A Marysville parent told the Board of Education on July 17 that the district’s process for reviewing alternate-address transportation forms will not be completed until the second week of September, potentially leaving families without the planned morning pickup for up to four weeks after school begins.

The comment came during public participation when Nora Garris of 20964 Bear Swamp Road told the board she and her husband both work full time and had arranged for their children to board a sitter’s bus in the mornings. “But today, I received an email from transportation that said those forms will not be reviewed until the second week in September, which is 4 weeks into the school year,” Garris said. “So I'm kind of at a loss as to what my children are supposed to do in the morning… I just kind of was speechless.”

Board members and staff responded that transportation communications were being sent to routed families and that the district’s transportation team was working through issues raised by families. Superintendent Jonathan said district teams have been enrolling students all summer and encouraged families to register early; he added that transportation emails were scheduled for distribution and corrections could be made after families received those messages. Treasurer Todd Johnson and other board members also noted the transportation team’s ongoing summer work to route students and recruit drivers.

The board approved a separate, formal student-transportation impracticality resolution during the meeting that authorizes the superintendent to declare a route or stop impractical in specific circumstances; board members voted in favor of that resolution without recorded opposition. The resolution authorizes staff discretion but does not change the district’s published routing process.

District staff said an email and a phone call to routed families would be sent in the evening before routing information is posted; the board heard that the transportation team had already corrected several routing emails the morning after distribution. Board members publicly commended transportation staff for proactively monitoring routing emails and for early summer work to recruit and train bus drivers.

The board did not adopt any emergency policy change to speed alternate-address reviews at the meeting. Parents with immediate concerns were told to contact transportation staff directly; staff reported handling multiple correction emails within the morning after routing notices were sent.

The district also reported open positions in transportation and that several drivers were in summer training. Board and staff remarks repeatedly urged families to complete enrollment and back-to-school forms early to reduce delays in routing and related services.

For now, the practical effect is a timeline mismatch: parents who rely on alternate-address arrangements said they will face a gap unless the district expedites reviews or provides temporary arrangements. Board members asked staff to follow up and make corrections as families report issues. The transport team’s next step is to resolve individual cases reported via the district’s transportation contact points and to finalize routes based on corrected information.

Quoted speakers come from meeting remarks and are attributed to the speakers who made them at the July 17 meeting.