seeing pedestrians, etc.
• Make sure the signs do not block walkways, bikeways, or drainage ways.
• Do not place signs on traffic sign posts or utility poles.
• Please promptly remove any broken or vandalized signs; replacements are free!
• You may call ahead of time to make sure your pick-up location has the sign you want. Phone numbers are listed above.

Unfortunately, local recyclers do not accept corrugated plastic yard signs. If you no longer want the sign in your yard, please let someone else use it, or return it to one of the pick-up locations.

Walking School Bus

A walking school bus is a group of children walking to school with one or more adult. It can be as informal as two families taking turns walking their children to school or as structured as a designated route with meeting points, a timetable, and a regularly rotating schedule of trained volunteers. More information about the Walking School Bus 

Start Simple

Remember the program can always grow; it often makes sense to start with a small bus and see how it works. Choose a group of parents and children in your neighborhood who are interested.

• Invite families who live nearby to walk.
• Pick a route and take a test walk.
• Decide how often the group will walk together.

Have Fun

Walking School Buses have many benefits.

• It increases supervision, safety, and fun for students who already walk.
• It permits additional students to walk, introducing them to an important and easy habit.
• It reduces auto traffic, particularly near schools during drop-off and pick-up times.
• It creates a sense of community by getting neighbors to take turns as bus drivers.

Park & Walk

Sometimes students live outside a comfortable walking distance from school, but parents still want help relieve the congestion of traffic around schools and students still want to be able to walk. A great option is to Park & Walk — where parents drive (or carpool with others) partway to school and then their students walk the rest of the way. You can really Park & Walk from anywhere, but some ideas include city parks, church parking lots, or other meeting spots. You can even get a group to meet at the central location for kids to walk together.