AWSP Blog

We're back with another episode of AWSP News. In this episode, we update you on the legislative session and our principal budget proviso, upcoming professional learning opportunities, our Winter Forum, GLLC openings and engagement, Assistant Principal of the Year and Principal of the Year nominations, and updating your member profile.

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.

If you're trying to access your MyAWSP account to register for an event, sign into the Learning Lab, or update your profile, you might be experiencing some issues right now. You're likely getting a "This Site is Not Private" error message, which appears to be limited to just the Safari web browser at this time. The best thing to do now is try another web browser while we work to resolve this issue.

Debates and floor action continue as both chambers rush to pass house of origin legislation by the end of February 13. The work of all committees will then resume, again, dealing with bills that have passed the opposite house. Some committees are already hard at work. The status of bills changes constantly, so the summaries below are just as they were when this report was written. A reminder that regardless of deadlines, bills can be ruled as ‘necessary to implement the budget’ so can be revived under that justification which can be arbitrary at times.

The first cut-off of the Session has come and gone. Policy bills not out of committees are ‘dead’, unless revived at legislative whim. Meanwhile, the action now moves to floor debate on bills. The fiscal committees still meet in order to move fiscal bills. Their deadline is February 5th, the next cut-off. A caveat: Any bill that has dollars connected to it, can be deemed ‘necessary to implement the budget’ and be acted upon at any time regardless of timelines.