The New Transportation Plan
UPDATE: The presentation to the Board and the proposed Transportation Service Standards for 2011-2012 are now posted on the Transportation web site.
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The Transportation Plan for 2011-2012 was introduced to the Board at their regular legislative meeting of January 19, 2011. It is scheduled for a vote two weeks later on February 2, 2011.
There has been absolutely no community engagement on the plan.
It was first unveiled to the public at the Board meeting, at about 10:30pm when there was almost no one left in the room. The presentation to the Board can be found in the Board agenda.
The transportation for high schools remains unchanged. Students living outside the walk zone (2.5 mile radius) for their assigned high school will be issued ORCA cards. Yellow bus transportation will be provided only as an exception for Special Education students and in situations in which the METRO service is acknowledged to be inadequate. See the Transportation Service Standards for details.
The transportation for middle schools remains unchanged. Students living outside the walk zone (2.0 mile radius) for their assigned high school will be issued ORCA cards. Yellow bus transportation will be provided only as an exception for Special Education students and in situations in which the METRO service is acknowledged to be inadequate. See the Transportation Service Standards for details.
There will be big changes for attendance area elementary and K-8 schools.
There is no description of these proposed changes anywhere on the Transportation web site - despite Mr. Bishop's promise to put the information there. The proposed Transportation Service Standards for 2011-2012 can be found attached to the Board Action Report.
Let's remember that Mr. Bishop is the one who promised a report on Transportation two years ago and never delivered and also promised a Transportation Task Force that was never formed.
Here is the short, ugly truth: students assigned to attendance area elementary and K-8 schools will be eligible for yellow bus transportation if they live within 1.25 miles of their school and within the school's service area (the Transportation Zone). Students living within the walk boundary, an area immediately around the school which has not yet been defined, will not be eligible for transportation. The Transportation Zone will look like a doughnut which will have an outside edge 1.25 miles from the school (less if the service area boundary is closer) and a hole in the middle for the walk boundary.
Transportation from a wider area will be made available for students enrolled in special programs such as ELL, EBOC, Special Education, APP and Spectrum. The stops for the routes to serve students living outside the Transportation Zone for their school will located at schools.
Other students enrolled at the school who live outside the Transportation Zone can catch a ride on a bus serving students in those special programs on a space available basis. Otherwise they will not be provided with transportation.
So, students living close to the school who did not used to get transportation will get it next year. And students living far away from the school (but in the service area) who used to get transportation will not get transportation next year. All of the years when your child could get yellow bus transportation to any school in the cluster (then service area) are over. The deal now is that transportation is only available to nearby schools.
Since the buses are driving such short routes they need much less time to drive them - the longest bus rides will be 25 minutes instead of an hour. This means that instead of driving two routes each morning and afternoon, the buses can drive three routes each morning and afternoon. So the bus arrival and departure times will be:
1 - Middle & High Schools: 7:30 – 2:35 (7 hrs, 5 mins)
--65 minute gap in the morning--25 minute gap in the afternoon--
2 - Elementary and K-8 Schools: 8:35 – 3:00 (6 hrs, 25 mins)
--35 minute gap in the morning--45 minute gap in the afternoon--
3 - Elementary and K-8 Schools: 9:10 – 3:45 (6 hrs, 35 mins)
You might wonder why the teenagers - who need to sleep in (according to research) have to go to school first instead of last. Keep wondering. The explanation was that if the start time for high schools and middle schools were delayed, then the end time would be delayed and that would interfere with after-school activities.
If you wish to make a comment on this plan, the Transportation Department has established an email inbox at transportationzones@seattleschools.org. In addition, they will host a community meeting (just the one, so don't miss it) on January 27th at Aki Kurose Middle School from 7:00 – 8:30pm.
This level of community engagement was regarded as perfectly acceptable by the Board. Not one Board member complained about the community engagement. The Transportation Department characterized this as "Early Communication of New Transportation Plan".
After the vote, the Transportation Department says that they will send mailings to the families who will be cut off. I'm not sure if that is part of the package of "early" communication to families.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Transportation Plan for 2011-2012 was introduced to the Board at their regular legislative meeting of January 19, 2011. It is scheduled for a vote two weeks later on February 2, 2011.
There has been absolutely no community engagement on the plan.
It was first unveiled to the public at the Board meeting, at about 10:30pm when there was almost no one left in the room. The presentation to the Board can be found in the Board agenda.
The transportation for high schools remains unchanged. Students living outside the walk zone (2.5 mile radius) for their assigned high school will be issued ORCA cards. Yellow bus transportation will be provided only as an exception for Special Education students and in situations in which the METRO service is acknowledged to be inadequate. See the Transportation Service Standards for details.
The transportation for middle schools remains unchanged. Students living outside the walk zone (2.0 mile radius) for their assigned high school will be issued ORCA cards. Yellow bus transportation will be provided only as an exception for Special Education students and in situations in which the METRO service is acknowledged to be inadequate. See the Transportation Service Standards for details.
There will be big changes for attendance area elementary and K-8 schools.
There is no description of these proposed changes anywhere on the Transportation web site - despite Mr. Bishop's promise to put the information there. The proposed Transportation Service Standards for 2011-2012 can be found attached to the Board Action Report.
Let's remember that Mr. Bishop is the one who promised a report on Transportation two years ago and never delivered and also promised a Transportation Task Force that was never formed.
Here is the short, ugly truth: students assigned to attendance area elementary and K-8 schools will be eligible for yellow bus transportation if they live within 1.25 miles of their school and within the school's service area (the Transportation Zone). Students living within the walk boundary, an area immediately around the school which has not yet been defined, will not be eligible for transportation. The Transportation Zone will look like a doughnut which will have an outside edge 1.25 miles from the school (less if the service area boundary is closer) and a hole in the middle for the walk boundary.
Transportation from a wider area will be made available for students enrolled in special programs such as ELL, EBOC, Special Education, APP and Spectrum. The stops for the routes to serve students living outside the Transportation Zone for their school will located at schools.
Other students enrolled at the school who live outside the Transportation Zone can catch a ride on a bus serving students in those special programs on a space available basis. Otherwise they will not be provided with transportation.
So, students living close to the school who did not used to get transportation will get it next year. And students living far away from the school (but in the service area) who used to get transportation will not get transportation next year. All of the years when your child could get yellow bus transportation to any school in the cluster (then service area) are over. The deal now is that transportation is only available to nearby schools.
Since the buses are driving such short routes they need much less time to drive them - the longest bus rides will be 25 minutes instead of an hour. This means that instead of driving two routes each morning and afternoon, the buses can drive three routes each morning and afternoon. So the bus arrival and departure times will be:
1 - Middle & High Schools: 7:30 – 2:35 (7 hrs, 5 mins)
--65 minute gap in the morning--25 minute gap in the afternoon--
2 - Elementary and K-8 Schools: 8:35 – 3:00 (6 hrs, 25 mins)
--35 minute gap in the morning--45 minute gap in the afternoon--
3 - Elementary and K-8 Schools: 9:10 – 3:45 (6 hrs, 35 mins)
You might wonder why the teenagers - who need to sleep in (according to research) have to go to school first instead of last. Keep wondering. The explanation was that if the start time for high schools and middle schools were delayed, then the end time would be delayed and that would interfere with after-school activities.
If you wish to make a comment on this plan, the Transportation Department has established an email inbox at transportationzones@seattleschools.org. In addition, they will host a community meeting (just the one, so don't miss it) on January 27th at Aki Kurose Middle School from 7:00 – 8:30pm.
This level of community engagement was regarded as perfectly acceptable by the Board. Not one Board member complained about the community engagement. The Transportation Department characterized this as "Early Communication of New Transportation Plan".
After the vote, the Transportation Department says that they will send mailings to the families who will be cut off. I'm not sure if that is part of the package of "early" communication to families.
Comments
The district attempting to make such a significant change to transportation just one year after the new transportation plan was rolled out with the NSAP, represents a bait and switch of epic proportion.
The families who chose schools last year, did so at least in part, based on the new transportation plan that was rolled out with the NSAP which promised transportation to ANY elementary school in a families attendance area as long as they were outside of the schools walk zone.
All of the students who enrolled last year, based on this promise, and all of the students who will enroll this year (due to lack of community engagement in the change of the plan) should have transportation grandfathered for them for all of the years their children attend elementary school.
Elementary families must feel completely bamboozled.
Does it cut out grandfathered transportation for students at the elementary level who are in schools more than 1.25 miles away? That sounds awful, especially in the NE where people were often assigned to other in-cluster schools quite a distance away because there was no room in closer schools.
The other thing I wonder is whether anyone who has been assigned to their attendance area school lives more than 1.25 miles from school. If that's the case, this is absolutely terrible! Especially if there is another school within the transportation boundaries, that is not your attendance area school.
Will this impact people with grandfathered assignments from before NSAP the most? Will it also affect students assigned to attendance area schools?
If anyone understands more than me, thanks for the help.
One, why isn't the Board saying anything OUT LOUD about the public engagement? Sherry Carr has said, several times on other issues, that she wants to be able to explain an issue to constituents. Today, who on the Board could accurately explain the ins and outs of the new Transportation policy?
Second, it's interesting because the Wallyhood blog had a discussion about McDonald becoming a foreign language immersion school. One parent was miffed their child couldn't go to Roosevelt and why didn't Roosevelt have this for their child. (I had to gently explain the high school situation.)
My point is that parents don't have accurate information and come to the party late and are unhappy about how things have played out. That an elementary parent might not know all the goings-on at the high school level could be understandable. But if someone did want to educate themselves, could they truly do it with just the info at the website? Probably not.
I'm sure we'll now see some quickly thrown together "meetings" around transportation.
Does this mean no transportation?
It just doesn't make sense.
-Very confused parent
--Bizarro World Has Arrived
Transportation is a huge part of the budget.
The district will be making enormous cuts.
No surprises here. I am sure this won't be the last gasp...wait till class cuts begin.
I worry most about kids who were assigned to nonattendance area schools under the old SAP. Those kids are in nonentry grades under the NSAP so if they lose a bus to their school, they won't even have a guaranteed seat at their new attendance area school. (Think of all of the 1st-4th graders from around Bryant who were assigned to Rogers.) There is some language about kids like that possibly being able to catch a community stop bus for ELL or SPED kids to get to their school, but it sounds very uncertain.
1 - Elementary and K-8 Schools: 7:30 – 1:55 (6 hrs, 25 mins)
--35 minute gap in the morning--45 minute gap in the afternoon--
2 - Elementary and K-8 Schools: 8:05 – 2:40 (6 hrs, 35 mins)
--35 minute gap in the morning--65 minute gap in the afternoon--
3 - Middle & High Schools: 8:40 – 3:45 (7 hrs, 5 mins)
It's unclear to me why this schedule would be unacceptable. I see that some young students would be getting to school very early in the morning and leaving very early in the afternoon, but its the same hour of the morning when the high schoolers were expected to get to school.
The proposed transportation zone around schools has an outside edge of 1.25 miles and a walk zone (as yet undisclosed) within that transportation zone.
If the old walk zones are kept - and they were regarded as good by the District for a long time - then transportation will be provided only to students who live in the ring that is between 1.0 and 1.25 miles from the school.
Since the service commitment is to have the bus stops within .5 miles of the students' homes, there only needs to be one stop along each arc of the doughnut shaped transportation zone. The bus routes will be easy to draw. The buses will drive partway around the circle around the school until they have collected enough students, then turn to the school.
The two million dollars savings from the last big no-time-for-community-engagement changes did not materialize (net cost went up half a million) but they anticipate that savings this year. It is therefore unclear whether that four million in savings Bishop touts from this plan starts from thirteen million or eleven million.
I noted that there is NOTHING on the Transportation web site about the proposed changes - despite Mr. Bishop's promise to post it.
I noted that Mr. Bishop never delivered the promised Transportation Report.
I noted that Mr. Bishop never formed the promised Transportation Task Force.
I noted that the Board and the Transportation department perform this annual melodrama in which the Transportation Department presents a bad plan, the Board scolds them, the Transportation Department appears contrite but notes the urgency of adopted the poorly written plan, the Board passes it, the Transportation Department promises to do better next year, and then the next year the whole thing is repeated all over again.
I asked about accountability and the culture of the District in which this kind of nonsense happens.
But, yes, springing this new plan on the community with no notice isn't great. And the cries of yet another crisis, even if true, and yet another demand for quick, emergency approval of a plan without any discussion are getting tiring after the district has pulled it time and time again.
Because you'd have the youngest students out walking to their school or bus stop at oh-dark-thirty in the morning, and they'd have to go to bed so early at night that they wouldn't see a whole lot of their WOH parents.
We're at N 47.6 degrees latitude -- that means for a lot of the school year 7 AM is dark. Sunrise is at 7 AM by late September, and doesn't get as early as that again until late February. Then in the second half of March it goes past 7 again due to daylight savings (counting that against winter break, you still have five months of dark school mornings).
Thinking of my own life when my kids were in early elementary, I had a baby/toddler who woke up numerous times at night, so I was permanently sleep-deprived. Having to get up an hour earlier would have made that much, much worse. I realize that's not everyone's situation, but it's a heck of a lot more common for parents of kids in elementary school to have a baby as well than it is for parents of kids in middle and high school.
Helen Schinske
The board is going to approve the plan. They feel caught between a rock and a hard place. They may approve KSB's amendment for TOPS, but they will approve this plan. The extra two weeks for community input is nice, but won't change anything. The allure of promised saving 4 million dollars is too great. The fact that this is related to a state initiative to save transportation costs is strong.
I propose an amendment that the board approve the plan but then also allow transportation a total budget of only 11-4 = 7 million dollars. If transportation costs go over that, it comes directly out of the superintendent's personal budget.
younger kids typically go to bed much earlier than teens. In K/1/2 my kids were typically in bed at 730-8PM, and in grades 3/4/5 about 8- 830, maybe 9P on an occasional late night. They easily got 10 hours of sleep a night, even though they woke up at 6-630A every morning. Contrast that to teens who typically go to sleep at 11P- 12A or even later, who then have to wake up at 6A to be at school by 730A, and well, you get some severely sleep deprived teens.
B) When my kids were in elementary school, because they had an early bed time, they regularly woke up (on there own) at 6-630 in the morning. I remember wondering why in the world we had to wait until 915A for school to start. Now, as teens, it's torture for them to wake before 11A!
To me it makes much more sense to have the younger children who go to bed early, and wake up early go to school earlier. And it makes more sense for middle and high schools to start later since teens go to bed much later and are naturally inclined to sleep later in the morning.
I do understand the safety issue of young children walking to bus stops in the dark. I'd never have allowed mine to do that in elementary school. But I would have happily walked them to the stop every morning, as I did anyway even with the 915A start time.
Not providing transportation to all elementary students seems antithetical to the "equal access" rhetoric.
I would be glad to do my part and save the District some additional dollars to put toward Transportation. First, I could withdraw my children from a few rounds of MAP testing. Next, those expensive math books - I am also willing to abandon those. Yes, don't underestimate the sacrifices parents are willing to make.
Many people have to be at work by then.
I walked myself to elem school in the suburbs,( 1.3 miles without sidewalks or paths much of the way) a distance I wouldn't have allowed my own kids to walk.
I know families who have in the past, registered their children for a school with guaranteed bus service, something that doesn't seem possible anymore.
How many blocks do we want elementary school kids to have to walk? Are we going to have crossing guards, stop lights?
The middle & high school kids with Orca passes, is the district calculating how long it will take them to get to school?
I don't have any problem with students using public transportation, but as a rider of public transportation myself, I know that sometimes the buses just don't stop/ or even arrive.
My daughter rode a Metro bus to school & unlike when a yellow bus was late, if her bus was late she was not excused.
Considering that many of these routes will require transfers to get to their school, how is the district planning to address this?
These are financially difficult times.
If elementary started at 7:25, the bus would probably pick up between 640A-7A. Most people don't have to be at work by then. But for those who do, how would a 915A start time be any better? They'd have to leave their kids alone in the house for a couple of hours until a bus came at 830A or so. Then the kids would still have to walk to the bus stop alone, albeit after sun up. Just doesn't seem a whole lot better to me.
I know that it seems strange to have the schedules for all of the students in these schools dictated by the few, but these students are entitled to a similar academic experience, which, among other things, includes having the same start and end time as other students.
I'm sorry, but what other, higher priority task was Transportation working on instead of transportation?
Middle School Parent
For the past eight years at least the District has provided transportation to any attendance area school (formerly called neighborhood reference schools) for any student living in the middle school service area (formerly called cluster). In fact, until this year, that was the only function of a cluster, to set the boundaries for transportation.
The yellow bus transportation was not an afterthought; it was central to the controlled choice system. The Board assured the community of the continuation of choice when adopting the New Student Assignment Plan. For a lot of families - most families - transportation equals access.
To pull the rug out from under these families who, in good faith, chose (or were assigned) to a school more than 1.25 miles away, but within their cluster/service area, is intolerable. Families make long-term commitments to elementary schools - six years. Longer with siblings attending the same school. Longer still at K-8s. The District needs to provide them with stable resources, including transportation.
Public school mom, having my kid walk to and stay at a bus stop in the dark versus the light makes a difference to me. It makes no difference to you?
Even when a school seems close to home, it can be a pretty unlikely scenario that kids in elementary school will walk even with a parent. There's often no place to walk safely.
Do you think they're considering this?
Aren't these some of the SAME bell times that parents protested last time, when community engagement was taken into account? Seems like they are simply going back to a plan that was largely rejected by doing two things - not allowing for community engagement and not announcing that bell times are changing - AGAIN.
Middle School Parent
Not really. I wouldn't let my kids walk to the bus stop alone in elementary school whether it was dark or light. Parents have to be responsible for the care of their children. If you can't do it because you work early then organize a group of neighborhood kids to walk to the bus stop together, or form a "walkpool" where parents take turns walking a group of kids. If you aren't open to those options hire a nanny. If you can't afford a nanny ask grandma to do it, or an older sibling, or a retired neighbor that might be happy to walk your child to the bus in exchange for you mowing her yard. Surely families can figure something out. We always did, and we are lower middle class, with no family support at all.
Teens ride Metro, sometimes across town, sometimes with two connections, sometimes transferring buses downtown, in the dark. That's no safer if you ask me.
There is no plan that will satisfy everyone, and alleviate all familial responsibility or inconvenience. Something has to give.
"it appears that the 1.25 mile limit is only for attendance area schools. So option schools (both K-5 and K-8) will still have transportation (outside the walk zone) from their full service area."
Once again, not to purposefully pit community vs. community, but just noting the option schools once again get what they want, and transportation budgets will be balanced on the backs of the much maligned and abused neighborhood schools.
Re Option Schools and transportation. They need to provide broader busing to Option schools since that is now their only tool for capacity management. If it helps, Option schools have been moved back and forth over tiers to save money, so have no predictability as to what time they will start or end in any given year. And most Options will lose buses for a bigger chunk of their historic draw areas than most neighborhood schools. There are schools that are losing buses for half the kids they currently have in the building. I'm not sure I would categorize that under 'getting what they want.'
I don't think anyone is getting what they want, including the ones who said they only wanted 'predictability.'
me too! I don't see why it can't be just like lunch, although free-and-reduced transportation does make for an unfortunate acronym.
I have so many questions about this plan. When I first heard about it I couldn't believe it, it seemed so absurd. If I was a board member I'd be asking "how many kids in the donut,outside the donut in the assignment area, outside the assignment area.
And above all, is this limiting transportation so much that we might as well not offer transportation at all? I don't know without the numbers, but a 1/4 mi. strip seems pretty dinky unless kids outside the strip can walk to a stop inside it.
I would be interested to see the corresponding chart for all of the other service areas. I would also like to know what the plan is for those kids? Will they get a special guaranteed assignment to some school they can get to (they are not guaranteed seats at their attendance area school, since they are in non-entry grades)? Will they get small buses or cab$? Is this one more money saving measure that will end up costing more not less?
"Midday kindergarten transportation will be provided should a parent decide to not participate in the school's full day kindergarten program. Transportation will be limited to the student’s attendance area boundary"
So if your child is in a kindergarten class at an attendance area school other than the one for your attendance area, and you opt for the half-day program... what?
You have to come and get your kid at noon?
Your kids sits and waits in the principal's office until the end of the day when the buses run?
What will they do if you don't come and get your child?
Let's see...
If you live outside the service area for the school then the district is not providing transportation now and will not provide transportation next year either. You will have to provide your own transportation.
If you live really close to your child's school, then you will probably be within the walk boundary and there will be no change. You aren't given transportation now and you won't next year either.
If you live just under a mile from the school you may be offered yellow bus service that you were not offered before because you may be outside the new walk boundary. The bus stop will be on an arterial and within a half mile from your home.
If you live between 1.00 and 1.25 miles from the school there will be little or no change, although the bus ride may be shorter and the stop will be on an arterial and up to a half mile from home.
If you live just a bit more than 1.25 miles from the school then you can still get a bus ride, but the stop may be further from home and it will be on an arterial.
If you live much more than 1.25 miles from the school and your child is in a special program there then you are getting transportation to the school and you will continue to get it. The bus stop will be at a nearby school.
If you live much more than 1.25 miles from the school and your child is NOT in a special program there then you may be able to get a seat on the school bus with students in special programs at the school. In that case, the bus stop will be at a nearby school. If there is no special program bus to the school from your neighborhood, then you will have to provide your own transportation.
I don't know how many families will move into that "provide your own transporation" category, but I don't see how the Board can fail to ask that question and I don't see how the Transportation department can fail to have reckoned it before presenting this proposal.
The district is proposing changes to the transportation plan for 2011-12. While the plan will save $4M, some elementary and K-8 students currently receiving transportation this year might not next year. District leaders are working to provide intermediary bus options for impacted students for the next two years. The School Board is scheduled to vote on the plan Wed, Feb. 2, although there are discussions to move the vote to Feb. 16. Given the state budget shortfall, the district is looking for ways to cut costs to minimize impact on the classroom. The proposed changes to transportation will remove 80 buses from the roads and decrease the bus ride time for attendance area schools to 25 minutes or less.
New Transportation Zones will be created for attendance area elementary and attendance area K-8 schools. Children within the transportation zone and outside of walk zones will be eligible for district provided transportation.
-- Transportation Zones will include the entire attendance area of a school.
-- Transportation Zones will extend to areas within a 1.25 mile radius from the school and within the middle school service area.
-- Walk zones to schools will still apply.
Intermediary options for those students outside of their school's Transportation Zone include the following for 2011-13:
1. Students who live within a half of a mile from the Transportation Zone boundary could walk to a bus stop within the zone. Seats will be allocated on a space available basis.
2. A shuttle system will be created so students can catch a bus at one school and take it to another.
Maps of proposed Transportation Zones will be available on the district website on Wed. Jan. 26 along with an interactive link to see intermediary transportation options based on student address. Details about how many students will be impacted will be available by Jan. 26 as well.
In addition to the new zones, some schools' bell times would change. Some high schools and middle schools will start 10 minutes earlier; some elementary schools will start five minutes later.
Now sounds like we will lose it next year. I can live with that as I originally chose a school and knew I would not have transporation. But, it seems ridiculous to offer it to us for one year and now take it away. Is there any consistency with this district.
Is there any consistency with this district.
No.
:-)