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Palmerston North StreetWise Rangers or Walking School Bus Guidelines

Mission:

“To promote health and safety while walking to school in the Palmerston North City using the StreetWise Rangers or Walking School Bus Concept.” See weblink

Aims:

1. To aid in the implementation of the StreetWise Rangers Concept in Primary schools in the Palmerston North City within each calender year January – December.

2. Promote a safe and healthy concept of walking to school for all primary schools in the Palmerston North District.

3. Provide resources (if available) and advice to schools going through the process of implementing the StreetWise Rangers Concept.

4. The Palmerston North  Committee is only an advisory group for the implementation of the StreetWise RangersConcept in primary schools. The responsibility for the running and individual policies set for each Walking School Bus lies with the school. The committee has limited resources and can only provide the stipulated number of resources.

Committee Members in 2005:

Sport Manawatu	Ronie Asi	Junior Sport Coordinator
Palmerston North City Council	Sandi Morris	Cycle Planning Officer
Police	Bob Philby	Youth Education Officer
	Emily McMellon	Youth Education Officer
Road Safe Central	Mary Mitchell	Road Safety Coordinator
ACC		Injury Prevention Officer
Mid Central Health	Marnie Reinfelds	Health Promotion, Nutrition & Recreation Officer

Guidelines:

The Palmerston North Committee will provide:

1. Promotion of the StreetWise Rangers concept to all primary schools

2. Point of contact for all primary schools for information in regards to the StreetWise Rangers concept.

3. Health promotion advice in regards to the benefits of walking.

4. Safety promotion advice in regards to road safety.

5. Support in regards to implementing the Walking School Bus concept in schools.

6. Resources (if available) to schools to implement the Walking School Bus concept.

Resources:

The Palmerston North Committee will provide each school that implements a Walking School Bus in their school with:

1. 10 Umbrellas

2. 10 Sashes for walking bus drivers and bus conductors

3. 50 Bag Tags for children using the Walking School Bus

4. 5  Stop signs for pick up points for the Walking bus

5. 10,000 StreetWise Rangers brochures for distribution to all households with children attending primary school within the greater Manawatu region.

6. Contact numbers and quotes for further resources for the Walking School Bus concept.

Funding:

The Palmerston North Walking School Bus Committee seeks funding from all available avenues. This would include agencies represented on the committee as well as other sources for the promotion and implementation of the Walking School Bus concept.

Russell Street School
Started: Term Two 2002
Five WSB Drivers
Two WSB - 20 Children walking Three days a week

College Street School
Started: Term Two 2002
Two WSB Drivers
One WSB - 8 Children walking 5 days a week

Roslyn School
Started: Term four 2002
8 WSB Drivers
Two WSB - 30 children walking 3 days a week

West End School
Started Term Four 2002
10 WSB Drivers
6 WSB - 50 children walking 5 days a week

Takaro School
Started Term Four 2002
4 WSB Drivers
One WSB - 40 children walking alternate days

14 schools interested and working towards setting up a WSB at the moment.

In Palmerston North we have:

Schools: 5
Bus divers: 29
Walking School Buses: 12

In total we have  510 children walking every day to school. If this was to continue we potentially have will have children walking 26, 520 times a year.

Excellent numbers for healthy living, the alleviation of conjestion in school traffic and the environment in general

In regard to the promotion of the WSB concept within Palmerston North we had in 2002:

- Four articles in the Tribune
- Two articles in the PNCC feature page
- Two presentations to Mid Central Health
- 6 Fax outs to schools via Sport Manawatu in conjunction with national walking promotions
- 6 promotional adverts in the Sport Manwatu Junior Sport Newsletters.
- An update of WSB in Palmerston North on the PNCC Environment Website.