Students from Sultan and Gold Bar elementary schools put their bike skills to work Monday, June 1, at Osprey Park as part of the school district’s fifth-grade camp.

The students rode through an obstacle course featuring a crosswalk, a mock train crossing, and a traffic signal while practicing skills they learned earlier this year through the statewide Bike Education program.

Students moved through several different stations throughout the park, including a bike station operated by the Northwest Educational Service District 189 (NWESD) Bike Education Program.

At that station, the students had a refresher on helmet safety and then they were off, spending time on bikes of all sizes. Adaptive tricycles helped ensure students with a variety of mobility and balance needs could fully participate in the course.

“It’s great because you can learn how to balance better,” one student said of his bike ride.

Other students said they learned how to ride without swerving, even during sharp turns.

“I like feeling the breeze,” another student said.

The skills students practiced, including how to signal which way they were going to turn or that they were stopping at a train crossing, are skills they learned earlier this year with their teachers, who are trained in the “Let’s Go!” Bicycle Safety curriculum.

The Sultan School District is just one of the school districts the NWESD Bike Education program visited last year.

The NWESD is working with P.E. teachers, who in turn teach bike skills to students throughout our region as part of the Statewide School-Based Bicycle Safety Education Program, a multi-week bicycle curriculum for students in grades 3-8 that meets Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Health & P.E. standards.

During the 2025-26 school year, the NWESD program worked with 34 schools across 14 districts.

Next year, the plan is to expand to 52 schools across 19 districts.

“The feedback from teachers about the curriculum is overwhelmingly positive,” Regional Bicycle Education Administrative Coordinator Kate Mceowen said. “And the information about pedestrian safety is invaluable for students interacting with cars and other bikes, even preparing them to be future safe drivers around bicycles. And the most precious experience is watching the pride on a student’s face when they pedal a bike for the first time successfully. Those moments alone make my job one of the best jobs in the world for a bicycle enthusiast like me!”

The Let’s Go Bicycle Education Program, which is taught by physical education teachers during P.E. classes, is part of the Move Ahead Washington transportation bill, funded by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), and administered by Cascade Bicycle Club (CBC) in partnership with the AESD Network. It is supported with funding from Washington’s Climate Commitment Act. The CCA supports Washington’s climate action efforts by putting cap-and-invest dollars to work reducing climate pollution, creating jobs, and improving public health. Information about the CCA is available at www.climate.wa.gov.

The Let’s Go Bicycle Education Program was established in 2016 in Seattle Public Schools and is modeled after Cascade Bicycle Club’s (CBC) flagship “Let’s Go” curriculum. It is set to expand statewide to reach 90% of Washington students by 2039.

If you want to learn more about NWESD’s Bike Education program, contact Matthew Metcalf.