Week 4: Manage Change

It's taken me a while to get my thoughts together on this, but a lot of that time was dreaming up worst-case scenarios for changes that might arise during a grant period. Unfortunately, the coworkers I might have asked are either crazy-busy and not answering questions right now, or are out of town on vacations or projects. It's a bit of a week at BikeTexas.

I'm not sure that I still have my thoughts together, but here's what I've thought of so far. (These ideas are mainly for the Aetna grant that will fund school-based or afterschool fitness programs in Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.)

BikeTexas has the experience, resources, and professional contacts to meet the requirements of the grant over the course of a year, even if changes arise in our personnel, the schools' commitments, or policies that may affect biking and walking programs.

Personnel: At least five staff members have served as Program Managers, or have worked closely with the Program Managers, on educational grants in the past. Therefore, in the event of staff changes, personal emergency, or other staffing problems that arise, someone else can be ready to step into the Program Manager's role, either temporarily or for the duration of the grant. Additionally, our program managers write detailed reports both for the grantor and for office records, plus no one ever works entirely alone. At every step of the grant process, the Program Manager will be communicating with his or her colleagues about the grant and its process, so that if an issue does arise with the Program Manager, he or she is not the only one holding the keys and multiple staff members will be familiar with where the grant is and what is going on at any given time.

Schools: We will do extensive research, in cooperation with teachers and school administrators who we already have connections with, to identify multiple low-income and underserved schools in the four cities. We'll target those schools, plus any local afterschool or other youth-oriented programs (i.e., Boys and Girls Clubs) with our outreach to suggest a bicycle and walking safety program for their schools. We'll have multiple options available for interested schools so a potential biking or walking program will be built around their needs, such as:

Walking School Buses (need to get parents to agree & find volunteers to lead)
Bike Trains (need parental agreement, and need to train parent or teacher volunteers to lead the train)
Bike Clubs
Biking and Walking Safety Curriculum, to be taught in PE classes (need to schedule training sessions for the teachers at a time and place that is convenient for them)
Bike or Helmet giveaways
Biking/Walking Incentive programs for students

Schools or afterschool clubs may want some combination of the above. We'll have a draft plan for each type of program to present to school administrators, with flexibility built in to review the plan and assist a school in making changes during the school year, if necessary. For example, if a school plans a bike train but discovers that it's easier on students and parents for them to ride to school on their own instead of having to meet the group, BikeTexas may help them transition from a bike train program to an incentive program for students to walk or ride to school. Or, if a school is successful in getting children to ride to school but discovers their bike parking is inadequate, BikeTexas might assist in finding low-cost or free bike racks for the school to install.

Part of the initial outreach will be identifying and communicating with multiple schools in each city, so that if one school decides that the bike program isn't working for them and no appropriate solution can be found, the program can still continue in the city with other target schools. BikeTexas will plan exit strategies ahead of time that will allow schools to drop out of the grant program with a good relationship preserved between them, the other schools in the program (if applicable), and BikeTexas.

Policies: Many parents are uncomfortable with strangers, however well-intentioned, visiting their child's school. BikeTexas strives to alleviate these concerns by training the educators, parents, and other youth workers in bike safety , rather than teaching students directly, which not only multiplies our efforts but also minimizes the concerns that may arise about non-school personnel having direct student contact. On occasions when BikeTexas is present, such as a special event that we've been invited to, we do our best to make sure the parents are notified ahead of time that we'll be there, and at the event we identify ourselves as being with BikeTexas and having the school's permission to be present.

Occasionally a school district or city will make it more difficult for children to walk or bike to school by enacting policies forbidding it or by banning bicycles from particular roads. BikeTexas does oppose bike bans in Texas as part of our advocacy work, but unfortunately the "it's for the children's own safety" argument, unfounded or not, tends to sway majority opinion, at least temporarily. BikeTexas will be prepared to suggest alternative programs to schools if these sort of controversies pop up within a community, likely pulling from the list presented earlier, while using our advocacy (i.e., non-grant) funds to possibly fight against any bike bans. Schools' own successes in a city of getting more children to be active through these bike and walk programs, especially when children regularly bike or walk without incident.