Board to Vote on Several Key Policies: First Up: Transportation Service Standards

Update: Director Liza Rankin explains her amendment at her director Facebook page and says this:

I start by giving some historical background into the tiers and how we are where we are now, and provide a brief explanation on my proposed amendment to decouple Transportation Service Standards and bell times so that ridership eligibility and start times and tiers are evaluated and approved as separate items instead of smushed together, which currently forces the board to either accept a tacked-on bell times appendix or reject an entire service standards document annually.

Here's what her amendment says:

Confirms the Board’s delegation of authority to the Superintendent or their designee to identify annual exceptions for transportation, and to set bus arrival and departure times and school start and end times; and

Huh? So she wants to give TOTAL authority to the Superintendent over start times and bus times; that's what the above paragraph says. And yet she claims on Facebook, that the amendment would separate the two from the Service Standards.  Can't have it both ways. 

To note, if her amendment goes thru, that means that Board policy has changed overnight without committee review or input from the public. So the amendment may not even be legal.

I also had a smart reader suggest that Hampson is trying to straddle the fence on bell times. She said that the Board should not be voting on bell times. She said at the SCPTSA meeting for parents that she would abstain from this vote. That would protect her from anyone saying that she was for the changes to bell times. And yet, her name is nowhere on this amendment that was just what she stated should happen. Leaving her name off the amendment also protects her. Hmmm.

End of update.

Tomorrow night the Seattle School Board is having their regular Board meeting. There are a couple of items on the agenda that merit a call-out. Two are being introduced and one is to be voted on via the Consent Agenda.

One is the Transportation Service Standards: Ridership Eligibility.

The BAR says:

The district anticipates moving the bell schedule from a two-tier to three-tier system for the 2022-23 school year.

Interestingly, Director Liza Rankin has put forth an amendment which would strip the Board of oversight of transportation standards. Key passage:

I move that the School Board approve Amendment 1 to the Board Action Report titled “Approval of the 2022-23 Transportation Service Standards: Ridership Eligibility,” which:

• Substitutes the attached substitute Transportation Service Standards in place of the 2022- 23 Transportation Service Standards and appendices that are currently attached to the underlying Board Action Report;

• Confirms the Board’s delegation of authority to the Superintendent or their designee to identify annual exceptions for transportation, and to set bus arrival and departure times and school start and end times; and
• Authorizes the Superintendent or their designee to make minor modifications as needed to the Transportation Service Standards.

Basically, the Superintendent just has to allow the Board to "review" yearly appendices to the Service Standards sans any input from the Board. Another key sentence:

Updates to the Transportation Service Standards beyond the scope of minor revisions will be presented to the Board for adoption.

Who defines "minor revisions?" 

So this would move bell times out of the scope of the Board's work. Hampson said at a SCPTSA meeting for parents that she would abstain on this vote for Service Standards. I would think if this amendment passes (and the vote on the amendment would go first), she WOULD vote for this item.