The public's help is being sought in order to accomplish a two-part goal: To get more elementary and middle school students walking and/or biking safely to and from their schools, and to identify ways to make it safer for them to get to and from their Spencer school buildings.

City representatives, in collaboration with Spencer public and parochial school officials, are rolling out the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program locally. The international program which began in Iowa six years ago, encourages youth and their families to choose walking, bicycling and other active ways to get to and from school. Another goal of the SRTS effort is to increase safety through the "five Es": engineering, education, enforcement, encouragement and evaluation.

"(We're going to be) educating people on how to get back to using sidewalks and trails, as well as talking about the increase in obesity," said Spencer Park and Recreation Director Delray Bredehoeft. "The number of kids who walked to school back in 1970 was around 70 percent; now we're down to about 15 percent.

"...It's (the SRTS program) not just about building sidewalks or enforcement," he added. "It's all those things integrated into our usual program. And, obviously, our big goal will be to encourage children and their parents to do more walking."

City and school officials were notified earlier this year that they were eligible to receive a $24,630 grant from the Iowa Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration to put together an action plan.

"Having the school and the city working together on this is really important," said Spencer City Councilman George Kruger. "The city can do certain things it's really good at, like looking at sidewalks and the city's infrastructure. The school, on the other hand, is where all the children are -- and they're the ones that we're going to be dealing with.

So, we want to do a survey at some point and get a feeling from parents on how they feel about children walking, riding their bike and busing. Then we'd like to send notices home with children when we have various kinds of meetings."

Another part of the process for incorporating a locally-identified SRTS program will include receiving public input. While Spencer public and parochial school representatives are planning to eventually gather data on how children currently get to and from school, as well as develop curriculum which can be used for encouragement and educational activities within the school system, city officials plan to develop an information base concerning infrastructure and possible pedestrian corridors, as well as assist in the planning of public informational meetings.

"This program really targets middle school on down," Bredehoeft explained. "So we'll be targeting the different sections of town and inviting them in for meetings to provide some input."

Spencer Superintendent Greg Ebeling noted the measures and efforts identified by members of the public will complement the recent addition of school bus stop arm cameras, bike rodeos and bike helmet giveaways held throughout town, and the federally-mandated wellness policy implemented locally two years ago which outlines goals for nutrition education, physical activity and other school-based activities that promote wellness.

"Safety is kind of a perception of what is and what isn't safe," Bredehoeft added. "I would hope that as we go through this process we can define some of those things that would make that walk to school more safe. And if we say it isn't safe, (to identify) why isn't it safe and what are some things we could do to change that. "The city and the school can do a lot of things, but we're going to need the support of the community to make this all work."

* For more information, or to become part of Spencer's SRTS action group, call: Donna Fisher, 580-7200; Greg Ebeling, 262-8950; Delray Bredehoeft, 580-7260; George Kruger, 580-1219, or Duane Willrett, 262-6422.