Legislative Update | Feb. 5-9, 2024

Continued Forward Progress

The Legislature continues its forward progress as they passed the halfway point of this year’s legislative session this week. A second cut-off date was reached when bills had to pass out of fiscal committees by Monday. My bill tracking list got even smaller, but you never know what might happen in the remaining weeks. Language from bills that didn’t pass out of committees could still be used as budget provisos so we have to keep paying attention to all of the details.

Legislators now turn their attention to floor action and they have some long days ahead of them as they work to pass bills off the floor of the House or the Senate by February 13. After that, the bills move to the other side and the process repeats.

Budget

The Washington Research Council published a good summary of some of the main budget bills that are still in play. We are pushing for additional funding in special education (raising the cap from 15% to 17.25%), transportation costs for special populations, increasing the prototypical model for classified staff (paraeducators), and increasing MSOC (Materials, Supplies, and Operating Costs). We are also hopeful that the capital budget gets adequate funds for school construction.

Here are links to some key budget bills:

• HB 2180 Increasing the special education enrollment funding cap
• SB 5873 Providing adequate and predictable student transportation
• SB 5882 Increasing prototypical school staffing to better meet student needs
• HB 1960 Increasing prototypical school staffing to better meet student needs
• HB 2494 Increasing state funding for operating costs
• HB 1044 Providing capital financial assistance to small school districts
• SB 5789 Concerning the sales and use tax for school construction assistance programs

We continue to ask legislators to support two specific budget requests that our partners at OSPI included as a decision package request to Governor Inslee. The first part is a $1 million enhancement to our state’s principal internship grant program and the second part is to continue partnering with OSPI to provide regional support for current building administrators. Rep. Paul Harris (R-Vancouver) submitted these requests to the House Appropriations Committee and we hope to see them both included in the final supplemental operating budget. 

The next economic forecast will be released on Wednesday, February 14 and we should also see both the House and the Senate supplemental budgets next week as well.

Bills

Two policy bills that remain in play include substance use prevention education on fentanyl (HB 1956), and restraint and isolation (HB 1479 ). The restraint and isolation bill was updated with revised language for some terms and to allow a little more flexibility for schools to use waivers. It also added regional behavioral specialists and some reporting requirements. Much more conversation is coming with this bill as it heads toward the House floor for a vote. I’ve shared some thoughts with both Rep. Lisa Callan (D-Issaquah) and Rep. Skyler Rude (R-Walla Walla) who are both working hard on this bill. We know that student behaviors are the number one concern of educators and how this bill is handled is really important. We aren’t sure what kind of appetite the Senate has for this bill this session but the Senate version did not move out of the Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee.

There are also several bills related to updating curriculum requirements including computer science (SB 5849), financial literacy (HB 1915), Holocaust and genocide education (HB 2037 ), and mandating instruction on the Pledge of Allegiance ( SB 6205). We submitted a joint letter to the Legislature along with WEA, WASA, WSSDA, the State Board of Education, and the Washington State PTA asking them to amend the bills to direct the State Board of Education to review graduation requirements comprehensively to determine the best way to meet financial literacy and computer science literacy goals. We also requested that any new graduation requirements be appropriately timed to include middle school students since planning for High School and Beyond Plans now begins in seventh grade.

There are efforts to support high school students including adding private non-for-profit colleges to College in the High School