About 15 percent of K-8 students in Lawrence public and private schools walk or bike between home and school, which is practically identical to the nationwide rate. But there is a sizable demand among students to do more of it, area health officials said Monday.

At the Lawrence school board meeting Monday, members of the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department presented a sampling of the data collected for the Safe Routes to School project, an initiative taken up by several Lawrence groups to make school routes more accessible by foot or bicycle.

The public is invited to a larger info session at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at the West Middle School cafeteria, 2700 Harvard Road. Health officials will divulge more results from this first data collection and ask for community feedback during the 90-minute event. The study involved student and parent participation from 18 public and private elementary and middle schools.

In the data revealed Monday, more than 30 percent of students who live two miles from their school have asked their parents if they could walk or bike to class.

The rate of interest gets higher the closer students are to their school. More than 60 percent of students who live less than a half-mile from school have asked to walk or bike.

Parents from 16 schools were asked if their child’s school encourages walking or biking to class. Only six schools received 50 percent or more “yes” votes.

“That was a little surprising,” said Charlie Bryan, the health department’s community health planner, referring to the demand among students. “There are a lot of kids that really want to do this. There’s a definite demand or interest from the children.”

In other business Monday, the board learned that the district had fallen short of its projected enrollment increase for the 2014-15 school year. Officials believed an extra 220 students were going to join the district’s brick-and-mortar schools this year.

But according to an official headcount taken in late September, only 41 had.

Kyle Hayden, assistant superintendent of business and operations, said it was specifically the elementary schools where the projections came up short.

The district’s enrollment is not officially determined until the Kansas State Department of Education conducts an audit in the spring. The headcount from September would put Lawrence’s districtwide enrollment at 10,225 students.