WABA is Looking For a Few Good Bicycling Teachers

Our Adult Bicycling Education program helps nearly a thousand people each year to become better bicyclists. Our classes give them confidence and skills that make bicycling a part of their daily lives. But none of this would be possible without our enthusiastic and experienced instructors! Many of these men and women are not WABA staff. They are bicyclists just like you who want to give back by becoming certified as League Cycling Instructors and helping us teach. (And we should mention, these instructors are paid $50/hr for time spent teaching.) To keep pace with the demand for our classes we need to grow our team of instructors, so if you are an enthusiastic and outgoing bicyclist, we want you! All it takes to get certified is a couple of your weekends this fall and a willingness to teach folks how to be better, more confident bicyclists. Additionally, for the first time ever, we’re offering you the chance to get certified for FREE.

Becoming a WABA Instructor

We hold our teachers to a high standard, both on bikes and in the classroom. So we’re committed to having every class on our schedule taught by instructors certified by the League of American Bicyclists. The League has been at the forefront of bicycle education for over a century, and the foundation of the program are the League Cycling Instructors. WABA requires that all of its education classes be taught by certified LCIs. Once you’ve been certified as an LCI, you’re not confined to the DC area though, you can teach the League’s Adult Bicycle Education curricula across the country. We want to make becoming an LCI easy for you. Here are the basic steps:

1. Learn the content.  By completing our full Confident City Cycling course suite, you will experience WABA’s classes & learn the content you will be responsible for communicating to your future students.  The Confident City Cycling suite consists of three distinct sessions:
• Confident City Cycling (I): Trails.
• Confident City Cycling (II): Traffic.
• Confident City Cycling (III): Evaluation.
2. Join the group that created the content and the program. The LCI program was developed and is administered through the League of American Bicyclists.  To be certified, you must join the League.
3. Learn how to teach the content.  Attend our League Cycling Instructor training Seminar the weekend of September 28-30, at the WABA office.
• The training seminar is led by an experienced LCI Coach, assisted by WABA’s Adult Bicycle Education staff. Over the course of the weekend, you’ll learn to teach the League’s classes and be evaluated as a rider and as an instructor.

If you have already taken one or more of WABA’s Confident City Cycling classes, you only need to take those you have not already taken to be prepared for the Seminar.  To make it easy for everyone to get all the components necessary, we will be offering a one-day session of all three on September 8th.  So you can start from scratch, or you can finish what you’ve already started.  More details on the September 8th session can be found here (CCC) and here (CCC: Evaluation). And if all of this sequencing seems a little confusing: we know.  Give us a call at 202-518-0524 ext. 212, or email safetyed@test.waba.org and we’ll talk you through it and figure out what you need to do to become an instructor.

WABA’s LCI Scholarships

For the first time ever, we are proud to announce that we are offering a limited number of full scholarships to our LCI Seminar on September 28-30. This is a unique opportunity to become certified to teach Adult Bike Education anywhere in the country, host your own classes as an independent instructor, or teach WABA’s classes at our standard instructor rate ($50/hour). Our Scholarships include:

• The $300 fee for the LCI seminar itself.
• A guaranteed spot at the LCI seminar on Sept. 28-30.

Our Scholarships DO NOT include:

• The cost of joining the League of American Bicyclists.
• The cost of any CCC courses.
• Transportation, lodging, meals, or any other incidental expenses.

Additionally, by accepting a WABA Scholarship, you agree to teach  5 hours’ worth of our classes in the first year of your LCI certification.  After your 5 hours are completed, you will be entitled to our regular WABA Instructor rate ($50/hour). Scholarship applications are due by Friday, September 14th, and recipients will be notified the week of September 17th. You can apply for an LCI Scholarship here.