Page 55 - MMP-N-NJ CCN 21st Century School Nurse Leadership Book

4. Communicate the vision.

• Use every avenue/vehicle possible to communicate: PTA meetings, Robocalls, flyers,
student poster contest, involve the art teacher, access tools through the SRTS program.

5. Empower others to act on the vision.

Remove or alter systems or structures undermining the vision.
• Example: policy changes that allow students to bike to school, purchasing a bike rack.
NJ Safe Routes to School (SRTS) evaluation of school traffic safety initiatives; changing
a street to a one-way street, traffic calming “speed bumps”, staggering school start and
dismissal times to decrease traffic from both schools. Involving parents/guardians and
high school students in a SRTS “walking school bus” initiative; community cleanup of path
behind school.

6. Plan for and create short-term wins.

• Define and set a visible performance improvement – set a date early in the initiative to
have a “Walking School Bus” one-time date. Create excitement around this date through
utilizing your partners and stakeholders. See the SR2S literature for idea on how to do this.
Use your local SR2S representative to help coordinate. Have a measurable outcome such
as percentage of students who walked to school that day versus those that would normally
be dropped off. Subjective comments and statements from teachers and students support
this objective – for example, a teacher comments that the classroom students were more
engaged and less fidgety before lunch that day; a parent reports that it was invigorating to
walk to school, felt safe, and got to work on time despite walking that day.

7. Consolidate improvements and produce more change.

• Use the evaluations and assessments to further change systems, structures, etc. For example
– the local municipality repairs existing paths and puts in sidewalks on the streets within
two blocks of the school. The PTA buys a bicycle rack for the school. Volunteers to work
as crossing guards are trained and placed. A local business is excited for more foot traffic
to their business due to the sidewalk expansion. A high school Girl Scout uses the program
as a Gold Award project called “Safety Ambassadors” and develops a system of walking
school buses with local high school students as the walking route leaders.

8. Institutionalize new approaches.

• Articulate connections between new behaviors and success of the program. Share the
successes and your results. For example – measurement objectives reveal less traffic
around the school, no injuries took place, funding for more sidewalks in the area was put
in the municipalities budget for next year, 50% of those students who live less than 1 mile
from school increased the number of walked days to school in the last marking period as
compared to the previous marking period. High school students have developed a “safety
ambassador” program that comes to the elementary school at dismissal to walk students
home.

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