At John F. Kennedy (JFK) Elementary School in the Kingston City School District, attendance is being aided by the Walking School Bus program.
Every Monday and Friday school is in session, JFK Principal Melissa Jamieson, the school’s social worker Paula Bugbee, and at least three other educators collect students from drop-off points in the surrounding neighborhood the morning for the walk to school, and then at the end of the day they walk them home.
Jamieson said that the school has been looking for ways to improve attendance for the past five years, with the issue growing stronger after students returned to in-person class months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Jamieson’s predecessor Paula Perez did something similar, but it wasn’t until shortly after school began last September that the idea to try the Walking School Bus came up again.
“We tried some other attendance initiatives, pre-COVID, with limited success,” Jamieson said. And we just are constantly trying to think of what might work.”
The Walking School Bus came up during a conversation between Jamieson and Bugbee, and after grappling with the logistics, it debuted in early October. It was an instant hit.
“The students absolutely love it,” Jamieson said. “And we have that whole walk to talk and to catch up. On Mondays it’s nice because we hear about their weekendsm and on Friday it’s nice because we recap the week and learn more about each other.”
It’s also given kids who live in Spring Brook Village and kids who live in Rondout Gardens a chance to get to know each other better, because the two communities are separated by a very busy four-lane Route 9W.
“There are some dangerous routes to the school in that area, traffic-wise,” said Superintendent Paul Padalino. “I think that having our principal and our staff committing to doing this, it’s just another opportunity to show the students in the community that we care about our students. And I think it’s a huge relief to a lot of parents to know that, ’On these days my students get to school safely. I can just hand them over to their teachers and to the principal and they walk to school’.”
Jamieson agreed.
“Even though it is very, very close, it’s across a very dangerous road,” she said. “And it’s nice, because the kids are getting to know each other a little bit more. We keep catching them walking up the path, holding hands or with their arms around each other, or sharing umbrellas, and it is just the sweetest thing ever.”
According to the U.S. Department of Education, school attendance is a crucial component to a student’s long-term academic success. With the Walking School Bus, school administrators and educators — with the aid of City of Kingston police along the way — are helping students stay on track.
Jamieson said the maximum number of kids they’ve had on the Walking School Bus has been 27, with the number varying from week to week. Sometimes, she said, kids who’ve walked on their own will ask to join the group, which picks up students at Spring Brook Village first, then does the same at Rondout Gardens.
The Walking School Bus is even popular with some families who don’t live along the route: Jamieson said one parent drops her student off at the Spring Brook Village pickup spot on her way to work.
The program continues to evolve, partly at the behest of students at JFK.
“(Some of the) kids are learning how to write persuasive essays in one of the classes, and one students wrote a persuasive letter asking if there’s no school on a Monday because of a holiday like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day or a snow day, if we could please do it on the next day on a Tuesday,” Jamieson said. “So the persuasion worked.”
Inclement weather only stops the Walking School Bus if school is closed.
“Even when we have a two hour delay, in my two hour delay email to parents, I include what time the walking school bus will be there,” Jamieson said. “No matter what the weather is, we’re there.”
JFK has committed to keeping the Walking School Bus going all year long, and there is also hope of expanding the program to five days a week.
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