SPRINGDALE — School District and city officials continue to work to add sidewalks to increase students’ safety when they walk to and from school.

The School Board approved a resolution Tuesday expressing its desire to work with the city to build sidewalks in the neighborhoods of Elmdale and Westwood elementary schools. The Springdale City Council is expected to consider a similar resolution later this month.

The resolutions are one step in the application process for a grant from the Safe Routes to School Infrastructure Program through the State Highway and Transportation Department. Grant applications are due by Feb. 28. The state expects to announce grant winners early this summer.

Under the plan developed by city and school officials, sidewalks would be added to both sides of a 1,300-foot stretch of Westwood Avenue between Campbell Drive and West End Street. Westwood Avenue is north of Westwood Elementary.

Another 1,300 feet of sidewalks would be added to Christian Avenue and Pleasant Street, east and north of Elmdale Elementary.

Both schools have high percentages of students who walk to school. No buses serve Westwood Elementary, and only one bus serves Elmdale Elementary, according to Gary Compton, assistant superintendent for support services. The two schools’ combined enrollment is more than 1,000 students.

Compton said district officials hope to receive $500,000 in grant money to cover the sidewalk projects.

Dottie Hagar, president of the Elmdale Parent-Teacher Association and manager of the school’s cafeteria, said Elmdale has many students who walk to and from school.

“There aren’t enough sidewalks, and the kids are walking in the street to get home,” Hagar said, adding there are ditches and other obstructions that force kids into the roads.

She said the PTA works on safety issues, and sidewalks is one of the issues that concerns the group.

The district would like to see even more sidewalks added in the areas that need them most.

“This (grant proposal) is just a beginning for us,” Compton said. “It’s a small step.”

Kim Sanders, the Safe Routes to School coordinator with the Highway and Transportation Department, said the state has awarded nearly $5 million in four rounds of funding for safe routes since 2007. About $2 million is available in the upcoming round.

Sanders isn’t certain how many applications the state will receive this time.

“Every time we do this we get more,” she said. “So just based on what we got in the past, I would hope we’d get about 40 or 50. I’ve gotten a lot of interest.”