001Greetings, legislative representatives and other school directors joining us today. It's Tuesday, April 8th. This is our April edition of the Legislative Representative Networks. Thank you so much for joining. Uh I recognize some of you are uh driving an errand, eating your lunch, uh working on another computer, etc., etc. And that is absolutely and perfectly fine. Multitasking is accepted. Uh this meeting will be recorded. So if there are any little nuggets that you thought you heard but you can't remember, you can go back and listen to it. You can also share it with your colleagues. Um in addition to that, I would invite you to ask questions at any point uh throughout the webinar in the um chat. Go ahead and just ask your question there. And as soon as I have a chance to take
002a pause, I will absolutely do so and field your questions. Uh this is called the ledger rep network meeting. The legislative network uh the legislative representative network has been in existence for oh five years or so four or five years and uh we've sort of evolved it to be responsive to your needs. At this point in time what we do is convene via webinar the second Tuesday of every month at noon um and then always am available to you in the in between times. uh to answer questions. And while this is called the Ledre Network, it's absolutely open and available to anyone uh who serves as a school director uh because this information is relevant to all of you. So again, thanks for being here. My name is Marissa Wthbone. I'm your director of strategic
003advocacy and uh happy to be able to share this space with you today. So you're probably most interested in what's going on with the legislative session. So, I'm going to hold that till the end so I can keep your attention. And I'm going to uh dig in first to some WASDA business to make sure that you are all up to speed on what the uh current WASDA advocacy calendar includes and what you as a ledger rep on your local boards can be doing to be sure you're representing your community uh as part of WASDA, your state association. So, what I'm going to do is actually help you navigate through the WASDA website so you can find some of the most pertinent information going on right now. I'm going to enter full screen. And the page
004that I'm on here is the strategic advocacy page. I just clicked on this upper bar where it says advocacy. And what I would like to do um is is sort of navigate some of the resources and materials that are here in case you've missed it previously. And then also just to set the um conditions for the schedule ahead. Um while I'm doing this, if you wouldn't mind putting your uh school district in the chat and the years that you've been on your school board, that way um instead of doing formal introductions, y'all can kind of get to know one another at least by name, district, and years of service. Uh so while I'm doing while you're doing that, I'm going to point you to um this main page and some of the resources that are
005here. Uh the the first thing that I wanted to be sure you were aware of because it's been released within the last six months and there it's easy to forget that we developed in partnership with ledge reps across the state. A resource tool that helps legislate uh legislative reps as well as any school director navigate the advocacy process from wherever you are. Uh, I'm not going to open this up. Um, but there is a toolkit here that basically is designed to help you say, "Okay, here's something that I'm struggling with right now." Um, and an answer to the question that I might have. Are you guys going to get out of the house at all today? I love the director. Your kids want to stay in the house. They want to hang out and play.
006All right. Thanks. Um we um and then I also wanted to point you to this advocacy rubric. I don't think we've had a chance to actually unpack this during uh a ledger rep network meeting and so I am going to pull it up um and wanted to share from the purpose of this might be helpful for you especially especially if you're new and trying to figure out where you should start or if you're sort of veteran and want to know how to up your advocacy game to the next level. Uh this is a document that put together to basically help you understand wherever you're starting from in terms of your advocacy work, what you can be doing now and what you could be doing next. So if you're just getting started, um if it's during
007the session, you can subscribe to in session, you could attend our Thursday webinars, uh you could attend this network. Look, you're already winning. You can check this box right here. Um and you can be thinking ahead to uh WADA's general assembly which will be held on September 20th uh virtually so you can attend from anywhere in the state and then also thinking about the annual conference in November where there will be uh several opportunities for you to learn about advocacy skill building. So that's just kind of a getting started and a continuing year after year approach. Then, as you're getting your feet wet and feeling more comfortable, perhaps your board needs to adopt a ledge board policy, uh, or you haven't had a chance to meet with your legislators and after session, after you give
008them a little time to take a breath, um, you you can schedule a time with them to have coffee or tea or go for a walk uh, in their local community, meet them where they are, find out what their interests are, and that's a great next step for you to be thinking about in the interim. Um, right now there are several opportunities during the legislative session where we put out a call to action. We put out those calls to action through our social media platforms. That's Facebook and Instagram. Um, or we'll make sure you're aware of a way you can be engaged by um, uh, through the in session publication. That's the Friday publication that you get either on Friday or sometime over the weekend. So, that's again building momentum. There's no there's no wrong
009thing here. And you certainly don't have to do all of it, but there are ways to continue to build your skills in the advocacy realm um month after month, year after year. And then uh as you're hitting your stride and getting comfortable, perhaps during a legislative session, you decide you want to give testimony or sign in on a bill uh or communicate with a legislator via cell phone about a very particular policy proposal um just before it's being heard in committee. Again, these aren't things that you have to do in order to be a good advocate, but from start to kind of hitting your stride, there are a variety of things you can be doing to be involved. Uh, and it's scaffolded in a way that you don't have to do anything that you don't
010feel you do well or that's really uncomfortable. Uh, but perhaps you're just you're just stepping in just a little bit more all the time. So, I would encourage you to uh link on our website to this resource um and share it with your fellow schoolboard members. Perhaps you have a ledger rep update during one of your upcoming board meetings. Make sure all of your fellows have seen this and talk a little bit about what you want to do next as a board. It's a great way to just have a conversation. You don't have to know all the answers, but here's a resource that you can share with them. So, I want to be sure you are aware of that. I'm going to go back to our WASDA website. That's weird. So, we're back here on
011the main page for the WASDA advocacy website. And uh the next thing there there are several other important links here, but we're going to get to them. One is the WASDA um the platform which has all of your member adopted positions. Uh a link to the general assembly page which isn't live now but again you should note that general assembly this year will be held virtually on Saturday September 20th. It will be a full day virtual event. Um and more information about that will be forthcoming but at least you can save the date in the meantime. And then the next thing I just wanted to draw your attention to is this WADA advocacy program. It's really this year's schedule about what you should know is going on right now and upcoming. So, I would also
012encourage you if you haven't had a chance to look at this, much less share it with your fellow school directors, that that's one of the next things that you do. We absolutely want you to be aware of the ways that you can stay engaged um and participate in WASDA advocacy work. And this really lays that out for you in a very nice color coordinated document. Got some folks who are unmuted, so I'm just muting them as we go here. Okay. So, in front of you, you will see sort of a list of the options that are in chronological order, but then you can go down to the calendar. Might be a little bit easier to navigate. It is April. We are right here on this purple. It's April 8th. We're having a ledger network meeting.
013Um there are always uh in session lives on Thursdays at noon. We will have this week's um during which we will have uh lobbyist who supports the Washington Education Association NASA Nashida. She will share a little bit about what's going on in terms of WA advocacy and from their lens where the greatest impacts and opportunities are in these remaining weeks of the legislative session. Um TBD on the 17th uh open to ideas if there's anything specifically you'd like to be sure we're addressing or guests you'd like to hear from. Uh the in session live is um there's some potential for that and I would love to hear your feedback. And then on the 24th, we will have uh Dan Steele, my job alike, over at the Washington Association of School Administrators, give sort of a
014preliminary what's likely to happen with final budget adoption. Um, and this will be our last in session live of the legislative session because following that, um, the LED session is predicted to end April 27th. And then, uh, we, as in government relations staff from all of the education associations will really be unpacking the budget and what it means uh, in addition to any policies that passed. so that by the end of this week we'll be able to share with you resources, documents, and sort of an overlay of of what happened both from the policy and also the budget perspective. So, we've got three in sessions live, three in session lives left. Um, we've also got uh three in session plus a bill uh a session summary the four total left in this session. So, that's
015all noted here and color coordinated with the top. What I really wanted to draw your attention to for the purpose of this portion is that April is the position proposal window. That's this lightly colored yellow or orange here. The window is open now. And what that means is that your boards can submit a board adopted proposal that would go will go to general assembly for debate and possible adoption to influence WASDA's advocacy platform. I'm going to dig into what that is and what that means here in a moment, but I just wanted to again draw your attention to the fact the window is open now and closes officially at 11:59 on uh April 30th. So, you have really until the very end of the day on April 30th to submit any proposals through the window
016that will inform general assembly discussion. Those were the that was what I really wanted to draw your attention to. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that. Um, just as a quick look ahead though, I will remind you that we'll stay on schedule for Ledger uh network meetings the second Tuesday uh of the month. Looks like I need to make a couple adjustments here on the calendar. Um, the handbook, the general assembly handbook will be posted and available pre- amendment with all of the um proposals that come in through this window on July 1st. There will be an amendment window where any proposed changes to the proposals in the handbook can come through that first week of August. Then a second version or the final version of the handbook will be released no
017less than 30 days prior to general assembly. Again, I need to change this date so it's accurate. It will just be the 20th this year. Then you'll have the opportunity to prioritize the legislative positions that are most important to your board. that informs what legislative priorities exist for the next legislative session. So, a quick overview of what's to come in the remaining part of the year, most particularly what's happening right now. Some of you told me that you did not receive the member update that does get sent to all, 1477 locally elected school directors uh for whom we have an email address. If for some reason your uh board president or board secretary, whomever communicates with our office about who you are and how to contact you is not up to date, uh then you
018may not have received this. But my guess is most of you received this information and it's sitting in a spam folder if you didn't see it already. And if that happened to you, I would encourage you to work with your district's IT department to make sure if there's some sort of filter from emails that are coming from WASDA that that filter be um adjusted so that you can be sure to stay informed with all of these updates and reminders. Generally, an update comes from WASDA every Thursday or Friday. Most Thursdays are Friday. And then sometimes we'll send a special update. Um, and that was true uh with this particular update because it called attention to a couple things we wanted to be sure you know right now. So, one thing to know right now is
019that there are vacancies on some of the um committees across the agency and this gives you as a school director another opportunity to engage at the state level through WASDA. Uh, and I am happy to answer any questions that you might have about these different committees and what they do. Um, I'm not going to go into too much depth right now, but I wanted to let you know that if you are in any um any of these director areas that show a vacancy, you have the opportunity to submit um an interest form that you might want to serve in that capacity. So we've got resolutions committee, annual conference, legislative committee, small schools advisory and nominating committee. All of these committees play a different role with Vazda's functions and operations. And uh we love to get
020the perspective of all director areas on all of those committees. I will just note that as it relates to legislative committee, we do have uh someone who represents all of these director areas already, but we have at least two um and for director area 2, we have four uh representatives for the legislative committee. These are important right now because these positions um are getting ready to review the position proposals that come through the window. So, we want to uh to the best of our ability have all of those vacancies filled. But uh again are grateful for those who currently serve on those committees because we've got great statewide representation for all of our director areas. If you um or one of your fellows is interested, you have to submit your interest by clicking on this
021form uh and submitting it. And then appointments will re be reviewed and recommended to the WASDA board. Um, and then on April 25th, there will be an official determination of who will fill in those seats, and those individuals will be notified by Tuesday, April 29th. There's a little bit more information about the appointment process if you're so interested in learning. Um, just making sure. [Music] Um, Liza said that she thought the window closed today, so you're feeling so on top of it that you've already submitted your proposals. Yes, Liza, you were the first person to submit a proposal actually on April 1st. So, you can you can move on to other you can move on to other things. I know you I have never been so timely in my life for anything. Congratulations. Now, you
022know, yeah, there you go. Um, okay. So, um I also just wanted to uh make sure that you received this. So, this this is very loud and clear. Wazda's platform revision window is now open. It's been open since the 1st and it will remain open until April 30th. Uh there is I'm going to click on the announcement. Screen sharing is paused. Then I'm going to reshare it just so you can actually see what the form looks like. I just want I want to remind you this is true every year, but in Washington uh in the WASDA uh position platform, we already have 233 member adopted positions. And those 233 represent both legislative and permanent positions. Um they're they're about equal. There's a little more on the legislative position side of things. Um, as your board
023is reviewing what already exists, um, I would encourage you to think about first, um, what what is of interest to our board. Does it already exist in the positions catalog, or is there a position that is directly or loosely related to the thing we're interested in? And could we amend what's already there in order to make it stronger and reflect our full spectrum of interests? Um the more positions that we have in the platform uh the more challenging it is to find what your interests are. Um a little bit to the effect of um while in some cases the more the marrier. I would actually say the more concise uh the more um important it weights a position um when we have so many especially so much duplication in the platform. It makes it a
024little bit more complicated I think than it really needs to. So if any of you are feeling uh excited about identifying where there might be duplication, there's also an opportunity to submit uh consolidations, proposed consolidations from within the existing platform. So the the types of positions that you can submit are brand new, don't currently exist, amended, so it would propose a change to an existing position. a consolidation that would take two or more of the existing positions and judge them together. And then the fourth opportunity would be to retire an existing position. So if you see a position in there, maybe it's already been achieved or it's so outdated it's really irrelevant, you could submit um a proposal to retire one or more of the existing positions. Then all of those proposals are going to
025get filtered to either the resolutions or legislative committees for consideration. Those committees will give a do pass or a do not pass recommendation. Uh then all of the proposals regardless of what kind of recommendation they get from the committees will go into the general assembly handbook. Like I said that handbook will be released uh on July 1st. Then your board will have an opportunity to look at what types of proposals came in from your fellows statewide. Uh it's a great opportunity for you then to be thinking about how might you weigh in on those proposals as a board at general assembly in September. And you may see something in there that you want to propose an additional change to. That's what the August 1st through 7th amendment window is for. Amendments can only be accepted
026for position proposals that are in the handbook, not on any proposals that exist in the platform outside of the handbook. That's confusing, please go ahead and ask a question and I can clarify. Um, so that's a little bit about what's ahead in terms of position platform and preparing for general assembly. The timeline is also included here. So you'll see everything's laid out for you. Um, and then the proposal form is linked here. If for any reason you did not receive or cannot find in your spam folder, uh, this message that came from WASDA last week, please let me know and I will forward it to you. Um, and by let me know, I mean send me an email, um, and I will be sure to get it to you. I will put my email in
027the chat here momentarily. So, I'm going to stop share. I'm going to put my email in the chat so that you have it and you can let me know if you need any of the materials or a link to any of what I just sent or shared with you. The other thing I just note in that uh message that came out last week is that WASDA is conducting its regional meetings right now. If you haven't had a chance to attend yet um because it hasn't come to your director area, I would highly encourage you to go. If you've never gone before, I would say some of the um greatest values of regional meetings is it gives you a chance to outside of your own district boardroom um uh collaborate and connect with not just your
028own board, but also with board members in neighboring school districts within your director area. It's an opportunity to share strategies that you've tried to help solve problems. You'll get to share some things that work for you. You'll get to learn from your fellows about um what's working for them. And it's also just a nice place to have a meal and break bread together. Um uh to commiserate a bit a little bit like a healthy group therapy session where you can share some of the things that maybe are keeping you up at night so that you don't feel alone. Um, this work is really hard and sometimes it feels kind of isolating, but you are amongst,477 school directors. I can assure you that the difficult experiences you're having in your own boardroom, in your own community,
029um, are shared in other communities and boardrooms across the state. Sometimes it's just nice to know you're not alone and it's also nice to know how other people have handled some of those difficulties uh, because you might be able to employ some of the same strategies. So, regional meetings are underway and I would highly encourage you to go if it hasn't yet come to your director area. Um, the last thing I just wanted to be sure you knew how to find um before I move on to what's going on with the ledge session is the um positions catalog. So, I am going to going to actually share. It's going to look like I'm going over a bill right now, but I'm I'm not yet. Uh, but I am going to take you to the WASDA
030website. So, when you get to the main WASDA website here, and you go under advocacy, the second subheader is called WASDA positions. Um, again, this is an essential step before you even consider submitting any position proposals, especially a brand new one. Please take a look at the existing positions catalog right here under this blue button. Um, there are many positions here. Like I said, 233. There are a couple different ways you can filter them. Um, I would encourage you to play around with this if you're particularly interested. I will tell you that the function I use the most um is I go right to the keyword search. You can see some of the things I've been looking at. Local control, basic education, isolation, restraint, competency base, capital project defined as. I can't remember what that
031was about, but let's just say I want to see which of our positions have student voice, let's say. um and it will pull up any of the positions either in the title or the content that's uh related directly to that verbiage. Now, you might not find what you're looking for. It looks like we've got two positions that actually have student voice either in the title or in uh the content of the position. Maybe I really just want to know about engagement. So, I looked at engagement. There are a couple about engagement. Not exactly what I was looking for perhaps, but look, we've got engagement um that it relates to engagement practices for diverse voices. Um I'm not going to find the exact word here, but uh you can be assured that engagement is listed somewhere
032in all of these positions, and we've got quite a few. So anyway, the way in which you do a search is really important um because you might need to try a couple different ways the word might be phrased uh or some synony synonyms, not synonyms, but synonyms for that word um and uh keep exploring this to find what you're looking for. And of course, if you think there's a position out there, you're pretty sure you've seen it before, but for some reason you can't find it with a word search, um, go ahead and just reach out to me and I'll see what I can do to help you find what you're looking for. So, again, a very handy tool. Uh, thanks to Sha Duke and our communications team for developing this several years ago, a
033searchable catalog. It used to be be just a static PDF document, very hard to navigate. So hopefully this one is easier for you. Okay, so that's step one before you even consider submitting anything to us. Stop, share. I'm going to pause for any questions as it relates to WASDA advocacy, the position platform, vacancies, regional meetings, so on and so forth. If you have a question, please type it in the chat now. That'll give me a chance to take a sip of water. Okay, you know how to find me if you think of something later. So, let's talk about the ledge session. It's happening, still happening. Uh, I created a very basic presentation just so you have some sort of visual to take a look at here. And just a sort of a status check, there
034are only 19 days remaining of the legislative session. We are in week 13. So, we've got the remainder of this week and two more weeks ahead. Um, 86 days down behind us. Um, it has been the most exhausting legislative session that I have ever experienced. And I know I'm not alone because my colleagues who also advocate on behalf of public education for either different associations or for specific school districts are feeling largely the same way. Um we also remind oursel that it is very standard for us to feel momentum as we have this session. Um, and for there to be sort of this uh reckoning that there isn't enough money or hasn't been determined that there's enough money to to designate for public education all the ways we need. That is not unlike every other
035legislative session we've ever had. So, um, it's still disheartening as all get out. Uh, but it is not unusual. So, we find ourselves in this strange position where we've seen the proposed budgets. We're not happy about them. We've been told from uh budget writers as well as some of our legislative advocates that there's still a good chance we're going to get strong amount of funding in special education and maybe MSOC as well. But we just really won't know um until the final days of session to be quite honest. We're going to hear a lot of rumors in between now and then. Um but they are they as in legislators and budget writers are working diligently behind the scenes to try um to get all sector needs met. Um and there are lots of things at
036play. As we've discussed previously, there's another cuto off date today. And essentially what that means is that any of the fiscal bills um including some of the tax proposals are supposedly required to pass before the end of the day today in order to progress. I say all of that with some level of um skepticism may not be the right word, but maybe it is because there is something called NTIB necessary to implement the budget. Um and at present that could mean um in order to pass a budget, both the House and the Senate are looking at cuts to existing programs um as well as uh revenue proposals or taxes to help fund the budget. either of those considerations, even if they're attached to a bill that doesn't pass, could be deemed necessary to implement the
037budget. It's really all going to depend um on all the moving parts and ultimately um some backroom conversations about what's going to get cut, what uh tax proposals are going to stay on the table, and how are they going to get a budget passed within the next uh 19 days. It may or may not happen. No promises here. We are hearing that there are many legislators in terms um of people who are in positions of leadership who are really committed to getting this done by siny die on April 27th. But I will say we will believe it when we see it. There's still a lot that they got to get done in the next 19 days in order for that to be true. We're um we're happy to hear it's not a foregone conclusion there's
038a special session, but again, I don't really think we'll know for sure until they pass that budget off the floor um by midnight on April 27th. That remains to be seen. Just a couple other things to note in between now and when that happens is that um there was a chamber cut off an uh origin cut off earlier in the session which meant all of the Senate bills had to make it off the Senate floor and all the House bills had to make it off the House floor in order for them to do a little switcheroo. House goes to Senate, Senate goes to House, which is where they've been uh for the last month or so or several weeks. Um, and that means at this point, looking at April 16th, which is next Wednesday, all
039of the Senate bills have to make it off the House floor and all the House bills have to make it off the Senate floor. So, basically, they've made it through this process two times. That's very intentional uh because it's supposed to be hard to pass a bill. Um because uh the checks and balances are to asssure that bills that become laws are in the best interest of the public. that was the original design of this process is that it's seen enough eyes and had enough healthy criticism uh to only be passed if it's necessary and um is in the best interest of the citizenship um or Washingtonians as a whole. And so lots of things have to go right in order for a bill to make it through this April 16th cutoff. Then what happens
040is that in most cases uh those bills have been amended since they le left their house of origin. So they left the house in a certain frame or a certain writing then they went over to the senate. It's probable that the senate uh mucked around with the house bills and the house mucked around with the senate bills. Um, and anytime a bill is amended in the opposite chamber, it's got to go back to its house of origin for what they call reconciliation or concurrence. That basically means that the Senate has to agree to whatever changes the House proposed to its bill. Um, sometimes that happens, but largely the Chamber of Origin is like, "We don't like the changes that you made to our bill. We're not going to do that. that here's our counter proposal
041and so on and so forth it goes. If it turns out that there is no agreement to the changes that the House has made to the Senate bills and the Senate has made to the House bills, those bills do die. So there are more opportunities for them to continue to fall off of the bill list. However, if there's enough motivation um on both sides of the House and Senate, uh there will probably be some concessions made by both in order to get a bill passed. Um we don't love what you did, but we'll accept it so long as we can have this thing that we really care about in it. Um it's much more complicated that, but I'm I'm summarizing for uh simplicity here. So, if that sounds like a lot of things to do
042in the next 19 days, it is. And like I said, um how much they're able to get done by uh 19 days from now, April 27th, still remains to be seen. Hopefully they pass a budget um does it that is acceptable to Washingtonians and public education as a whole. I will tell you that starting um now um and through um sort of this concurrence period, there will be some more healthy debates on the House and Senate floor. That's why I've included these links here. If you're interested in watching what they're doing, you can click on these links for uh live TVW coverage of what's going on. [Music] Um, oh, okay. The somebody's somebody's otter uh got too too many too many words in this AI summary, so they've moved on. Okay, just a recap. When
043we initially saw in March what the House and Senate uh operating budgets proposed, we really liked what the Senate had to say and we were not so happy about what the House had to say. Uh and remember this is just for the this is just the overall for the K12 budget and this is a side byside about what the original operating budgets proposed. You'll note significant investments from the Senate in special education. uh a a good amount uh from the Senate on MSOC, nothing from the House, very little from the House on the special education side. Hopefully, your communication with your legislators as well as ours have been has been to the House. Um this is not enough to scratch the surface of our need. Your proposed operating budget is going to lead to cuts,
044staffing issues, and potentially school closures. Uh the Senate version, if you fund it at this level, is going to do a lot to help us keep the staff we have, keep the doors open, pay the bills, provide needed services to all of our students, including the students who need um the greatest levels of support. Um and and they've been going back and forth on this. I'll get to some more details on that in a minute. Um you'll also see that there are continued investments in SEB on both the House and Senate side where you actually see parallel. While this number isn't exactly the same, it's very very close. That means there should be some sense of confidence that that's going to happen. Um what the exact number will be remains to be seen. Um but
045certainly because they're obligated um the SE contributions will continue to increase. I will note that they're going to say, "Well, we dedicated money to SEB, um, health benefits, um, uh, and we're going to say,"Yeah, but you were supposed to do that anyway because of the commitments you put on us years ago." And they will say, "Yeah, well, it was still an investment and an increase." Um, student meals is the only place where we see parody between the House and the Senate. Uh I think you might recall that the governor at the very beginning of the session said that he would not pass a budget without seeing school meal contributions. So my guess is that's why we see a number uh that's the same here. Um and then you see some other what we might call
046trickery here. Uh aortionment shifts are reflected in the House budget. Um that's because there's an actual bill that did that. Um it has actually passed out of house appropriations, been referred to committee. The Senate seems like they didn't do this, but in fact they did. It was embedded in their um proposed operating budget. It just didn't have its own standalone bill. So I will note of importance that both the House and the Senate seem to have agreement that they want to do some kind of aortionment shift. I think the opportunity to influence change here still is what the exact dates are. Um, some put way more stress on you uh to carry bills um and in some cases to either dig from your um uh revenue um savings or to take out a loan with
047your locals uh which is obviously not a solution that we want to entertain but it looks like the legislature is willing to put you in that position. Another place where there is parody is across House and Senate uh as it relates to transition to kindergarten. They're still working out some of the policy details, but I think what you can uh start planning for is that there will be little or no growth to your TK programs. I think there was uh a general agreement that while they wouldn't cut your existing programs because you're serving young people in their families and your communities right now, they don't want you to grow the program until they f figured out this policy better. So, um I I would say you're good keeping it where it is, but don't count
048on any growth uh in the next several years. And this conversation is definitely not over. I think they're continuing to grapple with what what do keep TK programs offer and how do they share the load in terms of providing uh relevant and highquality supports and services to um pre kindergarten uh children and their families um and where should that money uh go? And then um some adjustments here. you see negatives where they're making adjustments based on cost savings um as well as where they're making adjustments to the LEA online enrollment cap. That's that reduction to LEA if you have 33% or more of your students enrolled in AL programs. Uh that was a bill the bill didn't progress but they baked it into the budget. um LEA on the House side. Uh they have a
049bill that actually did not make it out of house appropriations. That was House Bill 2049. Um while the bill did itself did not make it out of house appropriations because they may see that as necessary to implement the budget. I do not think we are done with that conversation. I do think we're going to see some sort of LEA um levy lift bill um or budget proposal for this bianium come forward. And then you'll see other savings and reductions here that indicate they are making cuts somewhere. Um to what degree that will impact your direct services uh remains to be seen and is definitely embedded in the budget summaries. I'll show you a little bit about how to dig into that. A lot of these cuts are actually coming at the state level. They're pilot
050programs. They're grant programs again which may directly impact you but probably don't impact all 295 school districts. And yes, there's a comment about disappointment in the shell game. Yes, absolutely. Um we testified uh uh Dave Larson on behalf of WASDA testified in opposition to House Bill 2050 last week. That was the aortionment bill on the house side of things. Again, uh just a reminder that they are um sort of playing with with the budgets, saving them money, but on the backs of school districts is is not a fair way to go about this, especially when um there's uh still some question about to what degree they are going to fund basic education. I wanted to draw your attention to a couple resources here. I'm not going to go into too much detail on these as
051uh we're sort of in a position where these are subject to change. Um but I did want to show you how to find some resources should you be interested. Um the Washington state fiscal information website is where the budgets get posted when they are adopted. when they are proposed and adopted and amended as adopted as amended all of them are on this website and I would always go to the summary documents which lay out the actual line items and then also um additional detail I'm going to click on one of them uh as a model just to show you what I'm talking about stop share So I actually um linked it directly to where you um to the actual document that you are most you might be most interested in. So this is the Senate
052Senate version of 5167 which again we really liked at the time because it had uh the 2.2 2 billion for special education and the point4 um million for MSOC. This is over the four-year outlook. Um this was what passed out of Ways and Means and um to to the most degree at least as it relates to public education off the Senate floor. Um I wanted to draw your attention just to the public education side of things. Um, as you're scrolling through, actually didn't write down the number. Hold on one second. We are going to page 245 on this resource. So you will find and and the way you would find this is if you do um uh a search or a find in whatever um system that you have uh look for public schools and
053that will take you to the section that I mean this is the full this has department of licensing, department of health um uh all of the uh juvenile justice really everything that's in the budget is listed in this document that's therefore it's big. So we're taking a look at public schools specifically um and it will show you what the total budget is for the for this bianium this upcoming bienium as as well as the four-year outlook. Um, and this is where you get to see where the policy additions or the changes or savings as they might refer to them. Um, I I would refer to them as cuts, um, are listed out in more detail. First, they'll just have the line item list with the title. And then on the Senate side, immediately following this
054listing, they'll actually get into a little bit more detail here with a description. They may even reference the bill number that lays it out. And then in the house version of the summary, they uh break it down by um different sections and then so basically it'll look like just a portion of the budget proposal and then the most immediate uh comments underneath. So there it's segmented out differently. It's not listed all in one. Uh but you can essentially see all the same information. It's just organized a little bit differently. Um the the one thing that I um would encourage you if you're still communicating and I would encourage you to be doing that with your legislators isn't just to be funding at the Senate levels of the operating um their their original version of the
055operating budget, but also that um there are uh some new proposals in here, some bills that uh continue to progress through the legislative session. And it might only be 400,000 here, 700,000 there, um, or even just a h 100,000 here or there. That really it's not appropriate to pass any new policies uh until special education, material, supplies, and operating costs and transportation are fully funded. So, we want to be able to support their good ideas, but they need to support their first their commitments to basic education. Um, I would encourage you to say that in a really nice way, but if we were to total all the different policy changes or workg groups, um, here, um, we could better fund at least, uh, material supplies and operating costs at the levels that we see in
056the Senate. Wouldn't get us all the way there, but it would get us a heck of a lot closer. Um, what I wanted to mention just before I field questions, um, is that there's been a lot of back and forth between the House and the Senate on their proposed budgets. And at present, um, the the Senate passed their version of the budget. Again, as a reminder, that's the one we liked uh, off the Senate floor. Um, and the House passed theirs. We didn't like that so much. Uh what happened is when it when the Senate version made it over to the House, they basically uh adopted the striker on the Senate version so that it reflected the House. There is just one budget moving through the process right now and it says Senate uh 5167,
057but it's really the House's version of the um operating budget, which as a reminder funds us at um just like 200 million for special education and nothing for MSOC. So that's a huge place of concern um for all of us. Of course, I know many of you are aware of this um and have asked me uh what is what does it all mean? And going back to the earlier slides here about the importance of concurrence, the Senate is not going to concur to their budget bill being decimated or gutted as it relates to special education and MSOC. So, um, what that means we land at, is it going to be at these Senate levels? Maybe not. Is it going to be at the House levels? Probably not. Um, but where in the in between we're
058going to see it, again, this just remains to be seen. And so much of it is dependent on which cuts they actually make and are supported in the final budget. and if there are any uh revenue proposals or tax proposals on the table that uh the governor will be willing to sign. He said in his press conference last week that a h 100red million in um proposed tax uh package would would he consider but not to exceed that. So who benefits from all that? which cuts they have to make in order to have that 100 million. Which 100 million of the tax proposals will be um considered out of the almost um 16 that the uh House and Senate proposed just remains to be seen. Um uh just to touch on our priorities again because
059the House put a striker on the Senate versions as well as um uh the bills that had these numbers. We see that uh our beloved 5263 is now at the House levels of 1357. um and that the MSOC bill um actually was amended in House Appropriations sort of in the final hour and essentially what it says is it strikes any increases to MSOC and just puts it at the maintenance level. I do want to show you that language and I'm actually going to take you um to 51 92 itself just so you kind of see sometimes it's really challenging to find the information that you're looking for on the legislative websites. So I'm going to enter full screen here. I'm going to ledge.wlaw.gov. 5192 is the MSOC bill. So, if you were looking for this,
060um, anybody was, and you just go, sometimes you're like, "Oh, well, it's the most recent version of the bill report." Um, and if I click on that, it looks good because it still has um still has the things uh that I might have cared about. Um, the way that you actually find what was amended and adopted is by going to the most recent hearing or executive session, going to committee materials and going to the bill and amendments proposed and then actually looking at which ones were adopted. And you will see on this there's lots of numbers, lots of numbers. What does all that mean? Well, what's the effect? If you go down to the effect statement for these uh amendments that come through it, it kind of tells you what you need to know. It
061basically, and they're very clear about this, they're not hiding anything here, that it strikes any of the increases to MSOC in the underlying bill and replaces them with an updated MOC amount just assumed at maintenance level. So that in includes the inflationary increases but but nothing beyond that. So obviously we have great concerns about that. You do too and those concerns should absolutely be communicated to your legislators. So what should you be doing now? Um I would encourage you to um remind your legislators about their basic education obligations first. um a letter that sort of mirrors what some of your peers have done about funding special education at the 5263 levels. So the f full 2.2 or senate levels would be important. We ideally want MSOC at the 1338 levels. That was the bill that
062Representative Berg brought forward. That would have been the full need. Um but at a minimum 5192 which is the 4 million over the four years. Um so these versions of the bill say something to that effect and um these versions of letters from school districts say some element of that. Um and it is not too late for you to communicate something similarly either on official school district letter head um or in an email or in a phone call or in a Zoom meeting. I would say do not drop um your uh conversation and communication with your legislators now. It's more important than ever. And as a part of that, make sure they understand what the ramifications for shifting aortionment dates are to your district. And while it seems like the House was focused on doing
063this trickery, it really is both the House and the Senate. They have agreement, I think, that they are going to do some sort of aortionment shift. Um, and I think we are looking at a shift in the dates that um, prevent uh, the most impact to you. And it costs you time in terms of having to reach out to your locals potentially for uh, a short-term or long-term loan. Certainly will cost you interest if you have to do that. None of which um, we have time or the money for. So, please let them know that this does not save any money in the long run and costs locals uh the most. And then, um I've brought this up before. Um this is still underway, this uh this amendment to the House um budget, although um
064uh we we're moving with the Senate budget. They are still looking at releasing the legislature from having to fund any proposed operating or proposed rules from the board of health. That will cost you money. Um, but that's not the only one, too. Any any policy change this session that isn't adequately funded and it most likely isn't uh comes at a cost to the locals when you don't have the funds available. Okay, I'm going to stop my share here. Um, we've got a few minutes left. Um, that was all I was planning on sharing with you for today. Um, I would just again remind you how critical it is for you to continue to communicate with your legislators about what the real implications for not getting that special education and MSOC funding will be. I think
065they really need to know that if they choose not to allocate the basic education funding requirements, uh what the staffing implications will be. I imagine you are already talking about that. Um what what kind of considerations that there might be for layoffs or for school closures or other cuts to essential programs. They really need to hear that now more than ever. Um and I would also remind you that uh their role and responsibility is in in is terribly difficult. I have heard that many legislators are in tears about the difficult choices that they have to make. So they are not coldhearted about this. Um they are sad that they are not in a different financial situation as well. um and they want students to get access to the needed resources in public education as well
066as in early learning and higher ed and in public service and social supports. Um all sectors are going to take a hit. It seems like um public education is not alone in that. Um so just be cognizant of that heart piece as you're having conversations with them that they're in a difficult situation too just like we are. So I'll leave it at that. I don't see any questions in the chat. I am so grateful for everything that you all do. Um it is not easy work. It is important work. We need to keep pushing. Uh and I am here if you need