After noticing an increase in discipline between Thanksgiving and holiday break, Omak High School principal David Kirk reached out to the community to open a space for any school-aged child to have access food, friends and fun, and created the 3F club.

Proposed bills dealing with providing a benefit increase to those members in TRS1 and PERS 1 plans can easily be seen as NTIB (Necessary to Implement the Budget) so will remain alive until Session ends.

In this episode of AWSP News, we discuss Future Educators Month and our Future School Leaders Day, our “Give ‘em your keys” campaign, Black History Month, nominations for Principal and Assistant Principal of the Year, a new survey out about graduation pathway options, our HB 1599 Fact or Fiction series, a new graduation requirements workshop, a new texting service from the Washington Student Achievement Council, 2020 WA State Teacher of the Year Amy Campbell, the next issue of Washington Principal magazine, and an event on March 9th organized by the Koshka Foundation for Safe Schools.

Proposed bills have now either passed their respective chambers and are awaiting further action in the opposite house, or they are ‘dead’. Remember that no bill is really ‘dead’ until Sine Die. Bills with fiscal impacts can be deemed ‘necessary to implement the budget’ (NTIB) or just plain deemed necessary by a majority of a legislative body. Bills now move relatively quickly with public hearings and often same-day executive sessions.

Otterbot is a free texting service designed to help Washington high school seniors navigate financial aid for college and career education. Students can access Otterbot via text message 24 hours a day, seven days a week by texting "Hi Otter" to 360-928-7281.

The first deadlines have come and gone. Action now shifts to the floor of each chamber. A bill needs to be brought out of the Rules Committee, put on the floor calendar, and then brought before the body for debate and vote. This process has to have all bills out of their chambers by February 19th. Then the process starts over with committee hearings and votes on opposite house bills – however at a much more rapid pace. Currently, there are over 300 bills sitting in the House Rules Committee and around 343 bills before Senate Rules. The challenge now becomes how to get one’s bill to rise above the herd and move to the floor? Admittedly, one hopes some bills don’t make the cut. Many won’t.

The United States Senate Youth Program (USSYP) announces that high school students Ms. Dana S. Ahmed and Mr. Andre James Ramsey will join Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell in representing Washington in the nation’s capital during the 58th annual USSYP Washington Week, to be held March 7 — 14, 2020. Dana Ahmed of Kennewick and Andre Ramsey of Spokane were selected from among the state’s top student leaders to be part of the 104 national student delegation who will also each receive a $10,000 college scholarship for undergraduate study.

Our AWSP and Foundation Board met January 25–26, our Grade Level Leadership Committees met on the 26th and 27th, and on the 28th, members of each joined our Advocacy Advisory Council for our annual Day on the Hill. We want to thank all the principals and assistant principals, plus special guests, who sacrificed time away from friends, family, and school to advocate for school leaders and students across the state.

Legislative actions continue. As this is being written, the deadline for policy bills to leave committees has arrived. The next cut-off is February 11 for all bills that have a fiscal or monetary impact – either positive or negative. The Legislature’s fiscal committees, Senate Ways and Means and House Finance and Appropriations will be very busy – possibly working this weekend (House Appropriations) and late into the evenings trying to hear all of the bills dropped into them by the policy committees.

In this episode of AWSP News, we discuss February as Future Educators Month, our “Give ‘Em Your Keys Campaign”, AWSP's third annual Future School Leaders Day, our Networked Community Improvement grant, Black History Month, our January Leadership and Advocacy weekend, the AWSP Day on the Hill, Senate Bill 6615, AWSL’s Middle-Level Regionals,  Summer Conference and a way to help fund your participation, and a reminder to nominate someone for Principal of the Year or Assistant Principal of the Year.

Groundhog Day.  We look for a sign: winter coming to a close or continuing for 6 more weeks!  Valentine’s Day. We share signs of love and appreciation. Presidents Day. We recognize our presidents, a sign of our democracy. And robins. Sure signs of spring. Let’s hope we see some soon!

The big push has begun as bills will be moving out of their house of origin in order to clear the policy and fiscal deadlines and move toward adoption by the chambers. Some bills have yet, if ever, to be scheduled, and are not reported here yet, they may not be dead. Remember that bills dealing with dollars, (think COLA or SEBB), will stay ‘alive’ until SINE DIE as they fall into the ‘necessary to implement the budget’ category. These have been mentioned in previous reports. All of that and a SEBB meeting update.

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.

Summary.

In this episode of AWSP News, we discuss our January Advocacy Weekend, our annual Day on the Hill, the changes to our governance structure, AWSP's third annual Future School Leaders Day, a Networked Community Improvement grant, MTSS Fest, our “A Matter of Principals” podcast, our survey about the pay gap and your workload, a Seattle Times report on mental health and schools, and our Calm Room video.

Hi there. It’s your friendly state principals association reaching out to say hello. Be honest…how many of you just opened this blog post by accident? You might have meant to click on an update about Harry and Meghan and landed here instead. Either way, welcome…we’re glad you’re here.  A lot of you know us well already, but some of you are still getting to know us, and for those of you in that camp, you might not even know why you’re getting emails from AWSP*. Either way, let's all start here and check out this list of five things you need to know about AWSP.

Hearings and any resulting actions moving bills out of committees have begun as both houses move toward the first cut-off date. This is only a summary of bills that have had some degree of action to date or have been recently introduced. Last week’s report covered all the bills that been introduced to date.

In the beginning, there were close to 300 bills pre-filed even before the Legislature convened. And then, once started, new bills continue to be introduced. Included among those are a number of bills affecting pensions, health, and job benefits.

As part of a PBIS initiative, Ridgeview Elementary in the Yakima School District created a space called the "Calm Room" to help students with social-emotional learning. The Calm Room is a place where students and staff members can come and relax when needed.

In this first episode of AWSP News for 2020, we discuss another great monthly school safety newsletter, AWSP's third annual Future School Leaders Day, a Capturing Kids’ Hearts workshop, the AWSP Advocacy Advisory Council, a message from Roz Thompson, a call for presenters at this May’s Annual Equity Conference, some new Fact or Fiction videos for you about the new Graduation Pathways, the Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing (XITO) at the Cispus Learning Center, an opportunity to serve a two-year term on the AWSL Student Voice & Advocacy Board, and a reminder about the powerful and impactful role you have as a school leader.