Chapter 8: Standardized SRTS Survey Analysis

C HAP TE R 8: ST AN DA R DI ZED SRT S SUR VE Y A NA L YSI S

A take-home, self-report parent survey and a teacher-administered in-class student travel tally were originally conducted in September, 2014 (with the student travel tallies repeated in February 2017). These surveys and survey documents have been designed by the National Centers for Safe Routes to School (National Centers) (http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/). These surveys and survey forms are the national standard for reporting SRTS data in the United States and help the National Centers keep track of walking and biking rates. As per the National Centers’ guidelines, both of these surveys are administered to gather data from students in grades K-8. However, since many school districts in rural Minnesota have only a K-12 school, some schools may have administered these surveys to students all the way up to grade 12. New York Mills decided to administer the surveys to students in all grades. When this happens, it is WCI policy to enter the data as the individual surveys have a place to indicate what grade the student is in and it would be very easy to deselect data from students grade 9-12, if so desired. The results analyzed are from both the New York Mills Elementary and High Schools, grades PreK through 12.

The parent survey questionnaire is a two-page form taken home by students for parents to complete. The survey asked about their child’s school travel behaviors and the parent’s perceptions regarding whether walking and biking to school is appropriate and fitting for their child. Besides English, the parent survey is available from the National Centers in Spanish, Arabic, Armenian, Mandarin Chinese, Haitian Creole, Hmong, Korean, Russian, Somali, Ukrainian and Vietnamese. The parent survey can also be done by parents directly online, if school administrators and SRTS believe that doing so will provide a greater survey return rate (English and Spanish only). This also has the potential to increase survey response accuracy and saving administrative time doing data entry.

The student travel tally is administered by teachers and conducted over three days (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) in one single school week throughout the entire school. Teachers record weather conditions on each particular day, in the morning and afternoon. Then the teachers ask about students’ travel modes to school that particular day and how they plan on going home.

Once the paper forms were completed and collected for both surveys, the data is entered on-line into the National Centers’ database by staff at WCI. This is done to maintain data entry continuity and as a service to the school. After the survey data is entered, those with access to the National Centers’ database can produce automated individual reports from each school for both the parent survey and the student travel tally. These reports provide a breakdown of the basic statistics that first establish a baseline that progress can be measured against in the future. These reports are also the origin of most of the graphs and charts in this chapter and all those in Appendix A and B. The 2014 and 2017 surveys will be used to establish baseline

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