Learning to ride. WA bike safety classes roll into more Tri-Cities schools
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kennewick rolls out Let’s Go bicycle safety program to six elementary schools.
- State funds district $50,000 through the 2021 Climate Commitment Act.
- Program supplies 30 bikes, an adaptive bike, OSPI-approved curriculum and training.
Fifth-graders Jullissa Villanueva and Rowann Ottley are incredibly supportive as they swap riding a blue bicycle with one another.
As Rowann hands off to Jullissa in the Cascade Elementary School’s gymnasium, she talks about how it’s been fun to slow down and learn the basics. Both have been riding bicycles for a few years now, but there’s still plenty to learn.
“P.E. is normally boring, but when we got the bikes it was fun,” said 11-year-old Rowann.
During a Friday morning P.E. class, the duo and their classmates learned about bicycle signaling, yielding to other commuters and vehicles, turning, and watching their surroundings.
A new bicycle education program is rolling out to six elementary schools in the Kennewick area, thanks to a $50,000 grant administered by the Washington Department of Transportation and funded by the 2021 Climate Commitment Act.
Across Washington, the program will benefit about 53,000 students.
The Let’s Go program equips students, in third-through fifth-grade, with essential skills to become a safe, confident and informed cyclist, said the Kennewick School District. The goal is also to encourage students to lead an active and healthy lifestyle.
Similar to a mini driver’s education course, these dozens of young cyclists navigated turns, intersections, crosswalks, other commuters, signs representing oncoming cars and traffic signals.
“There are a lot of things you need to think about when you’re going through the course,” Cascade Elementary P.E. teacher Sue Swoboda tells her students.
Prior to their six-week program, Swoboda told the Herald, she surveyed hundreds of kids about their bicycle knowledge. Most of them said they were at a “professional” level of bike riding, but she quickly learned that there was a lot of safety information they did not know.
“It’s learning how to be safe on the road, to be predictable when you’re out on the street so that cars know what you’re doing, and you know what you’re doing and how to navigate obstacles and be aware,” she said.
Swoboda says the hands-on opportunity has dialed up kids’ ability to learn and engage with these important safety rules. She believes the program will save student lives.
“They’re just little sponges, and they learn everything,” she said.
The Let’s Go program provided the school with a trailer filled with 30 bikes of various sizes to use during the length of the curriculum. It also lent the school an adaptive bike for kids with disabilities to use.
The program offers OSPI-approved physical education curriculum through five structured lessons on pedestrian and bicycle safety, common riding errors and accident prevention.
Cascade is one of six Kennewick elementary schools rolling out the program. Eastgate, Washington, Sun View, Canyon View and Mid-Columbia Partnership are also participating. After next week’s lessons, the trailer will be off to Canyon View Elementary.
The grant also covers equipment maintenance and staff training. P.E. teachers participated in a full-day, hands-on training in October to equip them to plan their curriculum and test equipment. Staff also visited with classrooms in Pasco and Finley, where the program is entering its second year.
But the program also represents a safe space for students to make mistakes. At one point, lines of bikes began accumulating at an intersection as students debated among one another who had the right-of-way.
“Yeah, this is a traffic jam,” one 5th grader on the sideline muttered in between cheering on his partner.
