Highline School Board Calls for Protections, Investment as Airport Expansion Moves Forward
Aug 19 2026
The Highline Public Schools Board of Directors voted unanimously to submit a letter to the Port of Seattle calling for stronger protections and greater investment in schools and communities affected by plans to expand Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
In the letter, the Board emphasizes that Highline students and families already experience significant impacts from living and learning near the airport and under aircraft flight paths. Board members are urging the Port and other regional decision-makers to ensure that airport growth does not place additional burdens on students and communities without addressing existing impacts.
“Our students are the future of this region. Their health, safety and education should not be the price of regional growth,” the Board wrote in the letter. “If the airport grows, the investment in the people living with its impacts must grow with it.”
Highline is the only school district with schools located in the area identified in the airport’s environmental review as potentially affected by the proposed expansion. While the Port has invested in sound insulation at some Highline schools, other schools still need those protections.
The Board is calling for commitments and investments that include:
- Completing sound insulation at all affected Highline schools;
- Investing in ventilation and air filtration to support healthy classrooms;
- Monitoring air quality at schools and in surrounding neighborhoods;
- Reducing traffic impacts on students and families;
- Ensuring impacted communities have real decision-making power; and
- Fully delivering and regularly evaluating commitments already made by the Port.
“Our students need classrooms where they can hear their teachers, breathe clean air and learn without constant disruption,” the Board wrote. “Noise, traffic, construction and air pollution may seem like separate issues, but together they shape the conditions that define daily life for students and families in Highline.”
The Board also emphasized that investment must extend beyond school buildings to the cities, neighborhoods and families closest to the airport.
“Regional growth should bring regional benefits,” the letter states. “It should not shift a greater share of the costs onto the communities already bearing them.”
The Highline Public Schools Board of Directors approved submitting the letter to the Port of Seattle during its August 19, 2026, regular meeting.
Read the full letter below.
Letter from Highline Public Schools Board of Directors
Re: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Expansion
As members of the Highline Public Schools Board of Directors, we are entrusted by our community to advocate for our students and protect the education they deserve. That responsibility is especially urgent as plans for Seattle-Tacoma International Airport expansion move forward.
Our students already carry an unequal share of the airport’s impacts. Expanding the airport without stronger protections and greater investment will only deepen that burden. Growth is not sustainable when it asks children and families to absorb more while their health and well-being go unprotected.
In Highline, these impacts are already felt in our schools. Our schools are where children learn, families connect, and communities build belonging. Across South King County and in Highline, families already face some of the greatest gaps in health and life expectancy, and those burdens fall hardest on communities of color and lower-income families. Children are among the most vulnerable to the environmental conditions that shape those outcomes.
Our students need classrooms where they can hear their teachers, breathe clean air, and learn without constant disruption. Noise, traffic, construction, and air pollution may seem like separate issues, but together they shape the conditions that define daily life for students and families in Highline.
Highline is the only school district with schools in the area identified in the airport’s environmental review as potentially affected by the expansion. Our students already learn under aircraft flight paths, and not all our schools have the sound protections they need. The Port has invested in sound insulation at some Highline schools, but others still need that protection. The impacts are not hypothetical. Expanding the airport without addressing them first would only add to the burden Highline schools are already carrying.
Investment in the airport should be matched by investment in the schools, cities, and communities that carry its impacts. Before expansion proceeds, decision-makers must fulfill outstanding commitments and establish clear, enforceable protections for the future.
This means completing sound insulation at all affected Highline schools, investing in ventilation and air filtration for healthy classrooms, and monitoring air quality at schools and in surrounding neighborhoods. It also means reducing traffic impacts on students and families, and ensuring impacted communities have real decision-making power so they can shape their own future, not simply respond to decisions made for them.
Commitments already made by the Port must be fully delivered and regularly evaluated, and that accountability must reach beyond school walls. The cities, neighborhoods, and families living closest to the airport deserve sustained investment too. Regional growth should bring regional benefits. It should not shift a greater share of the costs onto the communities already bearing them.
Our students are the future of this region. Their health, safety, and education should not be the price of regional growth. If the airport grows, the investment in the people living with its impacts must grow with it.
The Highline Public Schools Board of Directors listed below approved submitting this letter to the Port of Seattle at the Regular School Board Meeting on August 19, 2026.
Joe Van, President
Angelica Alvarez, Vice President
Dr. Damarys Espinoza
Blaine Holien
Stephanie Tidholm