Home › Forums › West Seattle Schools › I just got my son's bus assignment for next year..it says "METRO"
- This topic is empty.
-
AuthorPosts
-
April 13, 2011 at 3:36 am #721342
angelescrestParticipantI’ll probably get slammed for asking this, but (and, I have five children, so I qualify as a “jerk with…”), why is it the school district’s responsibility to get our kids to school? Isn’t that a part of the parent deal? I know it’s a hassle–a major hassle; believe me, I deal with it every day–but doesn’t that come with the territory? Huge logistic headaches, carpooling, BUYING bus and ferry passes…I get it, and I get it on a stretched income. And, I understand having to stretch further to pay for before and after-school care. Have Seattle Schools always provided transportation? Environmentally (unless we all walk to and from), it may make sense, though I don’t know how many cars it takes to equal the pollution of one bus; on the other hand, some buses appear to carry few kids.
April 13, 2011 at 3:47 am #721343
CurtissimoMemberI would say give the parents a voucher and don’t even provide the schools only the payment. But that isn’t the world we live in it is not a reality.
As for transportation, if it improves competition amongst schools it is on all of our interests to have better schools. And June Cleavers aren’t at home to walk the kids back and forth like they were in the 1950s. The schools are providing a service and they have to give the market what it needs. Whos is paying for ferry passes? The islands are not in the Seattle school district.
It is not that hard to run busses to move the kids to school. And there is enough money to do it… why aren’t you mad about waste and fraud of your tax dollars but you are upset they are driving our kids to school to keep them safe? I don’t understand your priorities.
April 13, 2011 at 4:09 am #721344
redblackParticipantyeah. the problem with “competition” is that here is always a loser.
education shouldn’t be run like a business.
April 13, 2011 at 4:19 am #721345
angelescrestParticipantWhoa, whoa, whoa. You are itching to pick on someone, huh? I work; always have–and, it was no picnic getting those kids to and fro. For me, it’s been the “worriest” part of child-raising.
I was just raising the question, seeing as I hiked back and forth as a kid…and so did my kids when we lived in CA.
What are you so angry about? Like to expand on waste and fraud? I see excellent teachers…and I see myriad social problems.
April 13, 2011 at 4:53 am #721346
herongrrrlParticipantAngelescrest, good question. The way I see it, since children are required by law to be in school (see King County truancy info here: http://www.kingcounty.gov/courts/juvenilecourt/truancy.aspx), the district should make some reasonable effort to make sure the kids can actually get to their assigned school in a safe and timely manner. And I don’t think that excludes public transportation out of hand, but I do think that the district came up with the plan to send the older students via Metro without consulting Metro first. Some route and schedule adjustments that keep the needs of commuting students (and other passengers who ride during that time frame) in mind could go a long way toward making this plan more palatable to parents, students, and other bus riders who find themselves in overcrowded buses before and after school.
April 14, 2011 at 3:57 am #721347
angelescrestParticipantHere’s where I disagree. I do believe kids belong in (a) school, but I believe it is the parents’ responsibility to get them there and home. I guess that was partially the idea behind redistricting: your local school should be your neighborhood, in-walking-distance school. That’s why I think it’s a lovely gesture to extend buses and metro passes to all (?) for whom getting to school might be a long walk…and that some families would not be able to afford the transportation on their own.
April 14, 2011 at 5:34 am #721348
CurtissimoMemberAngel your types of belief are dangerous because they insitutionalize intellectual and emotional laziness!
The idea behind redistricting was to shelter poorer perfomring schools and teachers from competition. It serves to lock poor people in poor schools and vice versa. It is the reaction of the status quo.
Washington public schools spend an average of $8500 per student on “education”, more than the price of typical private schools in the area. That is our money we paid it! About 4%, or $340 per child, goes to transportation. About 20% goes to adiminstration (read waste and fraud). If we are paying a premium for education we should get our money’s worth. Or give us the money and let us send out kids to private schools.
April 14, 2011 at 1:35 pm #721349
redblackParticipantBreak the numbers down by school district, and the chasm yawns wider, as the high cost of subsidizing the many small districts that dot Washington’s rural countryside add up to produce per-student expenditures that border on the absurd. The tiny Evergreen School District in Stevens County received $36,566 in state funds for each of its seven enrolled students, while Adams County’s Benge School District (a whopping enrollment of nine) topped the charts at $43,924 per student. By comparison, the Seattle School District, much maligned for its administrative overhead and other inefficiencies, managed to get by on only $6,740 in state funding per student, just below the state average, while Skamania County’s Stevenson-Carson School District cost state taxpayers a paltry $5,371 per enrollee.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/welfare-state/Content?oid=6686284
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.