AWSP Blog

These emails are sent out weekly to leaders in special education and Section 504. Each email contains tips and resources on a variety of topics that are meant to keep you informed and up-to-date.

The third week of the legislative session was the last full week for new policy bills to be heard in committees and zipped by. Next week is the first significant cut-off date of this year’s short session. Bills must pass out of their committee of origin by February 3. Next week’s hearings are all about taking executive action, where bills may be amended and voted out of committee (or not).

Since covering pension/retirement/health insurance issues on behalf of WASA and AWSP, there are a few important points we have learned. This is just a brief summary of selected retirement related topics. However, the importance of advance planning cannot be overstated. These are not issues to put off until the last month of either one’s impending retirement or approaching Medicare eligible age. It’s best to complete your retirement application 30–90 days before you plan to retire.

My husband and I both graduated college and landed our first teaching jobs in a rural Eastern Washington school district. After teaching for five years, we both completed our master’s programs and secured our continuing education certification. To make a long story short…in very short turn-around we added our first child to the family. Now, we were faced with the very interesting challenge of finding daycare for a 2-month-old colicky baby, which there was none of! Our solution was to have me stay home for those first few months. I quickly realized that being a “stay-at-home” parent was unbelievably challenging and to be honest, I wasn’t all that good at it! We engaged with the MOPS groups and had mommy and me dates, but I could never really figure out a schedule that worked for us and thankfully at the end of winter break, baby went to daycare, and I went back to the classroom.

January is Mentoring Month!! I want to thank all the AWSP-trained mentors who have willingly accepted the assignment to walk with a new/newly assigned school leader in our state. Although the 2021-22 school year has thrown all of us in K-12 education a few wrinkles, we greatly appreciate all mentors who have added additional responsibility to their plate by being a mentor to our amazing AWSP school leaders!