AWSP Blog

I recently attended the second of three convenings at the Gates Foundation with educational partners from every sector you can imagine. From early learning to higher education, various perspectives, organizations, community partners, and agencies were in the room—including students. Why are we meeting? To urgently address our state’s low FAFSA completion rates, decreasing number of students pursuing post-secondary educational opportunities, and how these trend data compare to our state’s current and future job market. We are not moving in the right direction as a system. Something must be done, and soon.

Principals carry this burden of school-wide hope, but if they are lucky, they are not alone. While principals set the tone for the entire school, there is another group who are quite often working on hope from a completely different angle—our assistant principals. These unsung heroes are a direct line of hope to some of our most hopeless students. Our assistant principals have the opportunity to reach many of our students who don’t feel loved (at school or at home), who don’t have any sense of belonging in their lives, and far too often lack any vision of life in the future, yet alone where they might get their next meal.

As we move from winter winds down and we can see spring just around the corner, we just want to remind principals and assistant principals that your own evaluation must be wrapped up on or before June 1 of each school year. This includes them having a summative conference, scoring, final eval, etc. This is the first year this date has been REQUIRED, per the Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 392–191A–190(8) (see the WAC text below).

Yesterday, the Legislature adjourned “Sine Die”. Over the past few days, decisions were solidified about final supplemental budgets and final bill language. Here is my description about this year’s legislative session based on the book Fortunately that I used to read to my own kids.

Before working in education, I worked in the private sector as an HR manager for aerospace manufacturing firms in Los Angeles. My time on the other side of the wall (the office versus the shop) gave me plenty of time to evaluate the efficient operations of machines, people, and processes. It was the latter that I find most interesting now.

OSPI is seeking your feedback on model student handbook language that school districts will be required to use to notify students, families, and employees about important rights, complaint options, and contacts.

Good news, everyone! The long-awaited asynchronous Government-to-Government training is here. House Bill 1426 passed in 2021 and it requires that administrators who renew their administrator certificate on or after July 1, 2023 must complete a five-hour Government-to-Government Relationships Training. Administrators also need to complete 10 clock hours related to leadership standards and 10 clock hours related to equity before renewing their certificates.

Today, March 1, is the last day to consider (or pass) opposite house bills (except initiatives and alternatives to initiatives, budgets and matters necessary to implement budgets, differences between the houses, and matters incident to the interim and closing of the session). March 7 is scheduled to be “Sine Die” – the last day of the legislative session. Work goes on behind the scenes to reconcile the two different budgets from the House and the Senate.

Action has centered around floor debate and voting on proposed bills from the opposite house. As explained previously in the TWIO, if any bill is changed/amended by action in the opposite chamber, the ‘reconciliation’ process must take place. The “*” before a bill below indicates that reconciliation will need to occur. If no changes take place and the proposed bill is adopted by the opposite house, the bill is signed and then sent to the Governor for his response.

There are so many reasons to embrace this month. However, it can be one of the toughest months for our staffs. March lends itself naturally to great opportunities of celebration to love on your staff between college basketball March Madness (Go Zags!), St. Patrick's Day or a few other exciting days I have included in this newsletter. I hope you can find one or two ideas to implement and utilize with your team. Please know I love seeing your creativity and appreciate when you tag me in your celebrations on twitter @sholtys. March is going to be an AWESOME month. Have fun and remember to take care of you. Peace and love, Cindy