If you’ve been to the West Seattle Farmers Market today, you might have seen the Billion-Dollar Bake Sale crew tabling. As we’ve been reporting, that’s part of an advocacy campaign for public-school funding at the Legislature. In particular, they’re looking ahead to two events this week – Pathfinder K-8 parent and local advocate Kaitlin Murdock sent this preview:

I’m a Pathfinder Parent who, along with the Lafayette PTSA, reached out to Postcards4Democracy to ask them to help us send postcards to our 34th LD legislators asking them to fully fund public education.

They graciously agreed to help with our cause. This Tuesday, 10:30 am-12 pm, we will meet at C&P [5612 California SW] so each constituent can send a (provided) postcard to each of our 3 state legislators: House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, Representative Brianna Thomas, and Senator Emily Alvarado. Postcards filled out during this event will be hand delivered to Olympia on January 30th when taxpayers from all over the state converge on Olympia for the Billion Dollar Bake Sale Rally 10-11 am in Tivoli Square. Postcards and pens will be provided, generously donated by the Lafayette PTA.

We encourage everyone who can attend to join us for this joint postcard event in support of the bedrock of our communities: our public schools. Critical reforms are needed at the state level, as the majority of our revenue comes from Washington State directly. In addition, the portion that comes from Seattle levies (on the Feb 11th ballot), is capped, leaving us unable to raise local funds to fill funding gaps in special education services, transportation,materials, supplies, and operating costs. If our state doesn’t make key changes, Seattle Public Schools will be facing drastic cuts, with a $94M budget deficit. We want to make sure that these cuts do not result in closing schools, cutting teachers, or a prolonged teachers’ strike that delays the start of school next fall.

For those unable to join us for Tuesday’s event, or Thursday in Olympia, there are still plenty of opportunities to have your voice heard: send an email to our legislators, or “sign in” to register your opinion on bills as they move through committee (receive updates from: scptsa.org/2025-legislative-session). The next opportunity to gather in community in Olympia is February 17th.

Thank you to our community in advance; public education is the bedrock of our communities, our democracy, and our workforce, in addition to being the greatest opportunity for our most underserved children to have a strong start in life.

Some of this also was discussed at the local PTSA-led “teach-in” event at West Seattle High School this past Thursday night; we covered that and will publish our report either tonight or tomorrow.