Safe Passage Priority Areas for School Year 2024-2025
To start school year 2024-25, Safe Passage Safe Blocks program will be supporting the District’s eight Safe Passage Priority Areas listed below. Beginning October 1, 2024, Safe Passage, Safe Blocks will transition to pre-determined routes in 12 priority areas monitored by Safe Passage Ambassadors.
Current Safe Passage routes for the 2024-2025 school year are listed below.
Priority Areas:
Anacostia
Brookland
Congress Heights
Columbia Heights
Eastern/Stadium Armory
Fort Totten
L'Enfant
Minnesota Ave/Deanwood
NoMA
Potomac Ave
Petworth/Brightwood
Tenleytown
In each of the Safe Passage Priority Areas, regular calls or meetings are held between school leaders, MPD, DDOT, and Metro Transit Police to discuss student safety concerns, plan assistance that is provided to areas, and share strategies for improving safety. Feedback from each meeting is used to determine what additional supports are needed. When needed, government agencies participate in citywide safe passage campaigns by adopting an area and providing physical support during student arrival and dismissal.
About Safe Passage
In August 2017, the School Safety and Safe Passage Working Group collectively decided to focus on specific areas of the city to improve student safety as they travel to and from school. Areas were selected based on the number of student-involved incidents in the area using data from MTPD from the 2016-2017 school year and anecdotal information from various stakeholders within the Working Group. To support cross-sector collaboration between DCPS and public charter schools, DME hosts coordination calls for each of the initial safe passage priority areas between the school leaders, police officers, and transportation specialists that work in those areas to create solutions for a student safety issue that is present in that cluster. The School Safety and Safe Passage Working Group will continue to evaluate the safety in each of the initial priority areas to determine if additional support in the area is necessary. In addition, the School Safety and Safe Passage Working Group will consider expanding the existing group of safe passage areas based on student safety concerns.