Congratulations to Muir and Bryant Elementary Schools in Seattle for winning the first annual Golden Shoe Awa
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The Golden Shoe Award recognizes and celebrates schools that have taken great strides to get more students to walk or cycle to school. This year’s recipients show distinction by virtue of having achieved the greatest increases in walking and cycling over the past 5 years. Recipients were recognized at the January 4, 2012 meeting of the Seattle School Board.
Feet First’s Safe Routes to School Director Jen Cole was at the meeting to proudly stand with the John Muir Elementary team when they accepted the award. The percentage of students walking to Muir has tripled in the past five years, rising from 7 percent in 2007 to 21 percent in 2011 — the greatest increase in the district! Feet First has worked with this school since 2009, when they received a major grant from the Washington State Department of Transportation to fund the Green Feet Project for Safe Routes to School. For more information about how they did it, check out this documentary film created during the grant project.
Bryant Elementary School has excelled in getting both more walkers and more cyclists over the past 5 years. While raising the percentage of walkers from 10 percent to 25 percent, Bryant student cycling also rose from 2 percent to 8 percent. That is a higher rate of cycling than was measured at any other school in Seattle! Bryant has achieved this through years of sustained enthusiasm and parent involvement, particularly around Bike to School Month, which they have conducted with help from the Cascade Bicycle Club.
The Golden Shoe Award is given by the City of Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee, an inter-agency committee established in 1976 to serve the purpose of improving traffic safety for all of Seattle’s school children. The committee used data from the Student Travel Mode Choice Survey conducted in Seattle elementary schools every spring.
If you feel your school could be a contender for next year’s Golden Shoe, check with your Principal to be sure he or she participates in the Safe Routes to School survey.