001greetings School directors and Friends of public education thanks so much for being here today it is Thursday April 3D as I mentioned earlier it's a holiday for me it's my best friend's birthday we've been friends for 35 years and we're only 10 days apart so uh I'm excited about it I don't know if you are but uh one thing you should be excited about is the fact that we have uh successfully managed to survive 81 days of the 2025 legislative session and we've got 24 left uh those are hard-earned 81 days of a legislative session and the next 24 uh may prove to be the same although I will tell you that a lot of the conversations and the work that will be consequential to public education are happening behind closed doors right now as
002the budget uh negotiating team is determining which cuts are going to land in the final proposal which taxes if any might get in there too and therefore how do they balance the budget uh address the funding shortfall that has been projected um for the next two and foury year outlook and then hopefully also as a part of that conversation almost fully fund special education at least partially fund MSO we don't know where we're going to land in that mix could be good could be difficult uh but we'll keep you posted as we know my guess is that we won't know uh until closer to the end of session so in the meantime we'll be providing you with uh pertinent information important information um either myself uh or some of our colleagues in the field the
003capital budget was released this week and so our foremost expert in that space is Tyler Munch he's the director of advocacy and external affairs with OPI sorry I forgot to add that indicator there in the agenda but I just learned from him he's running a little bit uh behind schedule actually he's running behind schedule because his Zoom is crashing perhaps you can relate and we can give him Grace as we've all been there and done that so to give him a little time to navigate that Jim do you mind um stepping in at this point so that he can navigate that and you can deliver your content in the meantime how do you feel about that Jim uh no I don't mind at all okay great well I'm G to stop share I think I
004already gave you some share abilities and I hope all of you already know uh Jim Kowski the rural of uh the director of the rural education uh Center he is a strong friend and partner and one of my favorite uh testifiers on the hill uh we highlighted some of that work at an earlier in session live uh and he's back to give us a sort of what's going on with small and Rural school districts as it relates to the legislature and specific policy issues that might be of interest to you so I'm going to shut up now Jim and turn off my screen and let you run it thanks Marissa appreciate it and uh shout out to all of you School School Board directors I think it's a very important position that you hold and
005the work you do is Honorable and uh it does help kids and thank you for that work I was a superintendent for 23 years I was blessed uh to work with a outstanding School directors all kind of different personalities different viewpoints which actually made the work more beautiful and uh just keep the focus on what you can do in your District to help your kids be as successful as they can I'm going to highlight a couple of things mariss mariss asked me to talk about some things impacting small rural districts but some things I'm going to talk about could impact all of you as this session sort of winds down the big wind up before the wind down and as merca said a lot of the work's gonna be done behind closed doors um this
006a little bit hard to read here but Yogi bar it ain't over till it's over the session's not over till it's over we've got the house and budget uh House and Senate budget proposals but uh they're together in some ways far apart in others we will not know until the final budget is approved uh and sent to the governor what is really going to happen and another saying from Yogi Bear nickel ain't worth a dime anymore you can go crazy thinking about that but I think reason I mentioned that is the impact of inflation is impacting all school districts for example IMO for sure and uh just I just Yogi Bear the great philosopher so just a couple bills I'm going to talk about uh Senate Bill 509 uh this uh some of you may
007have owned it if you're a little bit older like me one of these V W Vans but this bill would allow you a district to use a vehicle other than a school bus to transport kids to and from school and get Transportation dollars from and also for first time ever to get depreciation for a vehicle other than a yellow school bus you probably know if your District purchases bands or Suburbans or school cars those are either Levy money maybe it's CTE money and most cases is Levy dollars States never provided funding for that so this is a game Cher here Seattle school district is interested in this bill and this would impact all school districts there is some training required of employees who that would drive kids to and from school or and uh in
008those cases they would be subject to random drug tests and have to get some training but not the CDL that bus drivers need to have it passed the uh Senate 49 to nothing it's in the house and it's scheduled for hearing uh Saturday um morning I'm scheduled to uh I signed in to testify and then it's also always a good sign when they've got the executive session schedule executive session uh already scheduled for April 7th which I think that's Monday so I have an eightball here my prediction on this is this bill will pass we tried last session it's a bipartisan Bill sponsored by Senator Braum but also co-signed by Senator Wellman and Scott Republicans Democrats I think it's a really good bill is it we give districts an option another bill we're watching for
009class two districts uh this was a bill was passed couple several years ago uh following covid um the supply of as you know supply of substitute teachers is limited administrators especially for small rural districts sometimes hard to find especially need somebody part-time we've got a lot of talented people that have retired but still want to help still have the fire in the belly as I testified a few weeks ago one of the Committees uh folks that are retired are allowed normally it's 867 hours that's for all districts uh but for class two it's been increased to 1,40 so this could be a for administrator it could be for a a substitute teacher a bus driver and that's that language sunset in the original Bill sunsets July 1st of this year there's two bills have been
010working their way through uh both the house and the Senate they're very similar in language the only difference is the sunset date uh the house bill sponsored by representative Chase would uh extend date two more years the Senate bill would extend it actually to 2030 I believe that bill was sponsored by Senator Wellman uh you can see both bills have had great support in both the house and the Senate and again Marissa I know has explained this to all of you when a bill finally passes uh uh the legislature that the wording has to be identical to This House and Senate versions or there has to be one bill that both the House and Senate vote on on the floor the exact same wording so uh the re uh 1936 bill is scheduled for executive
011session April 8 that's Monday I think or Tuesday and then it's a public hearing this Saturday and then the 5738 already had the public hearing and it's scheduled for executive session April 5th which is Saturday and my eightball prediction on that that's what the one you shake and look at it tells you the answer is I think it will uh one of these will pass I'm not sure which one we would prefer 2030 but if it's 2027 or maybe they'll compromise in between transitional kindergarten this impacts all districts uh there was a bill that was heard earlier this week several folks testified on this bill it's an improvement it does cap uh the funding for a year or two but it will allow if you have TK to continue it uh if you're thinking about
012adding TK you may have to slow down a little bit with we won't know until the session's over until this hopefully this and this bill has been incorporated into I believe the Senate budget and this is the one that um the reason it's been improved is there's some language that was added to for OPI to do a study work with um let's see work with uh I think the department of children youth and families and DCF and then uh come up with some recommendations to increase the enrollment in ttk no more than 5% and I think that's a good thing and there it also prioritizes has a list of priorities the first one obviously was access to available daycare which in almost every Community is pretty slim in some communities if there's non-existence especially some
013small rural districts this is I'll send this PowerPoint to Marissa but this is just the list I pulled off uh the information that was included in the information for legislators during the hearing it was provided by OSI but it's as of March and it shows the current number of transitional kindergarten students in those districts offering it so my understanding was if this bill does pass uh and is approved by both House and Senate and the governor signs it uh you would be able to continue ttk if you currently have it but you would if you don't have it you're going to have to wait uh and then again the bill the current bill uh 5769 which is a vehicle for transitional kindergarten currently in the legisl pass the Senate and it's currently in the house
014there was a hearing as I mentioned the other day and then um my my prediction is this one will pass I'm hoping it will the good news is it's not going to be they're not going to eliminate transitional kindergarten which they could because it's not considered basic education but it is a great program um there's another bill it's going to be heard today this afternoon House Appropriations and this is a bill some of these bills don't meet don't have to worry about the Deb headlines because they're ncib necessary to implement the budget and uh it does a couple things I think Marissa has talked about this before but it changes the apportionment schedule it's kind of a shell game moving things around because the state budget starts July 1st School District's budgets start September 1st
015so the legislature can move that uh portion but around it's scheduled for hearing um later today this afternoon it also if for there was a number of distri dists at I think it's about 10 districts mostly are small rural districts that have a really high percentage of Al students and if they have more than 33% of their enrollment Al their Lea Le V Equalization if they get Le Equalization is reduced by 33% and um that this is just a list of those districts of being impacted boord uh could lose as much as uh $8 million or excuse me that's a total boord 11,000 Goldendale 2 million Mary K Knight 600,000 omac 4 million these are big numbers for small districts uh uh the thinking is wow this seems odd if you're if you're worried about
016the high number of Al and these are districts that are following the current rules and they're offering Al programs Statewide students enroll in their district and they often have a provider helping with the instruction but it's legal it's appropriate in some cases why they're punishing these districts I'm not sure and then the other thing in 2050 this is the apportionment changes um the and as you know uh it's interesting that uh um of course in May and I think November we get only 5% of the apportionment assuming that districts are going to pass levies even though levies are not you're not required to have a levy most districts do but it we currently get 12 excuse me 225% of your total budget pora comes in July and August when you don't have school seems a
017little crazy to me now if this bill passes it would move it to 25% and this is going to create some cash flow problems for districts to make payroll and to pay all their bills on certain months where it's pretty slim and some counties are not going to loan money so districts may have to go out to a bank and try to get find money for a short-term loan capital budget proposals Tyler's going to talk about those I did put a link in here you can click on that and get the different links Marissa mentioned the capital budget capital budget is I think a little bit healthier healthier than the operating budget and there is considerable dollars put in for some grants including the small District modernization grants and some other grants and there is
018some language in the particularly impacting small districts that get the modernization grants if they do get those in the past they've been able to qualify for some scap School construction census program money and there's language in both the House and Senate capital budget proposals they would not be able to do that so we're we're working against that this was something I shared recently in a ruette center these are just some of the uh bills that are going through uh the big two is kind of now excuse me the big three is now the big two hopefully it'll stay the big two because as Marissa's pointed out the house budget doesn't fund an increase in MX at all Marissa how am I doing on time and is Tyler there because I want be quiet to give
019Tyler plenty of time thanks Jim uh Tyler is here he managed to zoom Shenanigans uh but you've got a you've got a few minutes left five five or 10 okay so I think I think I've talked about most of these what's interesting is once in a while I will go on the Washington State House Democrats website and see what's going on there and then I'll go on the Washington State uh Republican House Republicans website and it's almost like two different realities and a reason I do that is just to see where both caucuses are coming from and again the house Democrats aren't necessarily completely align with the Senate Democrats and vice versa but uh simple majority for school bonds probably even though there was a there was a a lot of action in that we
020went from 55% to 50% simple majority plus uh but it would mean a loss of impact fees that bill is did not pass I don't don't think they're going to put it in the budget but so I think this will be a topic again for next session I could talk a lot more but I think I'm going to stop to give time for Tyler thanks Jim that was a awesome overview uh thank you so much for doing that I did have a couple questions before we pass it off to Tyler if you wouldn't mind um a little bit of more information on 09 the transportation bill from Braun um would it require the additional driver training if the vehicles not a yellow bus are purchased using those funds not exactly sure what they mean by
021that but maybe you know better well the uh there is some training required uh and it's this similar training to what the bus drivers go through like how to evacuate a bus there's annual training that bus drivers have to undergo and my understanding is that School Employees uh which can include coaches um but mainly those School Employees who will be driving kids to and from school uh are going to have to have that training they're not going to be required to get their CDL as far as the cost of that I don't think this the the district would just have to come up with a cost to train that train those employees I believe that's correct this again is optional districts don't have to do it but in some cases you can't find a driver
022and and kids need to get home and if you've got a Suburban or van you can get to get them home and again the advantage of this bill is uh you'll be able to get depreciation for a school Suburban or Caravan we've never been able to do that before I hope that answers the question I think so thank you Jim I appreciate that then I had one other question I think you and I and Tyler might all have a read on this so I'm curious what the two of you think but the question is um whether or not that apportionment shift will pass and uh my my thought or what I've been told um even though there's only a house Bill 2050 that you reviewed Jim um there is also language that's similar in the
023Senate budget they were a little sneakier about hiding it sort of embedding it within the budget timelines are different for both um but both are consequential to districts because we actually have that trickery I guess we'll call it uh in both the house and the Senate we have been told that if you see something actually paralleled in some way even conceptually between the house and the Senate because that's such a rare situation this session something probably is going to happen in that direction do you have a different read Jim or Tyler do you want to step in here and should hear what Tyler I think it's they're gonna we're gonna see some kind of a porate change um I think it's going to help the the legislators balance the budget and uh again their budget
024year starts July 1 and I think we're we've seen this before so I think we're going to see something it is kind of a shell game it's moving stuff around charging it to different fiscal years but I since both this the Senate one I think is only for couple years and it reverts back if I remember right the houseold would stay permanent but I think we're going to see something they they they are under strain because of the projected shortfall and funding and they're look they're looking under every uh nook and cranny I'm I am grateful that they're not looking at cutting or eliminating transitional kindergarten even though when the session's over they could come out of their closed door Mee and c and throughout the budget which we have less than 24 hours to
025look at as both of you know but that's my rambling on what I think's going to happen appreciate it yeah none of us are no stradamus around here so it's anybody's guess but uh there there there's some signals that something is probably going to happen in that regard that's a good segue to Tyler Tyler you want to start with that anything additional to add about apportionment shifts and then you can talk about other fun stuff like Capital budgets and well thank you uh and thank you for your grace uh while my computer was uh spinning out of control I think my computer's been following the legislature because it just can't take it anymore and it's shutting itself off uh and and Jim thank you for uh covering for me as well um I I would
026actually agree with everything Jim just said I think a shell game is the perfect way to describe this situation and I think um every budget cutting mechanism is on the table right now we're seeing you know that gildon bill that goes and takes money from districts that accepted a grant last year I mean that kind of stuff is unheard of and uh I think this apportionment shift is another tool and another game they can play and I I absolutely think it's on the table um I expect it and I hope we can at least mitigate the harmful effects of it um and try and make it as workable as possible um so yeah thank you Marissa I am going to share um a spreadsheet with you all I'm sorry to share a spreadsheet I like
027to do Powerpoints but with the budgets coming out this week I just haven't had time uh and so I will walk you through the spreadsheet and explain what everything is but if you're like me uh you need to see the numbers in order to process them which is why I'm going to put it up here uh so the first thing I want to do is highlight um the total amounts are in the yellow um they use a variety of different uh buckets to fund us so you really just want to focus on these yellow columns this is the house uh capital budget that you see represented here and this is the Senate capital budget so I'll just go through and we can look at the differences in each um the the first thing and the
028big thing is that the school construction assistance program is fully funded in both budgets that's something we anticipate it's not something that surprises us if this was not fully funded that would be very concerning very surprising but um this is a fully funded program I would just point out that um you can see this a $563 million appropriation and you know when I started working at OPI we were running like 800 million 900 million even in excess of a billion and so the reason this number is so low even though it's full funded is because of the abysmal Bond and Levy passages Statewide if you can't pass a bond you can't participate in the scap program and then the legislature gets to pocket that money so the legislature is directly benefiting um in some ways
029from your bond failures because it means that's less money that they have to put into the school construction assistance program and more money that can be spent um on housing on Environmental projects on Behavioral Health whatever they need it for uh so all in all we're pleased with the scap number but ultimately that should be much higher and it's being artificially dragged down uh by the unconstitutional super majority requirement that we have on bonds um last year um I think a lot of you are aware we have um a cost per square foot we allocate and last year OPI worked with the Senate to increase that number um this year we put forward a modest increase again the house and the Senate did not pick that up uh but that's not surprising because they made
030a substantial increase to this last year so um they kind of like to fund things and then move on to other things before they return to the things they funded in the first place uh so we're going to keep chipping away at getting that number up we got it up a $100 last year as I said uh but focused really on small district modernization and school size make saf um so to talk about small District modernization um I am pleased with the appropriation uh the house proposes uh effectively $250 million and the Senate $22 million um you can look at this as a win or a loss depending on what lens you use I personally think this is a win and I'll explain why um this program started in like 2019 with a $20 million
031appropriation so you know for the next three or four years we were getting $20 million at a time and now that we've shown the success of the program they're much more comfortable investing large amounts of money in it so each year we've seen increased investments in this program so Governor Ensley on his way out the door proposed funding this program at 333 million doll which is great uh it's a ton of money uh however the governor didn't really put that much into seismic so we did need to see some of the funding go there nonetheless um I think a $250 million do appropriation is pretty good and um and I'm pretty pleased with the Senate's number again we're going to keep working to increase those Appropriations every year you can look at it as a
032loss if you say well we went down from Governor eny's level but I think you could definitely look at it as a major win if you consider it in the context of the past five years um so moving on and I'm sorry if you have questions I'm not seeing them I will look at them all at the end I'll track those for you Tyler so you don't even need to worry about it thank you thank you um all right so school sismic safety uh 151 million um in the house and 143 million in the Senate uh those are both based off models provided by ospi I expect that final number will be about 153 million and that should cover three projects out on the coast the complete uh relocation of two school buildings out of
033a tsunami inundation Zone that would be Cape Flattery um and tahola um and then we also have a project at North Beach um building a tsunami evacuation tower for the students there so uh with that $150 million appropriation I believe we should be able to fund those two relocation and the tsunami Tower installation ultimately um we were trying to get these two big Coastal projects funded they've been sort of a black eye that we couldn't get past um because of the large appropriation attached to them but really happy that both Chambers stepped up to fund this and protect our kids um similarly another great program um that prioritizes student health and safety is the school district health and safety Grant um 38 million appropriation from the house and a $31 million appropriation uh from the
034Senate this is for Urgent and emergency repairs fire flooding uh something of that nature it's important that money be available to districts even when the legislature is not in session because as we know disasters can happen even when the legislature is not in session and we don't want them to have to come back to get you money so this is a bucket of money that we can sit on uh and it is essentially first come first serve for a disaster that could occur this year um career preparation and launch grants often called CTE grants uh CTE equipment grants um $5 million in the house and it looks like $4 million in the Senate um the skill centers had a rough year I think you know in the capital budget the Investments this year were in
035the small District modernization grant program and the school seismic safety grant program um we have a prioritized list of skill center projects skill Centers do not receive any dedicated Capital funding and so they are at the mercy of their host District uh to perform any Capital repairs we think that the legislature should develop a dedicated grant program to serve skill centers so that they don't end up uh at the mercy of this list every year um but with that said the top PR on their list is a $50 million project and so it has sort of slowed down the progress of the entire list you can see some investment oh never mind those are previous Investments so no investments in the poor skill centers uh this time but we are having conversations with the Senate
036right now about setting up a dedicated program for them and I know that their Association and their lobbyists are meeting with capital budget writers right now about how to fund that West Sound Skill Center project uh I'll highlight distress schools this is essentially a placeholder um if you're a legislator and you have a little project that you know you need to get taken care of uh this is kind of where they get placed so these are a handful of projects that were important to legislators um you can see um a lot of these are in the Puget Sound area and then the house did a version of this too I don't know how they will merge these but I imagine all these projects will receive funding uh and we're working to help the inum school
037district get their funding uh because they have been having a hard time cobbling their grants together which they are allow to do under law uh finally the last thing I would add is um this funds our Capital program Administration um that's important to me that's part of my salary so always happy to receive that in the budget uh but overall um we're we're quite pleased with this budget I would say this you know I think there's a variety of ways you can look at this budget um if you look at the amount of investment that's been made in capital in K12 over the past four or five years the number and that number has been increasing we have been increasing our investments in K12 over time so I think that's a win what also has
038been increasing Investments over time is the housing sector and the environmental sector and candidly I am in direct competition with those on behalf of public schools so um we we do want to refocus the legislature on their Paramount Duty and I know that you know the court said that perhaps capital is not part of that but the court did signal that they aren't off the hook and that there's a lot of work to be done and we want to keep working with the legislature to increase the investments in K12 and perhaps reenter the legislature on its Paramount Duty rather than um all these other things that are extremely important um but are not the Paramount duty to be totally Frank um all in all happy with the budget um happy with the school seismic safety
039number and and we'll see what we get thank you so much Tyler I don't see any q&as right now so I'm going to give folks just a few minutes uh to think about what they want to know more about in the meantime um let's let's play Nostradamus for a second um there was a huge hope for simple majority this past session um at least among some I don't know if you were so hopeful you were more of a realist through all of it um and we would have needed three Republicans to support that measure in order to get it through um has to pass a super majority um with the legislature and in order to get it to the ballot to get a simple majority did I get that right yeah you did yeah so
040um What's it gonna take Tyler What's it gonna take to get simple majority in in your opinion I mean is it some we're never going to give up on it obviously but what what's the magic recipe um politically reentering both major parties just yeah yeah it's a it's a interim project um no uh Jokes Aside um you know I do think right now in small communities throughout Washington um there's a lot of frustration with property tax value or property taxes and I you know I know the legislature is looking at increasing those right now and I don't think that's a winning message and I think that the legislature right now has hied us to these tax increase proposals and I don't really appreciate that they could fund K12 without all these tax increases and I
041think the only way we ever get Republicans onto the side of supporting a simple majority is if we show some sort of fiscal restraint at the state level and right now that is certainly not happening as you can see between the conversation between the legislature and Governor Ferguson Republicans will need to feel safe going home to their small communities and not getting you know yelled at when they walk into the gas station or the convenience store by their constituents because they voted for a property tax increase until that Dynamic changes we're stuck in the spot the fair assessment thank you for your honesty and I saw question yeah about the green buildings requirements and uh Department of Health or Board of Health rules um I think it's really dangerous to be totally candid with you
042I mean it's also really dangerous to leave your buildings neglected so I appreciate what the Department of Health is doing um but I think the green buildings requirements are very difficult for a lot of districts to meet they're an unfunded mandate I know that um Commerce has a bill out there for some sort of exemption and grace period I haven't looked into it that much and candidly I'm not sure I have any faith in it even if I did read something that was supposed to make me feel better um the do rules is another really concerning thing to me right now um of course it's a priority of this agency uh the superintendent and myself as a personal member of society to make sure that our school buildings are safe um again though we don't
043want to be shutting down schools and school operations and taking parents out of the workplace over something that could be pretty arbitrary I can give you an example of that um right now let's say you have a water fountain in your school that tests positive for lead I would argue that we could turn off the water and board up the fountain and move on with our life uh I think people at do would argue that that's not good enough that that whole hallway needs to be CED off and students shouldn't be in the building where there's access to lead even though the you know the faucet is shut off I'm not going to pretend to know all that science but that's a very big difference and a very very big nuance and even though I
044agree when do says we shouldn't let students have access to some lead contaminated Contraption I think our you know my opinion would be as long as you're not within five feet of it we're good and do I think they want you out of the building entirely so they are really pursuing the most stringent rules possible I was on board with the idea of pursuing stringent rules because that's the task we were given uh but then a Amendment appeared in the House of Representatives on the operating budget last week that's specifies that these rules will go into effect very shortly and that they won't be funded if you do that you will shut down buildings throughout Southwest Washington throughout the pett sound Reg throughout Eastern Washington throughout Peninsula throughout the whole state and I think we
045need to be really careful before we shut down schools willy-nilly based on the recommendations of the State Board of Health to be totally candid with you so um we got to be careful I think we need flexibility to administer the rules in ways that are practical for school operations uh and I also think we need some funding attached to that yeah I mean the thanks for that over overview the the checks and balances that were currently in place essentially required the Department of Health to go through the legislature and the legislature then had to fund any recommendations from the Board of Health before those rules could go into effect impacting School District's operations um this this amendment as you pointed out removes those checks and balances so instead the Board of Health who is trying
046to do the right thing for the well-being of washingtonians we we totally understand that get to skip the process by which the legislature has to be held accountable for funding those rules um which means the cost comes to districts again so and it's totally regressive I mean that's the other thing this amendment is coming out of Seattle who can go into their local Levy to fund all these things what happens to a kakum what happens to these small districts when you place an unfunded mandate on them they're going to shut down and that's what I think we got to be real careful of well we're seeing what's happening the accumulation of unfunded mandates and underfunded mandates are are shuttering our schools so oh just don't get me going Tyler we got another question and I
047don't know the answer to this I've never even heard it proposed maybe you know can citizens propose an Initiative for for simple majority or or does it have to follow the process of going through the legislature do you know Tyler well I know that a citizen can start an initiative I mean that's how we ended up in the position we were in um I think you know you have to meet certain requirements like a certain amount of signatures before the legislature necessarily decides to review that I don't know what the mechanism is that forces the legislature to conduct review um but I am pretty sure any citizen can start petitioning for um a ballot referendum yeah I do believe that's true I need to double check but I mean like from an American you know
048point of view like that seems very much like something we would value right allowing people to petition their government freely so I imagine we have that protection at least currently so that's great thanks Tyler you know it's it's so funny because on the panelist list I thought Michelle Cho one of our colleagues were asking the questions it's actually Jim Kowski um oh okay so Jim asked the question about green buildings Jim do you want to come back on and and ask uh or answer what you think you know the answer to that question nope muted in regards to the initiative question I I pr I'm not a lawyer but I I pretend to be one sometimes uh the state constitution is really clear to change and it was changed I think in the 40s we
049did have simple majority for bonds for schools and then it got changed but the state constitution clearly defines to change that requirement requires the legislature uh two-thirds majority and both the House and Senate to vote for a change if for a simple majority sa for school bonds and then it goes to the people for a simple majority so the people will have the final say and we did this years ago on the simple majority for levies I don't think I think a a citizen could do an initiative to get the legislature to take it take a look at it but I don't think an initiative can change the state constitution but I could be wrong does that helpful or not Marissa well it's worth it's worth us exploring and getting a definitive answer for our
050members doesn't hurt to ask doesn't hurt to try I suppose I know there was a question about the governor's emergency powers during covid you know his executive order that has the impact of Law and again there's wording in the state constitution about that and I I know there was some discussion about an initiative but I think that was looked at and found that you got to change the State Constitution and that takes legislative Authority but again that that may be a a again I'm not an attorney I need to go to law school to give a better answer we'll we'll we'll figure it out in time for sure thank you both for for that um all the questions have been answered in the Q&A is there anything that the two of you wish you would
051have said but you didn't get a chance to that's appropriate for our audience uh thought of something that you didn't include in your messaging I I'd like to thank Tyler for his work on behalf of all school districts his work on the scat program his work on the different grants has helped lots of districts big and small Urban rural all across the state uh he's been a champion for that and I think that's and OPI and Chris rle even though I know some folks may have different viewpoints on the job Chris is doing it's a tough job but Chris and his team has been very supportive of Capital Improvements I also think that it's looking like Special Ed is going to get some funding which is real needed that will help districts uh but but
052Tyler I just want to thank you for all the work you that you do you're very accessible and very uh you're a strong advocate for students across this state thank you Jim um it means the most to hear compliments from people like you and Marissa and I don't just say that I mean you guys walk the walk um and that's who I like to hear that from um in that very vein I I did want to flag one more issue that affects small districts that is gnawing at me uh and I I just want to make sure we're all tracking it there was language put in the budget um that specifies that that you cannot combine small District modernization grants uh with scap grants this is something that Senator Chesler is now telling people that
053they are breaking the rules if they're using a small District modernization Grant to combine with a scap project I want to be clear we are not breaking rules this is something defined in RCW it's an RCW 525 I believe 159 5B and uh and small districts should be fighting for their ability to keep this mechanism so that we can give out more Capital money just want to make sure that's on everyone's radar thanks for that Tyler if we were to quote unquote fight that what would be the approach you would recommend I am it it's being fought right now in my inbox actually so as we are talking I just got a message from Yas me Trudeau asking me is there any truth to this so I am starting to push back uh I will
054be sending out a message um to you all today with the language just to make sure you're aware of it and I I mean I think we should ask for it to be removed great that's really helpful um if you can get that to me sooner rather than later I can put it in the Friday in session publication uh so our folks are aware of it thank you for that signal yeah well we might uh be able to let y'all go a little bit earlier unless there are any additional questions we got some thank yous in the in the Q&A um and I just want to thank the two of you you both make doing this work uh not just more fun but also right now it just feels more bearable we're not looking for
055fun we're just looking for getting through um you know uh I think as I told members before we started the session um we're going to ask for everything that we need we're not going to get all of it we're going to get something and then we're going to focus again on the interim on continuing to identify what we need and asking for it um that always feels exhausting and frustrating particularly at this point in the legislative session but I will tell you it's absolutely what we do every single year we have yet to see a legislative session where we asked for everything we needed and they gave it all to us so um this is part of the work and we're not alone other sectors have the exact same struggle and they don't have the
056benefit of being the Paramount Duty imagine not being the par Paramount Duty um how how much uh you come up short every time so it's a hard it's a hard job to be in the legislature it's a hard job to be a School director and a superintendent and grateful for everything you all are doing for our kids Jim any closing thoughts yeah no well said Marissa the only thing I would add to that is uh and I I shared this in a recent zoom I found a picture of a of a it was a Barefoot metal pedal to the gas because you've even said it's time to keep the pedal to the metal and I do think and my guess my plea is to those of because most of of the board directors on this
057are the legislative Liaisons for their board and make that extra call or that text or email but I think calls really help because during the during the hearings you see the their the legislator is checking their email I'm sure that's what maybe that's they're doing other stuff but they're checking their phones or their emails but if you can leave a message or do an email saying in regards to your District what you need because all of you need help with resources we need less unfunded mandates but we need we need more funding particularly for special ed and for mxs and if they can make that those two things a priority uh but don't underestimate the power of your an extra phone call or an email or a text and if if 20 or 30 or
05840 or 50 people are just like you as a Schoolboard director if someone's polite and courteous but they're persistent and they don't let up and they have a great cause because the whether first graders or seniors or middle school kids they're it's been fun to see those kids testify on hearings the students testify but you know third graders second graders transitional kindergarten kids aren't really testifying but they need somebody to advocate for them and I think that's our job to do that so don't hesitate in these last few weeks to make reach reach out if you have a special connection with a legislator and let them know what you need in your District to help things better for your kids thanks Jim that's a good reminder it is 100% true this is a fact that
059if you don't make a call it won't make a difference that's for sure all right so with that we're going to give you 12 minutes back in your time thank you again Jim and Tyler uh for being thoughtful colleagues and great leaders in this effort and uh we'll see you all next time thank you so much