Ability to get meals, services to quarantined school kids at risk, WA superintendents say

School district superintendents across Washington are voicing concerns over a state law that might prohibit them from collecting transportation funding to pay for bus drivers to deliver meals and instructional materials to students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

About 40 superintendents from King and Pierce counties representing more than 430,000 students sent a letter to state legislators earlier this month, asking for a change to the transportation funding formula, which provides funding to school districts based on the number of students they transport.

“Without immediate adjustments to rulemaking, and eventually state law, student needs will be unmet and the school transportation system will be dismantled,” the letter stated.

Due to COVID-19, many school districts are planning to return to school remotely this September and won’t be transporting students by bus. But superintendents say the buses and bus drivers still are needed.

This past spring, bus drivers “delivered educational materials, digital devices, hot spots for connectivity, and hundreds of thousands of meals to families facing food insecurity,” according to the letter signed Aug. 7. “We are relying on this strategy to meet student needs this fall, too.”

Superintendents say they have to make the decision before the beginning of the 2020-21 school year on whether they have money to keep their bus drivers employed through the year or if they will have to be furloughed.

“I think families should know that because of the uncertainties of funding at the state level, the services that they have had throughout the spring are at risk of not continuing, and that includes meal delivery and digital connectivity,” said Jessica de Barros, executive director of government and public relations for the Puget Sound Educational Service District.

The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction responded to superintendents Thursday, stating districts would be provided their “full transportation allocations for the months of September 2020 through January 2021,” but school leaders said it’s unclear whether they will have enough funding to last the entire school year.

“Our legal staff, in consultation with legislators and their staff, agree that, short of a statute change, we will have to make payments in February and beyond based, in part, on fall and winter ridership counts,” the letter said. “For many districts that will deliver instruction fully remote this fall, that would result in substantially lower payments or even no payments beginning in February.”

Superintendents say transportation still plays a vital role in delivering meals and instructional materials to students in need, and bus drivers are needed for a quick turnaround in case schools are able to open for in-person instruction some time in the 2020-21 school year.

“The worst thing we could do would be to furlough them and not have them (when school reopens),” Tacoma Public School superintendent Carla Santorno said Thursday.

In the Bethel School District, which covers 200 square miles in Pierce County, transportation is essential to provide services, superintendent Tom Seigel said.

“My personal position is, I like to keep our people on staff, because we are going to need them. It’s a matter of whether or not we can afford to pay,” he said.

OSPI spokesperson Katy Payne said a meeting will be held Monday to determine what can be done to help. Despite similar COVID-19 impacts last spring, school districts were allocated transportation funding.

“We’re going to continue working with the Legislature ... to hopefully get them to address this early in the 2021 legislative session,” Payne said. “They know that it’s a problem, and they’re hearing from their superintendents and their local superintendents.”

Cox Media Group