Revere schools, Boston group join forces to stress exercise

REVERE – The Revere School Department recently paired with Walk Boston to help get more students and parents walking and biking to school more frequently.?It will be a great opportunity for both our students and parents,” Deputy Superintendent Ann Marie Costa said.Walk Boston reached out to Revere to help make the district an SRTS (Safe Routes to School) district. The organization recently did a study and discovered that three cities in Eastern Massachusetts would benefit working with them. The three schools are Revere, Lawrence and Malden.Walk Boston thought these three cities would benefit because many students live within walking distance of schools in their cities but choose to drive instead.Costa said only 13 percent of students walk or bike to school. “That is staggeringly lower than previous years,” she said.It was a percentage that also caught the mayor off guard. “Those weren?t the numbers when we all when to school,” Mayor Dan Rizzo said.Currently, Whelan Elementary School is the only school in the city that is an SRTS school. Every Wednesday is Walk to School Wednesday and it has proven to be a great success. “It has been a wonderful experience of walking together,” school committee member Carol Tye said.Last week, the school committee decided to make the whole district an SRTS district so that each school can benefit from its programs.Revere is currently looking for an SRTS coordinator. “This person will work full time in the city and will help get the program running and what programs will happen in each school,” Costa said.Revere is in the beginning stages of the program. For the remainder of the school year they will research which schools should take part in it for the first year and what programs to initiate. By September 2012 the program will officially be up and running.In other business, Superintendent Paul Dakin recently submitted the application for new science labs for Revere High School to the School Building Assistance Bureau. This is for a once in a lifetime grant that will renovate all of the high school?s labs.Dakin said he received a letter from the bureau stating that they received the application and materials. The next stage will be research gathering about those specific labs for the schools that are chosen.?At the bottom of page 1 that they sent me it said continue on with the next stage of the grant,” Dakin said. “That gives me a pretty good feeling that they liked us. I feel they wouldn?t send us down that track if they didn?t.”Revere will know if they received the grant for the new science labs in February.The next school committee meeting is Feb. 28.Sara Brown can be reached at [email protected].