Are efforts by Arlington’s school system in providing bicycle education to students running on two flat tires?
That was the impression left at this month’s meeting of the county government’s Bicycle Advisory Committee.
There, several members castigated the school system’s efforts as halfhearted at best. The school system “isn’t even trying” to hit targets, committee member Gillian Burgess said.
As part of the county government’s Master Transportation Plan adopted in 2019, a goal was set of getting 75 percent of students into a bicycle-education class by 2024, with 100-percent participation by 2030.
But currently, instruction (typically delivered midway through elementary school) is only offered at about half of the school system’s elementary schools, where it rotates on a yearly basis.
“They’re basically trying to get as many students to participate as possible. It obviously depends on staff capacity,” said Elwyn Gonzalez, the county government’s staff liaison to the committee.
But several committee members weren’t buying what Gonzalez was selling.
“It’s not a staffing thing,” said committee member Aaron Schuetz, suggesting there was a lack of commitment on incorporating the bicycle coursework into the physical-education curriculum.
“There’s a [school system] unit on swimming,” he said. “You’d better believe every kid goes through the swimming unit.”
Burgess said the fault does not lie with individual schools.
“The schools’ staffs have been clamoring [for bicycle-safety instruction], at least at some schools, and they feel completely unsupported by the central administration,” she said.
The county school system’s supervisor of health, physical and driver education and athletics, Debbie DeFranco, told the GazetteLeader that the goal is to allow local schools flexibility.
“A lot depends on their school communities and the need for bicycle-safety instruction,” she said in response to our inquiry. “Teachers try to deliver instruction to any students (and grades) who could benefit from the unit.”
The discussion was a part of a broader review of goals that were set five years ago when the Master Transportation Plan debuted, so no school-system personnel were on hand to address the concerns raised.
Responding to the GazetteLeader inquiry, DeFranco said there were several limiting factors to increasing the percentage of students receiving instruction.
“The size of the school and weather can impact the schedule. However, the goal is to have it in each school every other year,” she said. “At this time, there are no plans or funds to increase the elementary bicycle program so that each school can have the program annually.”
