SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Principal Paul Souza says south Sacramento is underserved in education compared to other parts of the city and he's working hard to change that since joining the school district in July.
Souza, the principal of Rosa Parks K-8 School in the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD), says he loves fighting for equity for his students. One of the ways he does this is by asking his students what they need to get to school.
"We had attendance issues and I asked some 8th graders if I gave them bikes, would they come more to school frequently? They said 'yeah,'" Souza said. "Society wants to help, but they don't always know how."
He started browsing online community forums and asking neighbors if they had any bikes to spare for his students.
"If I get responses, great. If not, that's ok, too," Souza said. "I would think someone has a bike or two taking up space. I met with my social worker at school and I was telling her about it because I might not have the bandwidth to do it all."
While he responds to inquiries at night, he hands off the communication to his social worker to help arrange pick ups, drop offs and additional contact.
Sacramento Area Bicycle Advocates executive director Deb Banks says her group would be happy to connect with Souza to plan a batch of bicycle donations for students.
She says they regularly get donated bicycles from people no longer using them.
"Their trash is our treasure," said Banks. "We refurbish the bikes and make sure they're ride ready, then deliver a batch of six or seven bikes. School-aged kids, young adults looking around for their first job, people coming out of the pandemic worried about taking public transportation, we give them out to people who say they need them."
Souza hopes more bikes in the hands of students will not only result in attendance increases, but also in boosting hopes for students.
"Being an underserved school we don't always see the bright side of things, so I wanted to show these kids that people do care enough about them to donate resources for them to be able to make it to school," he said.
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