AWSP Blog

Dr. Karen Burke (Vice President of Data and Academic Planning) and Pam Allyn (Senior Vice President, Innovation and Development), both from Scholastic, drop by our studio to talk about K-12 literacy and what principals can do to promote schoolwide literacy efforts. Lots of great advice and takeaways in this episode.

What happens when 40+ scarf-wearing principals visit the Capitol? Great stories, great data, and great impact. On Monday, January 28, our AWSP Advocacy Committee and members of our AWSP Board took to the Capitol to advocate for principals, the principalship, and each and every student. Watch the video to learn a little more.

Recess in an outdoor natural environment is more restorative than recess in an outdoor built environment. Cognitive assessment results demonstrated better sustained and selective attention and children reported greater restorativeness in an outdoor natural environment than in an indoor built environment. This finding applied to both group playtime and individual free play.

The Association of Washington School Principals (AWSP) is seeking candidates for the position of Associate Director. The chosen candidate will work with the AWSP Executive Director and AWSP Board in fulfilling board policy and direction. This full-time position (230 days) will join the AWSP Executive Team in the support of K-12 principals and assistant principals, the principalship, and all students throughout the state.

Student leaders are key players in a school's mission to create a culture, close the gap, ensure safety and engage the community. Guided by Washington principals for more than 60 years, the Association of Washington Student Leaders (AWSL) has provided the opportunity for student leadership training through summer camps. AWSL camps are held in three locations. Leadership camps for high school and middle level students are held at both of the two learning centers sponsored by the Association of Washington School Principals: Chewelah Peak and Cispus. CheerLeadership Camps are held at Central Washington University.

The introduction of bills has slowed markedly as committees now focus on having public hearings. Then bills are moved out of their respective committees through action in Executive Session. February 22 (policy bills) and March 1 (fiscal bills) are the cutoff dates. Bills that have not advanced by then, ‘die’.

What an amazing show of advocacy this week as 40 principals from across our state met with their legislators on Monday, January 28 for our annual “Day on the Hill”. We wore brightly colored plaid scarves in our AWSP colors which were noticed by many (that’s a good thing!) Rep. Mike Chapman from the 24th district even requested one for his scarf collection!

After a recent talk from Richard Louv, Marty revisits an old magazine article talking about Louv's book, The Nature Principle, which outlines a course of action for human restoration by way of the natural world.

The legislative river is running as close to 1,500 bills have been introduced since December’s prefiling. Included among those are a number of bills affecting pensions, health, and job benefits. Hearings and any resulting action moving bills out of committees have begun as both houses move toward the first cut-off date. This is a brief summary of bills of interest: Retirement Related Proposals

The School Employees’ Benefit Board met for an all-day meeting and covered, as usual a wide range of topics. (Read the full post for the whole summary)