[Letter by Saurabh Shrivastava, City of Sammamish resident. Views expressed are those of the author, not the Living Snoqualmie website. You may submit letters to info@livingsnoqualmie.com.]
Snoqualmie Valley School District is asking voters to renew its levies, framing the request as a commitment to children and community. But when you look closely at how SVSD has treated some of its own students, that message rings hollow, and it reveals a problem that could affect any family.
For more than 20 years, our small neighborhood in north Sammamish has been asking SVSD to fix a clear and harmful problem. Children there are assigned to schools far away (9-16 miles), even though multiple public schools are just minutes from their homes. Every petition, based on student safety and well-being, has been rejected. The most recent petition was rejected yet again.
As a result, even elementary school children are expected to spend up to two hours a day on a school bus, often starting before sunrise, with no bathroom access, traveling long rural routes. This is not an occasional hardship. It is their daily reality.
Families raised serious safety concerns about State Route 202, a high-speed rural highway with winding sections, steep elevation changes, wildlife crossings, and a documented accident history identified by Washington State. SVSD dismissed those concerns by saying SR-202 is a state highway and therefore not a safety issue. That response ignores lived reality. A short drive on local city roads to nearby Lake Washington School District schools is far safer than nearly two hours each day on rural highways and mountain roads—especially for young children and new teenage drivers.
SVSD also dismissed what these children lose because of these commutes. Two hours on a bus every day means missed after-school activities, missed sports, missed music and swimming lessons, and missed chances to simply be kids. It means children cannot spend time with school friends who live just blocks away. It means no playdates, no walking to school together, no sense of belonging in their own neighborhood. This is not an inconvenience—it is lost childhood time that can never be recovered.
Over time, a painful pattern has become clear. SVSD has consistently rejected concerns about student safety and well-being, while continuing to collect property tax revenue from this neighborhood, even though most children there do not attend SVSD schools and many families have been forced to find workarounds through private schools, unstable choice transfers, or by moving away.
When a district asks for levy support but repeatedly ignores the harm its policies cause to children, trust erodes. Caring about children means more than asking for funding. It means acting when harm is clear and solutions are available.
SVSD had many opportunities to do the right thing. It chose not to.
Until SVSD shows that student safety, student well-being, and community connection matter more than preserving tax revenue and outdated boundaries, I cannot support its levies. I urge voters to vote no on SVSD levies and to support the change.org petition calling for this long-overdue correction, because no child should be asked to sacrifice their safety and childhood for money.
Vote NO on the levies.
Support the change at: https://www.change.org/p/90-minutes-less-on-school-bus-is-90-minutes-more-for-childhood
