For years, school officials have been lamenting the state's underfunding of transportation.

Without adequate funding from the state, they say, districts must devote more and more of their local levy dollars to get kids to school.

One of their loudest charges: the state doesn't reimburse districts for transporting students whose homes or daycares lie outside a one-mile radius from school. And instead of calculating the actual route mileage, the distance is measured as a direct line from school to home or daycare. Or, in the colloquial, "as the crow flies."

Actually, says Allan Jones with the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, the state does provide some money to bus kids within the one-mile radius. But not much.

Jones, director of pupil transportation, says the state gives districts some funding based on the total number of kids in kindergarten through through fifth grade within the one-mile radius.

The original intent was to help districts defray the cost of transporting youngsters who faced hazardous walking conditions, even though they lived close to school.

But it's a lower rate than what the state funds for students living outside the one-mile minimum. And the districts don't have to have hazardous walking conditions to get the money. They don't even have to use the money to transport kids within that radius.

Here's how Jones explains it, and the "crow flies" business in an e-mail to The News Tribune.

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Kevin Cavanagh with Pierce County Information Technology points out that the link we published in the printed paper for the weather tracker system left off one symbol.

The correct link is http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/PC/

If you can't bring it up, click here.

On the left side, it's titled "How hot is it?"

It's pretty cool. According to the site, "Eleven weather stations around the county record temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and more. Data is updated every 15 minutes."

Sophie Dawn has fought a stuffy nose the past two days, but that’s about the extent of her reaction to the rising levels of smog across western Washington.

“I might be the only person here who’s reacting to it,” the Enumclaw resident said. “And I’m the one with the really sensitive allergies.”

That didn’t stop Dawn – or about 200 others – from taking in a sunny (and hazy) day at Nolte State Park outside Enumclaw. This area tends to get the highest levels of ozone throughout the Puget Sound region, but everyone seemed more concerned with swimming on Deep Lake, paddling canoes, enjoying a picnic or soaking up some rays.

“The only thing I’ve noticed is a little haze when I look at Mount Rainier,” said Caren English of South Prairie. “It’s usually such a nice view from here, but yeah, it’s definitely obscured.”

I’m about to jump in the car and head to Enumclaw, which typically has the worst smog levels on this side of the state.

But before I went, I called the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. I wanted to know what the poor Enumclawers (Enumclawians? Enumclawans?) did to deserve the worst air quality in the area.

Turns out, they can blame Seattle. And Everett. And Bellevue. And basically everyone in that giant sprawling urban mass where people drive everywhere, spewing the elements of smog into the air. If it’s cool and wind aplenty, no problem. If it’s hot (by Washington standards), then Enumclaw gets a larger-than-average dose of O₃

“The wind is very, very low speed during these events,” said Dave Kircher, the manager for air resources at the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency. “And it typically comes out of the north. And it’s affected by geography and geology of the area. That airmass moves down the mountains and ends up in the Enumclaw area. It’s kind of funneled down there.”

But if you think your South King County brethren are choking on a Beijing-like haze, rest assured it ain’t that bad.

“Depending on how sensitive you are, you might detect more of an impact in Enumclaw than you would other places,” Kircher said. “But it really depends on sensitivity. Our levels are nothing like you’d experience in Houston or Southern California. If you go to LA during a really bad time, even if you’re a healthy person, you’ll feel a difference.”