l-r: Nora Flores, Education Specialist SAISD; 2000th Teacher Patricia S. Diez of Carrajal Elementary School (SAISD); and Roger Rodriguez, Athletic Director, SAISD.

San Antonio, TX -- A San Antonio teacher became the 2,000th bicycle safety instructor to be trained in the Texas Bicycle Coalition's (TBC) nationally-renowned Texas SuperCyclist Project on Saturday. The local teacher, Patricia S. Diez, was recognized at Hawthorne Elementary School in a brief recognition ceremony featuring San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD) and TBC officials.

Diez, a teacher at SAISD's Carrajal Elementary School, was presented with a certificate in recognition of her landmark participation in the Texas SuperCyclist Project, and with several bicycle helmets for her students' use in SuperCyclist classroom work.

Diez was one of a group of teachers in regularly-scheduled Texas SuperCyclist Project training Saturday.

"This is a landmark for the team of teachers we're building to make bicycle safety a part of the institution of public education," TBC Executive Director Gayle Cummins said. "We're planning on reaching 3,500 teachers by next year, so we may have a long way to go, but we've come such a very long way already."

Cummins estimated that each teacher trained in the Texas SuperCyclist Project has an impact on 100 students. "That's 200,000 kids so far," Cummins added, "and that impact is huge."

The impact of the Texas SuperCyclist Project was reflected in the remarks of 11-year-old SAISD sixth grader Ashley Meeder, who spoke during the recognition ceremony. Meeder, the daughter of David and Elizabeth Quinn, said many of her fellow students are unfit and are ill-prepared to ride bikes because they've never been taught or encouraged to ride.

"My point is that most kids don't know the basic safety rules, or how to position a helmet, or other ways to keep themselves safe while riding a bike," she said.

"That's why," she told Diez and the other teachers attending the Saturday training session, "I wish you would take the time to teach. That's why I wish you would make a difference."

Ashley added that the bicycle safety lessons that will be shared in the classroom by Texas SuperCyclist Project trained teachers are needed because working parents often can't take the time to teach their children the rules of safe riding. "We need you to teach us safety," she told the teachers.

Meeder, whose testimony in the 77th Texas Legislature last spring, was key to the passage of the Matthew Brown Act, the TBC bill that enabled the creation and funding of safe routes to school, also put in a plug for the new law. "Safe routes are coming…but I don't think many of my friends won't know how to ride the new safe routes when they're here. If you teach us children, then that dilemma won't come up," she said.

The SuperCyclist curriculum was produced by the Texas Department of Public Safety in cooperation with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Subaru of America, Inc. and TBC, and is projected to reach a million fourth and fifth graders in three years.