PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION IN SUPPORT OF PUBLIC COMMENT FOR SEATTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLS TRANSPORTATION CHANGES. In recent Budget Work Sessions the Seattle Public Schools School Board have discussed discontinuing transportation to option schools. This is in the context of overcoming a looming $80m budget shortfall.  The presented savings is $550k.  When compared to a projected $1.1B budget, this initiative equates to one half, of one tenth, of 1 percent savings.  If the board deems this amount worth consideration, it must be done so publicly.  To this point, discussion has been done in the vacuum of the Board Budget Work Sessions.  This initiative should require public comment and dialogue as the implications will reach across all of SPS and the wider Seattle community taxing such elements as transportation infrastructure and our environment, while having gross implications for our schools’ children and their families.

List of implications for our community:

1. School Choice/Enrollment.   School Choice begins February 1st.  If transportation to/from our options schools is at risk of being cut, how are families supposed to make such a crucial and personal decision as determining the school that will meet their unique child’s needs when the basic logistics of access are in question?  How are current SPS families supposed to plan resuming their post-Covid lives when a basic service of SPS is in question?  
2. Increased Traffic Impact.  Individual parents transporting students is a wasteful model.  For example, school traffic already creates deadlock throughout the Pigeon Point neighborhood surrounding West Seattle’s Pathfinder K-8; this will, of course, be exacerbated and affect all users of our roadways.  West Seattle, lacking the bridge that until a year ago carried the most traffic of any in our city, is already on its knees moving traffic to/from “the island”.  This initiative will further push Seattle’s largest neighborhood to breaking.  SDOT solicits public discussion when drastically affecting our streets, why not the same with SPS?
3. Environmental Concerns.  Increasing traffic on this scale will negatively impact our environment, health and fly in the face of the basic lessons of stewardship being espoused by our students.  How can you consider “Transitioning SPS to 100% Clean/Renewable Energy” when such blatant negligence is being considered, again, in a vacuum?
4. Operational Chaos For All SPS Schools.  Those disadvantaged students no longer served by SPS transportation will need to enroll at neighborhood schools lacking additional capacity.  (West Seattle’s schools are at their upper limit).  How will infrastructure, staff, and support be funded  and implemented in a timely fashion to handle this influx both during covid and afterward when in-person fully resumes?
5. Student/Staff Safety During the Pandemic.  Recent Board Budget Work Sessions have discussed the possibility of required social distancing in the Fall. How will this be funded and implemented with increased student density at neighborhood schools?