Tomorrow's City Council Vote on Two-Tier Transportation

Final Update (for today):  The City Council voted, 5-3, to hold on the vote for funding two-tiers from the Families and Education levy.


Notable:
- CM Gonzalez was the only member not present.
- Harrell said they will move the vote to Wednesday, the 14th, at 4 pm.
- Harrell said he is still opposed to using levy funds for this effort.  He said they want to help get to two-tiers but not thru "public funds." By that I believe he means, not the levy but would support taking the money from elsewhere.  He said he felt it important "to send a message" to parents, teachers, district, etc. about the use of levy dollars.
 - There was much back and forth about what it all meant.
- There was no mention of the crossing guard dollars and I'm unsure about what is happening on that front.

End of update.

Seattle City Council Insight update:

A spokesperson for the City Council tells me that Johnson’s bill will be held without a vote this afternoon, and that Burgess and Harrell are working on alternative legislation — presumably based on their notion of using transportation funds. They are working on scheduling an additional Full Council meeting on Wednesday to take up the matter again.

So unclear to me what will happen today but will report back as soon as I can.


Update:

1) Not able to be there in person but I will live blog from watching on tv.

2) Big news - CM Johnson has put forth an amendment to the bill, taking out the crossing guard costs.  In doing so, it makes the bill NOT a budget issue so they don't need seven votes to pass it.  Apparently, President Harrell is not happy about this.

From Seattle City Council Insight:

Harrell made clear that we was not accusing Johnson of offering the amendment for that purpose (and Johnson denied he was doing so) but voiced unhappiness — bordering on anger — over the net effect if the amendment were to pass.

Additionally,
Johnson’s amendment may have another problem: it changes the bill substantially enough to make the title no longer accurate. That may require re-introducing the legislation, which would add another week, at least, to the timeline for passing the bill and push it past the June 15th deadline.

Burgess has circulated a memo laying out his opposition to redirecting the levy funds, which quotes extensively from the Families and Education Levy itself as it was put in front of voters in 2011. But Burgess also offered an alternative path to funding the schedule switch: redirecting transportation funds, rather than levy funds. Since the money would go to pay for school buses, he felt that would be a more appropriate use of funds if the Council saw this as a priority. He and Harrell are circulating draft language of a proviso that would accomplish that — though it’s also doubtful whether that can get passed this week without some significant legislative sleight-of-hand. 

The full City Council will hear the legislation tomorrow about the City paying for a two-tier bus system for school year 2017-2018 from Families and Education levy funds.  Here is the agenda and here is the Summary and Fiscal Note.

According to the agenda, this item will come up in the first third of the meeting which starts at 2 pm at City Hall in City Council chambers.

Of interest from the Summary and Fiscal Note:
Summary: 

This legislation, if approved, would authorize the Department of Education and Early Learning to provide a one-time, $2.3 million payment to Seattle Public Schools (SPS) for a transportation realignment to a two-tier system and would appropriate funds to the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) to fund school crossing guards.

From Background:

The Seattle School Traffic Safety Committee (a team including representatives from SDOT, Cascade Bicycle Club, Seattle Police Department, Seattle Neighborhood Greenways, Seattle Public Schools Transportation Department) recommends one or more crossing guards at 107 school locations in order to provide safe routes for students walking to and from school. Due to the current funding levels from the State and the resulting strain on the SPS budget, SPS is unable to fund the crossing guard program as it is focusing all available resources into classrooms. This legislation would use funds from the School Safety Traffic and Pedestrian Improvement Fund to support the crossing guard program.

Please describe any perceived implication for the principles of the Race and Social Justice Initiative. Does this legislation impact vulnerable or historically disadvantaged communities?

SPS reports that the “flipped” bell schedule, which began in the 2016-17 school year, has resulted in favorable results for secondary students, including more sleep and fewer incidences of teacher disciplining of ethnic minority students. However, having three different start times is proving to be challenging for families with children in multiple grades. Currently, first-tier elementary schools start earlier at 7:55 while third-tier schools start at 9:35 am. Most middle and high schools now start at 8:45 am. Providing funding for crossing guards supports the safety of all students.

My understanding is that CM Gonzalez will not be at the meeting.  We know that Burgess is definitely a no vote and Harrell leans that way (I'm hearing he's getting many calls on this issue.)

One interesting group who has spoken up on the two-tiers issue is the Southeast Seattle Education Coalition. 

The Families and Education Levy is overseen by the Levy Oversight Committee (LOC). The LOC voted 4 opposed, 3 in favor to fund the request. Erin Okuno, Executive Director of SESEC, was one of the members opposed.

They are looking at this purely thru a racial equity lens (although I find some of their statements conflicting:

On the one hand:

 SESEC is also opposed to using levy funds to pay for buses and has shared these views with the City Council.

One the other hand:

We are not opposed to shifting to a two-tier start time if other appropriate and sustainable funding source could be found.  

Their reasoning:

Divesting funds originally dedicated to supporting students of color and shifting them to a race neutral strategy allows institutional racism to happen. Funding buses across the school district is equality (giving all students the same), not racial equity.

I'm a little unclear how you could plan a transportation system for thousands of students across the district based on racial equity but I'm open to hearing about it.

Decision making for racial equity requires us, especially policy makers, to slow down and engage with communities, families, and students of color. Communities of color were not asked how they would we like to see $2.3-million in levy funds used to close persistent and damaging racialized opportunity and achievement gaps.

Well, no one really gets asked how they would like to see levy dollars spent except the Committee.  

We question the use of levy funding on paying for buses when transportation has traditionally been part of basic education formula paid for by the state. Levy funding is meant to supplement, not supplant basic education dollars. 

Sure, that's basically true except that the State is NOT paying enough for basic education, hence the need for extra dollars. And, it's for one year.

While we understand many community members are asking for this to be funded, we are taking a principled stand on saying we oppose using levy dollars for this item.

This is what we first heard when the vote was taken by the members of the Committee; they didn't want to spent F&E levy dollars but were not opposed to the City spending the money from some other fund.   I'd have to go back and look but the F&E levy dollars go for all kinds of things - some of which are for under-served, at-risk kids and others for the general SPS population.

I may have to try to pop down to City Hall tomorrow and see how this all comes out.