Walking School Bus Programs: Implementation Factors, Implementation Outcomes, and Student Outcomes, 2017–2018

Key Takeaways:

• The benefits of having regular Walking School Busses (WSB) are cumulative. With each additional WSB trip, kids were 23 percent more likely to arrive to school on time and 21 percent less likely to experience bullying.
• Forty-two percent of programs reported improvements in students’ classroom behavior.
• The most common barriers to walking school bus programs were recruiting and maintaining student participants and identifying and maintaining route leaders.
• Programs in low-income communities were less likely to be coordinated by a parent than programs in moderate- and high-income communities (3.2 percent vs 29.6 percent).
• Programs in low- and moderate-income communities were more likely to have external funding than those in high-income communities (71.4 percent vs 37 percent).
• Programs within the United States had fewer route leaders overall, but more route leaders from the school and school supports than programs outside the United States.
• Programs with more route leaders reached more students and were more likely to report sustainability than programs with fewer route leaders.
• Programs coordinated by parents and external organizations had a lower reach (total student participation) than those coordinated by school or district staff.
• Programs coordinated by parents as opposed to school staff had a slightly easier time recruiting route leaders and were more likely to have a higher number of walks per week.
• Programs were successful despite having a low level of support from school and without strong school involvement. They were also successful when the neighborhood and built environment conditions were not supportive of walking.