If not Amazon, who will step up for Tacoma area schools during coronavirus shutdown?
Amazon jumped into the coronavirus charity pool with a big splash Monday, pledging to give 8,200 laptops to Seattle students. We commend the company for partnering with Seattle Public Schools on the gift, as well as a new Education Equity Fund that will be a blessing to Amazon’s hometown.
The donations are much needed, girding families for an extended COVID-19 shutdown by providing remote-learning tools that many students lack. The rollout was well timed; a few hours later, Gov. Jay Inslee announced Washington schools will stay closed for the rest of the school year as the state continues strict measures to flatten the infection curve.
One thing that could make Amazon’s good news even better? If the trillion-dollar technology empire owned by the world’s richest man were to expand its philanthropic reach beyond Seattle. By that we mean the South Sound, where Amazon has a large footprint.
Memo to Jeff Bezos: Thousands of your employees live in Pierce County, and their children attend public schools, too.
Households led by Amazon commuters fed up with Seattle’s cost of living are a big reason why Tacoma last year was the fourth-most competitive housing market in the US, and why in recent years double-digit rent increases have spawned a housing affordability crisis here.
Amazon is a big reason why nearly half of Pierce County residents drive to work across the county line, and why interstate 5 between Tacoma and Seattle is consistently rated one of the worst traffic corridors in the country. (When there’s no pandemic going on, that is.)
Helping establish an Education Equity Fund for Tacoma Public Schools, the largest Puget Sound school district outside Seattle, would be a broad-minded gesture by Amazon — an acknowledgment of its influence as a regional leader, not just an employer.
There’s a real need to be filled here. TPS, which serves 30,000 students, distributed 2,500 laptops last week but ran out on the fourth day. Its remote-learning plan is a week-by-week improv routine and would benefit from tech-savvy business partners.
Or perhaps Amazon would like to make an impact in a smaller community. We can think of no better match than Sumner-Bonney Lake School District, where scores of Amazon employees live and work. Sumner hosts two Amazon fulfillment centers employing a total of 1,200 workers; those warehouses make Amazon the biggest distribution center employer in Pierce County.
No doubt the blue-collar workforce of Sumner needs education equity for their children at least as much as the white-collar professionals working in downtown Seattle office towers.
But let’s forget about Amazon for a moment and focus on the model it’s providing, a blueprint for how public education and private enterprise can come together for South Sound children.
Pierce County has absorbed big losses in corporate giving the last several years, most notably when Russell Investments moved to Seattle 10 years ago. There’s no single big hitter that can help local school districts rise to the unprecedented challenges of a three-month COVID-19 shutdown.
But Tacoma has a strong cluster of tech startups, creative entrepreneurs and long-standing businesses that could be viable partners during this crisis. All that’s needed is for the private sector to step forward, school officials to say “yes” and community members to donate as they’re able. Some would relish an opportunity to buy a laptop for a student, or sponsor a wifi hotspot for a family in need.
Sure, it would be great to have Amazon philanthropy flow south right now. It’s not a stretch to say the company has a public-service duty to communities outside Seattle. But the 253 can do this on its own, and we can’t afford to wait around for billionaire benefactors named Bezos.
This story was originally published April 6, 2020 at 6:00 PM.