Schertz, Cibolo communities 'chalk the walk' for first day of school

Children were greeted with messages of encouragement on neighborhood sidewalks.

Cibolo, Texas – The first day of school can be filled with excitement, but it can cause anxiety for many kids and their parents.

That's why some people in the Schertz and Cibolo communities decided to "chalk the walk" for the first day of school.

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As children walked to school or to the bus stop Tuesday morning, they were greeted with encouraging messages like "No worries, you got this!" and "Be the rainbow in someone else's cloud."

"I think these helped me more than it did my daughter this morning," Mathew Ferguson wrote on Facebook in response to a post about the inspiring artwork.

Another parent posted a picture in a community group thanking the artist who reminded kids to put on deodorant.

"These were all posted in my neighborhood going to Jordan Intermediate this morning. Rather helpful too considering my son forgot his deodorant," Brittany Clark said.

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One of the chalk artists said she wrote the messages for her son who was a little anxious about starting a new school.

"I wanted to give him some positive thoughts on the way to the bus," Ashley Daniels said.

She also worked with her daughter to write messages leading up the elementary school gate for her other son.

"We love seeing the kids walk to school in the morning and wanted today to start on a positive note," Daniels said.

Some of the motivational messengers say they were inspired by a community member who encouraged them over social media.

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"Tonight I am walking to my kids' school I plan on taking sidewalk chalk and writing positive messages along their route," John Hlebik posted on Monday. "I would like to ask our community to do the same for all our kids... It takes a village to raise children. Let's be that village."

The challenge inspired people in the Schertz-Cibolo area to chalk the walk in their neighborhoods, and many more say they hope the tradition will grow in the future.

"Our neighborhood is great and we look out for each other so I thought it would be great to do for our kids. The kids need to know we all love them and are here for them," said Mignon Tolbert.

Some parents are already planning to chalk up some sidewalk encouragement for STAAR testing in the spring.

View gallery of motivational sidewalk messages:

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About the Author:

Julie Moreno has worked in local television news for more than 25 years. She came to KSAT as a news producer in 2000. After producing thousands of newscasts, she transitioned to the digital team in 2015. She writes on a wide variety of topics from breaking news to trending stories and manages KSAT’s daily digital content strategy.