Another busy week at Greer – more doubled-up classes for bicycle skills course for 4th and 5th graders plus the second pedestrian safety lesson for 2nd and 3rd graders. Fewer staff this week as Spring Break gets closer. On Friday, it was just Lorge and me for one 40-minute lesson with about 60 kids. Ugh.

About 200 helmets, name tags removed, reboxed by size, and ready to be picked up for storage back at SABA headquarters.

Time to decompress and think about how to make things better at the next school we are supposed to go to.

More bike and pedestrian education.

This was a tough week working in a challenging learning environment. Exhausting.

Another tragedy this morning – another child was hit by a car. This time with lacerations and broken bones.

To counter that, check out these two boys who offered to carry supplies for me.

These girls covered their hands in chalk from the street design activity, then sang a song while doing a handclapping routine.

I didn’t recognize the language they were singing in. I assumed it would be Dari, Pashto, or Farsi. Nope. Korean. They learned it all on Tik Tok.

First on-bike day. ABCQuick Check.

The Vice Principal notified us that we would not be able to do walking field trip because it was too dangerous to take the kids, not only to Bell St and Hurley Ave, even to the parking lot to practice on a real crosswalk. The reason: a child was hit by a car this morning before school. So proud of the people who worked that day for instantly being able to pivot and create four stations around campus to practice what students had learned in lesson 1,

a little street design,

and a visit to the garden.

The team in our happy place – the stage of the cafeteria. Brando, Joel, Joseph, Lorge, BarbaraL, Deanna, Winona.

For 4th and 5th graders, today was helmet fitting.

I organized a bike parts activity for students who had finished.

2nd and 3rd graders were presented with pedestrian safety, lesson 1.

Friday.

A team from SABA’s Ride Ready Repair came to Greer to check the the bikes stored in the trailer. All Bike Fridays.

I scouted the other supplies in the trailer and planned the bicycle course in the area the vice-principal designated. Hmm, I will have half the amount of space actually needed for bike drills and it’s in a L shape. Next “hmmm,” two classes at the same time = about 55 kids and only 30 bikes.

This evening in Elk Grove. Population = 179,000. Two residents showed up. SacRT needs to come up with another community engagement strategy.

I didn’t know about Breakthrough Sacramento until Patricia from SABA and I were asked to attend a cohort meeting to talk about advocating for active transportation. On their website, it says they provide “a year-round, tuition-free, college preparatory program for academically-motivated, ethnically diverse students from under-resourced schools in the Sacramento area.”

Another community engagement evening in

Again, sparsely attended. Two blind residents provided valuable input.

This resident (the only other attendee) is a frequent user of bus and light rail. Every word was recorded.

I have been working on curriculum for 4 bicycle safety lessons for all 5th and 4th graders and 2 pedestrian safety lessons for 3rd and 2nd graders at Greer Elementary. This Safe Routes to School grant was funded by CalTrans –> County of Sacramento –> SABA. We just received our official start date for the program so I began ordering supplies: helmets for about 220 kids (15 large brown boxes worth), jerseys and many other supplies, and hiring League Cycling Instructors. My living room was beginning to fill up.

All the helmets needed to be unpacked with packaging removed and discarded, then helmets repacked and box labeled.