001welcome everyone happy Thursday March 11th appreciate your flexibility with the date change for the last year or so we've been doing the first Tuesday of the month at noon for the ledre network meeting um but uh some of the wasda staff including myself were invited to attend uh a community of practice with the lieutenant governor's office he has been hosting for the last several years this concept around Civic Health uh civil discourse um and doing some real strong community building and um identification of resources uh with a lot of educational but also other stakeholder Partners from throughout the state so um the he didn't check with me before identifying the first Tuesday of the month um uh and scheduled scheduled those meetings when we had previously done lead rep Network meetings so I appreciate y'all
002mixing it up if y'all wouldn't mind muting your microphones um we have a relatively small group but sometimes that feedback makes it difficult to listen I know many of you are um maybe eating lunch or driving to your next meeting or in two zooms at the same time possibly so thanks thanks for being here for this one um it is uh the legislative session and my hope is to give you some updates but my other hope is to also learn a little bit kind of take a temperature on in terms of the resources we've Pro provided are you getting what you need um how can we refine or tailor our uh services so that you're getting more targeted information that would be useful to you and some of this will imply that you're um participating
003reading the existing resources um and if you're not that's going to be my first starting point and we're going to to take a look at those first so um we are recording today so that this will be available to other school directors who couldn't join us um and if you would help us by starting by introducing yourself in the chat just say what school district you're from how long you've been a ledge rep or why you're here in particular that would be helpful just as a means of introducing yourself to one another so we know who's in the zoom room today uh especially since lots of screens are off which is perfectly fine that's the benefit of a noon webinar so um I am going to I just made sort of a highlevel PowerPoint presentation
004as a starting point for our conversation and assume that it will inform a deeper dive on other issues and questions to come if you have questions if you wouldn't mind just typing them in the chat that would be hugely helpful and I'll take pauses here and there actually actually maybe uh Marissa a Peloquin you're like such a great partner in this would you be willing to interrupt me if you see a question pop up although you're muted so I still can't hear darn uh Marissa is the vice chair of the legislative committee and we meet every single week on Thursdays um and she often keeps me on track so um you all are in for world of hurt if she can't keep keep me on track since she's on mute just kidding my boss is
005here Trisha so she might be able to help too anyway let's get started so I just wanted to give you some general updates on where we are with the ledge session how some of uh your member adopted priorities are going other policies uh to be paying attention to maybe a little bit of a federal update and then um just want to get some feedback from you on some other areas and issues so uh of the 105 days of the legislative session we are at day um we've got 58 days down and 47 remaining so we're well over our way well over halfway through the regular legislative session there is rumor uh that there will be a special session it's kind of moved it's it's not probable yet but it's definitely more than possible so we've
006moved from possible closer to probable but I wouldn't say it's a done deal yet because we haven't even seen the revenue forecast or the house or Senate proposed budgets once we see how those do or do not uh connect to one another I think we'll get a better sense for how far off are they and are they going to need uh additional days in order to reach an agreement on the budget the primary reason why this legislature would be looking at an extended legislative session is as you are aware I am sure that there is a budget shortfall um which means that the commitments of our legislature uh from the past several years in terms of um what they have committed to paying for and the revenues that our state has been able to collect
007have not kept up so there are more commitments than there is revenue coming in so they have to do one of two things they have to cut what their existing commitments are but not basic education because they can't do that and or they have to increase revenue revenue otherwise known as taxes there will probably be a combination of both and so those are a lot of different um those are a lot of different needles to thread and people to upset if you will which means there's a lot of balancing that has to happen and they may not get it done in 47 days but we'll probably know within I would say the next two weeks if it's moved closer to probable as opposed to possible uh the house of origin cut off is March 12th
008which is tomorrow and what that means is that any house bill has to have made it off of the house floor by tomorrow at 5:00 pm is um and that means if if a bill um is a house bill it has to have been voted on by all of the House of Representatives ably in order for it to progress through the process no later than 5:00 p.m. tomorrow um I'm going to tell you a little bit about what we're hearing in terms of um tomorrow's bills um but it could be exciting for us so more to come on that a little teaser there then uh next week we will see the state's revenue forecast come out um there are predictions um not surprisingly that it's not going to look too good um it wasn't too
009good before the session started they don't predict that any marked improvements have been made in fact it um could potentially be um even more challenging than what they had understood before the session um and therefore will have to make modifications to the final budget based on what they learn there then as house bills move to the Senate and Senate bills move to the house they will be referred to one of two committees if it's a policy related Bill if it's actually changing Poli policy and not just fiscal it will go to a policy committee and would have to be heard in the committee that it's referred to by April 2nd um and passed out of that committee and then uh move on to a fiscal committee and then would have to be voted out by
010April 8th so as we've talked about a lot before there are so many steps for a bill to become a law it is not easy for a bill to become a law and really good for all of us because there are lots of bills and that means that many many legislators and many many constituents have had an opportunity to weigh in on every Bill uh if it if it can possibly get to the opposite chamber floor um a hundred or so days into the legislative session and then of course we'll hope for a signy die which means end of session on April 27th I got a couple links over here on the side I am going to click on one I know that some of you are really really Savvy as it relates to the
011legislature um but others of you are just kind of learning how to navigate all of these things and so I wanted to just point you to from current slide I've got hyperlinks in here so that when I share this with you it will hopefully prove to be useful I am looking at Marissa Marissa can you see a page that says house floor activity or do you only see the PowerPoint you can't see that okay I'm going to stop share and then reshare hey now Mara can you see house floor activity I see it thank you oh and I can hear you too that's great oops okay so what you are looking at so right now um all of the Senate and all of the house are working together uh Republicans and Democrat RS to hear
012the bills that have moved through um their uh Origins their Chambers essentially uh you will note actually that both bodies are at ease right now that's what these black boxes indicate so that means they're taking a break could mean that they're eating lunch it could mean that um they are uh in caucus as you'll see here over on the house side which means they're discussing bills and how they might weigh in um and uh that gives you an idea that there's no action happening on tvw nothing happening for you to watch right now the Sen's a little bit easier to navigate to be quite honest from here if if there were a bill that were about to be heard or a list of bills that had been identified you'd see a hyperlink here underneath this
013section and you'd be able to click on it um let's see if I can get there for you I'm going to go back to the main page of the legislature and then go to the senate floor activity um and so what I do typically if I'm trying to figure out where the house and the Senate are in terms of which bills they're hearing um hopefully you've subscribed to their list if you're tracking it because they will actually send you an email and say these are the bills that are coming up and if you want me to show you where that is I can happily do that but on the Senate side the order of consideration will tell you exactly what's up this means that these are the Bills on their list right now um and
014they they basically it in chunks they'll take they'll take you know three to five and then deal with those and then they'll probably go at ease and call up another three to five and you'll see that they have heard um just in the last hour or so these three bills one two and three you'll see the floor action vote here on the far right side um looks like this discover pass day us cost uh one was really contentious it was a 29 to 20 vote um so uh it's it's usually you usually see uh heavier on the front end by the time it's gotten to the floor it's um generally you're going to see a lot more numbers in the front end than in the second so these are typically going to be Democrats on
015the front typically Republicans follow yay nay or yay and then nay um uh gosh what's the word I'm looking for abstain um or absent uh excused at the end um then once they come back from being on break they will deal with uh item number four five and six so those will be the next Bills up none of these bills particularly of interest uh to us right now unless it has to deal with your um professional life or another area but that's just a good way for you to take a look at what's coming up so there's a little a little there but of course if you're wanting to know is this bill got a chance then you can just call me and I will let you know there I'm going to stop share and
016go back to the screen so I can talk to you about some other bills of note okay so what's going on with your member adopted priorities hopefully um you've been keeping track of this through in session live our Thursday um our Thursday webinars which are also recorded and posted to our website then we also have in session at the end of every week that you could be reading um our partners are also providing ongoing updates you may go to the awsp Ros does a great highlevel overview on her web page that's accessible to everyone some of you may have access to tweo which is this week in Olympia from Wasa um if you don't you're superintend most likely do and you could access it from them um so those are a couple different ways you
017can be keeping um keeping track of what's happening but I will tell you that at this point in the session we have quote unquote lost a lot of the bills that were carrying the message of our priorities um but we still have two in particular that continue to be what we call the vehicle basically that means it's the bill that's still moving um for both special education and M sock uh but it is in a nutshell if you look at these different four categories wasda members prioritize really four uh positions for this legislative session sped Mok and transpo which some of our partners refer to as the big three but we also had Staffing on our priorities document as well uh Staffing really didn't have much traction this session uh 5120 was a bill um
018introduced by Senator nobl to address um and uh give uh weighted funding for uh lap Title One schools they did hear it in Senate Early Learning and K12 early in the session but we had heard from Senator wman that she did not plan on progressing that bill but wanted uh to provide an opportunity for folks to have a conversation around it and they did um this would be an area um that we would want to continue to push on for future legislative sessions but for the purpose of this one is in the background for us or the rear view mirror if you will um I'm GNA so I'm kind of going from the bottom right corner I'm going to go to the bottom left corner here um our transportation bills there were several Transportation bills
019that were in motion um for this legislative session I'm just gonna take a pause if you're joining us and your uh microphone is not muted could you please do so because we' hear some background noise I am when I get thank you um so 5187 was Senator Wellman's bill um it was the one that would partially fund spe special passengers and the particular emphasis this year was on students experiencing homelessness um there was some amendments coming forward to add students uh in foster care that bill did not progress however we have heard that it is um uh more than possible closer to probable that there will be some dollars in the final budget that would enable um the state to allocate some additional funding for special passengers particularly for students with disabilities so we'll see
020what that number is I think we'll have a a sense of things in the Senate version of the budget the house version of the budget will come out first we were anticipating as earlier as early as this week seeing some version of it but it's probably more likely next um my guess is that it won't include anything about transportation in that because it was the Senate version that um that was moving the transportation conversation forward so so we'll kind of get a sense for maybe if something will move forward there but more likely we're going to see movement in special education and Material supplies and operating costs uh we've lost several bills with um special education well I will say we lost the most comprehensive and fully funded version of the bill that was uh
021representative poet's 1310 um it did not move out of House Appropriations however House Bill 1357 did this is representative Monica stoner's Bill even she's a little B disappointed in it she wanted to have higher levels for the multiplier in the bill um and um Wanted to include uh removal of the cap but based on her um caucus leadership she was sort of being a good soldier in this regard by um keeping it at a level that their caucus thought was more possible for funding in this legislative session so uh 1357 is still alive but I will tell you that it um is still sitting in rules actually that might not be true I think it is on second reading which means that it is on a list of bills that could be heard before 5:00
022tomorrow um but might not be um we don't have a strong sense for that because the house knows that this Senate bill is a preferred vehicle for special education among stakeholders the house may decide not to move 1357 forward um and just uh continue to negotiate through the Senate version of the bill I have a another slide following this that gives a little bit more of an overview of what 5263 does um but it is of these three well of the bills that are the two bills that are still alive it has the highest funding levels available to us at present although it's not as good um as we would have liked it's better um than any other option currently what we have heard is that this may be the last bill of tomorrow um
023which is interesting because typically they save the last bill for something really ex I mean it is exciting but often by exciting I mean contentious um because if you save it to the end that means that people are motivated to um move it along as opposed to um take up time when other bills can't be heard so um there may be a strategy here that we're ending tomorrow on a positive note on a hopeful note for public education we also know that the new senate floor major leader um who was previously senator billig now is Senator Peterson um and Senator Peterson is a huge proponent for special education funding um his spouse is a um uh teacher in Seattle public schools and um therefore um understands um even personally how important this funding is so
024we anticipate that this bill will be heard before cut off tomorrow and it might even be the most exciting fireworks of the day so something to keep keep an eye on so moving over to Mok um both of these bills are alive but I will tell you that house bill 1338 which was our preferred vehicle initially for MSO uh was cut significantly in House Appropriations um before it moved to the floor um and now is a lesser version of MSO funding than the Bill and so it is still s this is the one that's still sitting in rules which means that's the committee that uh bills go to prior to moving from the fiscal to committee to the floor it's oftentimes where bills go to die I hate to say I know the the language
025of dead and alive sounds so drastic but um but it really is um a place where bills might go no further is the rules committee so it's sitting there and hasn't been pulled to the house bills list yet my guess is that that means they're probably not going to pull it um there are a lot of other bills that have been pulled um including um things about shrimp and other very important matters but um this one has not been pulled from house rules so it may remain there and we won't see it progress and the house may be hedging their bets that since there's a senate version of this that stakeholders prefer that's 5192 that that would be a more likely vehicle for us to continue to support so the good news is is 5192
026which is the Senate version of MSO has been referred to House Appropriations it's already passed off the the senate floor and has already been referred to house appropriation so we will hear it again in committee hopefully if they schedule it which I assume they will um sometime within the next couple weeks over on the house side so let's take a look a little a little bit at what these bills I just focused on the two vehicles for uh M and sped and I pulled these numbers from um my colleague Dan steel over at Wasa um who is a number Savant if you will um and so this gives you a sense for how the bill originated which is what you'll see sort of in green here and struck through um and what it is now
027which is highlighted here in yellow so it was a better version of itself when it was first introduced it is still uh moving the needle uh but it certainly doesn't get us to where we want to go um but our hope would be that in um hearings we were able to provide testimony to support keeping it at least here and more as the bill progresses um so those are the those are the numbers currently in the Senate Bill version and a couple of the policy changes that would occur as a part of it and then on the uh sped version which is also the likely vehicle you'll see the numbers have changed I should have highlighted this 1.32 in yellow um it was it was a better version of itself when it started but it's
028still um it is still good it still moves the needle uh down to a single multiplier at 1.32 um distributes the awards quarterly um gives ospi some duties to set us side funds and it also eliminates the funding cap so this is the enrollment cap has been a difficult one for our legislators to really understand including this bill sponsor who had previously been opposed to uh removing the enrollment cap entirely of Senator Wellman uh but she recognized over the interim probably because of a lot of collective education and advocacy efforts how important the removal of the cap really is so um that's still included here and the hope would be it stays so that's where those two bills are now the reason why I don't get too H hung up on the numbers and um
029would encourage you to the the way this would change your advocacy efforts would be if you took the numbers in the current versions of the bills and in your communication with your legislators say said something to the effect of um uh this is what our total need is if the current version of the bill were to pass um this is what we would receive leaving a gap in between the two numbers because in most cases especially with MSO and maybe in in many of your cases with sped there's going to be a gap between what you need and what this bill would fund um which is unfortunate because we did have a version of the Mok Bill and a special education bill that in almost all cases would close the gaps um between what you
030need and what you are getting entirely and it's looking like like we're not going to get that in either MSO or sped it's going to be closing the Gap um not eliminating it entirely in both situations oops I didn't mean to stop share I wanted to share one more thing with you here um I guess what I would pop Marissa are there any questions in the chat for me nope no they're not so um the my um my PowerPoint to website is a little bit clunky so but if you don't mind I do want to take the opportunity to sort of tell you about where some of these other policy bills are but also show you how you can um fish on your own if you will uh because it is really interesting how the
031uh Washington State Legislature website is set up it is really meant to be userfriendly and again I am always here if you have questions and it might even just be easier to email me uh and say where is this bill and does it a chance and I'm happy to answer your questions at any time but also sometimes it's kind of fun to figure out where things are it's like a little mystery so simple majority is a bill that we have seen almost every legislative session that I have been a part of um and this session it has progressed significantly farther than we have seen in the last uh six or seven years um but um there are still some things to work out so I just wanted to show you where it is um in
032the process and this is how you would identify whether or not a bill at this point in time still has a chance so I'm going to stop share and reshare because it seems like that's my best bet are you seeing the screen so 5186 is the um it is now a true simple majority Bill thanks to Senator Krishna Dawson who was a school director out of the peninsula school district and was just appointed to the Senate and is on the Early Learning and K12 committee really excited that she is a part of that um she brought forward an amendment um on the Senate side that moved it from 55% down to a true 50% simple majority if you want to know where a bill is in the process you're really looking down here you're looking
033at the the bill history list um the longer this is probably the best it means it's still going you will note that it is still in the Senate because if it had been passed out of the Senate would it say in the house down here but it's not there yet because what this means it has been passed to the rules committee for second reading um so it it could get pulled from Senate onto the senate floor for a discussion this would have to happen before tomorrow at 5:00 P p.m and we quite honestly really don't want it to happen unless we know that there will be at least this would assume that all the Democrats would vote for it we would still need three Republicans to vote for it as well um we are not
034aware of any one much less three Republicans at this point in time who are willing to vote for a simple majority bill um that is pretty typical from year to year we have heard previously that they might be willing to do 55% but there was a a pretty strong 50% push this year so we may not see this one come to the floor this year we would rather not see it come to the floor for a debate if we don't know the votes are there then for it to come to the floor and fail because if it comes to the floor and fails then uh we probably wouldn't see a version of this bill again for another couple years so that's how you'd know where it is um and if you're looking for an overview
035of any bill because it changes through the process you're looking at the bill report the bottom link on the bill report so this will give you the Senate Bill report and you're clicking on that Marissa can you see the brief summary of The Substitute Bill great um and I would encourage you to read the whole thing because the devil's in the details as you know um and sometimes some really important implications for our system are missed in the brief summary of an overview but this gives you a general idea way better than a bill title can about what the bill does so you'll see it moves the simple or the super majority threshold down uh to 50% for school bonds um remove school facilities from the definition of public facilities for impact fees so this
036current version of the bill would actually um it was an agreement that if they went down to a 50 Maj 50% simple majority for bonds then Builders would not have to pay impact fees to school districts so wasda actually did not weigh in on this bill because we understood that there were uh several school districts who would be harmed by the removal of impact fees so we've been supportive of the concept of a simple majority um but never at the expense of harm to one or more school districts individual school districts and uh independent lobbyists representing school districts who wouldn't be harmed by the impact fees weigh in weighed in strongly and support of this bill so it's a little bit of of how things happen I'm not saying it it's totally dead you never
037know what might happen in the final hours um but for now without any Republican support it just doesn't stand much of a chance okay so I'm going to go um I think what I'm going to do instead of pulling up the actual PowerPoint which you will have access to I'm going to pull up the bills that um I wanted to be sure you had a sense for for what was going on with them um and that way you can get a sense for where they are in the process so I wanted to tell you a little bit about transition to kindergarten this this one has been sort of this perennial issue because uh representative Santos has had particular consternation around the transition to kindergarten program which she considers a policy as opposed to a program
038meanwhile we understand many districts have strong and robust transition to kindergarten programs and have been building them over the last several years so good news is that the house version of the bill that would have basically required you to if you have a a transition to kindergarten program that's grown over the last several years to cut your numbers back to 2023 levels um that bill was contentious even coming out of House Education even amongst Democrats uh the majority so it did not progress so Senator wman on the other side recognizing that this is a policy issue that costs money but is not protected within basic education drafted a bill that would um essentially require school districts to to pause on the growth of their program so it wouldn't remove any funding but it wouldn't allow
039any growth of your program for the time being it's basically a p a pause on the program um while you maintain what you have and if you wanted to see where it was um you will see that it's been um placed on second reading by the rules committee so that that means it's on the potential run list for the Senate so it could end up on the floor we don't know for sure um but from the perspective of our future legislature trying to protect itself so the current leg legislature protecting itself from its later legislature it might want to address this so that there's not continued growth um and therefore continued cost so I would be surprised if they don't pull this to the floor but um it could be considered necessary to implement the
040budget uh because if it it is deemed as a cost Savings in a couple weeks um they don't actually have to hear the bill they could decide to bring it back if it was necessary to implement the budget I know it's very confusing and who knows how these things work but it may be dead it may be not they may pass it they may not it's everything remains to be seen but this gives you a brief summary of the bill here that it limits the um the growth of the program starting in this next year okay so keep an eye on that the next policy I wanted to be sure to review with you was one that we just became aware of um and still have a lot of questions about actually it's um depreciation
041for for uh electric vehicles um let me get this up this bill number is 5780 and what this bill would do is essentially uh require school districts to pay back the state in the case of electric vehicle bus depreciation schedules um what we sorry I'm multitasking here it's not good I'm gonna Marissa you muted yourself somehow I sure did lucky you guys thanks Trisha um you'll see uh that it was just recently referred to Ways and Means um and is actually scheduled for this Thursday in ways and means to be heard so what we're trying to get clarity around is does this apply to electric vehicle buses that you already have that were granted to you by some state or federal Source um we are assuming no because it wouldn't make sense for them to
042take money away from you after you had been gifted or granted electric vehicles um but but we can't assume logic is at play here and so um we will get more clarity this is something to keep an eye on if you already have electric vehicles in your Fleet and you receive those electric vehicles uh through a grant um uh or or some other mechanism that was gifted to you and how that would impact your depreciation schedules moving forward um our Our Hope would be that we could have a conversation with the legislature about it not being appropriate for them to retroactively essential for lack of a better term penalize school districts who had uh been grant-funded uh electric vehicles um as uh cost savings to their District so stay tuned with this one this may
043be one of those bills that they're trying to save money either retroactively or just just as they're thinking about the future so uh we will keep you posted on that one the next bill that I wanted to draw your attention to is the national certifi board certified teacher program that's uh Senate bill 5737 this bill will also be heard in Senate Ways and Means this week I'm going to pull it up 37 57 oops I got the numbers wrong I think I inverted them in my brain yeah uh Derek sarle who is the wda board president and also the board president for Wala Public Schools we'll be testifying Con on this bill um it it's not as bad as we thought the hyperlink in the PowerPoint presentation actually takes it to the substitute bill that's
044going to be in front of the committee this week but it still essentially would reduce the total amount of um benefit or bonus or payment depending on how you want to frame it and different legislators will frame it differently uh for national board certified teachers um this was in Governor eny's proposed budget before just before he was outgoing that he essentially removed the enti entire funds All State funds for the national board certified teacher program in its entirety that was obviously very concerning multiple stakeholders testified as such during um the uh House and Senate Appropriations uh committee meetings um but now we're seeing an actual bill to carry that conversation forward just before we're seeing drafts of the budget because national board certified teacher program payments are not protected as a part of basic education
045they are trying to find a way to cut costs um that uh would benefit the state shortfall essentially that would contribute to closing the Gap there and this could be one of the victims of that effort to be quite honest um the let me um actually want to pull up the language around the hyperlink and the um thanks for your patience I'm not going to be able to pull it but in in the notes it will reiterate for you that um uh that the Senate staff anticipated about a $30 million savings um actually I'm sorry I'm mixing that up hold on the the effort of the substitute bill would be to lower the base annual bonus to 3,000 for the 25 26 school year um and then uh allow for it to be increased by
046inflation instead of eliminating it entirely uh which was the original uh proposal and that in the um High poverty School s the bonus would um it would be lower to 3,000 and then there would be ANL inflationary adjustment instead of eliminating the bonus so if the uh annual bonus is 6,200 for um uh other schools and high poverty schools is 5,000 those are the original base is what we understand so it doesn't eliminate those numbers um it reduces them to 3,000 with an inflationary increase so it's still not good um but I guess as we would say right now it could be worse I hate using that expression but that seems to be the case in some places here now I'm going to take you back to the PowerPoint presentation play from current slide um
047hopefully you read in session last week and got an A good overview on the unemployment insurance for strike workers issue if not I would encourage you to do so I'm going to upload that into the chat for you as a document um but uh essentially wasda and Wasa uh co-authored a letter that we sent to all of the Senate uh we started in Ways and Means before they heard it in committee and then we sent it to the entire Senate body before they heard it on the floor uh Senator Wellman who was one of the co-sponsors of this bill uh decided to vote in opposition to it um so we may have gotten to her uh which shows she was listening and recognizes that there may be a detrimental impact to school districts however her
048sources within the legislature so budget staff and other Senate staff had told her well because um uh School staff aren't allowed to strike this wouldn't apply to them um and that's what she told me and um I I think we all recognize the reality of the fact that uh that in fact uh Educators do strike and therefore this would likely apply to them so um if it was if it passed the Senate we're going to have a harder time in the house and we do not encourage you as an individual School District to weigh in on this it puts you in a precarious situation with your labor Partners however we will continue to be in conversation at the Statewide Association level with our Representatives about why this is uh detrimental to school district uh essentially
049from the perspective of it being an unfunded mandate um Senate bill 5772 is still in motion and um I'm going to pull this one up just so I get the language right essentially what it means that uh if there are school districts that more than 30 33% of their student enrollment is in al programs Alternative Learning programs that it would impact their total Lea um how much they would receive an Lea I'm G to pull this up so you can see it this is another one of those quote unquote cost savings bills um I'm not quite sure how much they think they would save from this but if you are a school district that has more than 33% of your student body uh who are part of the um alternative learning program uh I would
050encourage you in this case to reach out to your legislators particularly on the house side um well actually on the Senate side right now because they haven't heard this on the senate floor yet um but they still could end up using it at the end necessary to implement the budget so if you have Al programs particularly more than 33% of your total enrollment highly encourage you to reach out to your legislators to uh let them know how this would detrimentally impact your um well your student learning um your the programs that you offer and then your total District funds okay got a couple more to review with you so far Marissa the only comment has been from Mandy O'Hara from Ham on Senate Bill 5780 hoping that um if this you know knowing or just
051wanting to know how it plays out as they were granted to electric buses I would say my own school district is in the same position so I think there are quite a few folks that are curious about how that will play out yes as are we thank you for noting that um like I said we will keep an eye on it and being communication I will likely put a report um an update in in session this week just to say how the hearing went in particular whether or not it would impact districts who already have electric vehicles from Grants or if it would um if it would just be future or also include the past okay two more bills just to tell you about and in the interest of time I'm not going to um
052open them up because my computer is being challenging um the financial literacy Bill does look like um it's still in play there's a house version and a senate version the Senate version is titled learning standards and includes computer science as well as Financial education and the house side has Financial education specifically um there's a low fiscal note on these bills I will tell you because the interpretation of our legislature is that because they enable you to embed the existing learning standards AC across the curriculum not as a standalone course um their interpretation of that is that it does not cost District's money um we have continued like with you to try to um help inform them about how when you add things um even learning standards that make sense or good for students in existing
053coursework it still adds time uh requirement of resources uh teacher training all of those things do come at a District cost um I I see this as um at least the financial education part as probably a foregone conclusion based on the will of both Republicans and Democrats at this point um on both the House and Senate side uh but it's an opportunity for you to continue to communicate just what you're dealing with than the very full plates that you already have and then last but not least um this is a bill that I've shared with you previously and continue to draw your attention to because this really does take your communication with your legislators about your concern um most specifically this bill puts into place a uh an additional complaints process when it is perceived
054by any member of your community or within the school system that a superintendent or School director has woefully disobeyed the law um that their there is a complaint process added where public comment or public opportunity to provide input is codified into statute School Board would be responsible for holding those public meetings um if uh compliance was not reached then ospi would be able to more directly intervene um and as part of that intervention one penalty could be to withhold up to 20% of your state allocation to redirect for essentially um process improvements within your own District uh but obviously that would come at a financial huge financial implications to your District if that were the case one of the main concerns we've expressed to legislators about this is that uh which law are we talking
055about um state or federal um who gets to decide that how much chaos will it create in the meantime and particularly um another mechanism by which um community members are put in a position to um oh be in conflict with school directors and superintendents as opposed to it feeling more like a partnership and a conversation um it's particularly codifying yet again this opportunity to um have some volatility and a lack of civil discourse so we we will continue to bring that up but I would encourage you all not just to express your concerns but also how do you at the local level grapple with those issues we know that school boards um have put put very strong public comment processes in place um that there is a complaint response process that you are required to
056have in place and is publicly available how is that going for you and when there is a challenge or a problem how do you how do you mitigate that um it's one of those uh opportunities for us to again educate about how local control works and that this is not necessarily the right place for the state to intervene um the last thing I just wanted to share with you there's more that we don't know about what's going on at the federal level than we do uh but just uh a couple Communications that we've received from our national school boards Association as well as from the governor's office just within the last 24 hours I wanted to share with you um that currently our understanding is that the continuing resolution um going through the Senate uh
057right now does not include any cuts for education programs um that's the communication that came out from nsba currently um however there is an effort to elimate eliminate the so that's the education programs and while this does affect education it's in a different department there is an effort to eliminate the e-rate funding to provide wireless internet hotspot devices um if you're district is a beneficiary of that I didn't quite get a sense for how that would impact Washington um that would be something we'd really like to know um and that you should definitely uh communicate with your members of Congress uh if if you have hotpots that your students and staff rely on in order to access the internet that would have an implication there um and then we also heard from our governor's office
058this morning that the there are some entities within the state some State agencies that are having impact to their Grant applications either existing Grant funds or applications currently in the works um because of particular words like Equity being included in that language I just let you know that because that's what we've been by informed by our state Partners there's no action necessarily for you to take as a result of that um uh but there's a lot of confusing information out there and to whatever degree we can provide you with something that we know I wanted to let you know there so there's a lot of things swirling um and we still have a lot of days left in the legislative session for decisions to be made the other I wanted to share with you don't
059know if you saw this during the um Super Bowl but there was a commercial from the Washington uh research Council um which will have its own perspective so I I don't mean to share anything that's considered partisan I just want you I'm going to share two things with you one is a resource that you might see or have heard of that might be considered a little more right leaning and then another one from Senate Democrats just to give you a sense for how different the opinions are about um our funding shortfalls right now and again I will share this with you because I think this is worth a read and whenever whenever you see policy brief and budget shortfalls in a document you might just tune out automatically but I will tell you that this
060is a short one so it's worth a read and it's got some charts and graphs in it so it's it's fairly easy just three pages uh but it is the perspective of This research Council that it would be possible for our state legislature to address the shortfall problem without raising taxes by making Cuts so and that cuts alone would help to solve for the problem um so there's definitely uh a segment of our own legislature as well as our own membership as well as our own constituents who would ask there for there not to be an increase to taxes um and here are some of the reasons why they might give and then meanwhile like I said I will um share another perspective the Senate Democrats just released this document that uh lists a variety
061of Revenue or tax options that are on the table and so I I just I think it's important for you to see sort of these varied perspectives on what the right way to go is in terms of closing the gap on that shortfall we're going to hear more about these proposals and the reasons why they might be a good or bad idea over the next few weeks and possibly into a special session and um a lot of this is really outside of wasda purview uh we have um no member adopted positions that allow us as an organization to weigh in on um modifying the advanced Computing search charge cap as an example um so I I share this with you to say that a lot of these conversations are going to be um led by
062our legislature and uh our labor Partners will be involved um because they do have uh the ability to weigh in and inform these decisions um and our asking of us to weigh in and so it's a really delicate issue because while we are asking for addition additional resources to fully fund basic education you may hear from your own legislators well then will you support these tax packages and as a state organization I am not able to say yes or no to that I can only return back to um the Paramount duty of the state is to fully fund basic education special education Material supplies operating costs and transportation are part of basic education um we will leave the revenue and tax conversations to people who are experts in that area and we would ask that
063you fund the basic obligations of basic education um through the general fund um because that's their responsibility existing and ongoing responsibility so I'll put these in the chat but um know that there's more coming as it relates to those topics and this will give you an idea of how those conversations are going um but I will ask you when you have an opportunity um to read last week's in session if you haven't already um I would ask you sometimes I struggle to identify what would be the most helpful information for you to know at what level right now um so some of it is like I'm taking a temperature on the conversations that are going on at the legislature that week and sharing with you what we know in that moment um but I don't
064know if it's exactly what you think you need and so I am going to put a pdf version of last week's in session into chat and I would ask for your feedback is this the right kind of information is it the level of depth that you would ask for are there any particular policy issues you like to see us unpack in Greater detail what things are really helpful um got some feedback already that having side by-side charts that compare versions like all the MSO bills with one another which was embedded into uh the in session last week that that was really helpful for at least one of our readers who let us know so it's a it's a great opportunity for us to refine any offerings that we currently have to better meet your needs
065for the remain remaining weeks of the legis ative session and the only way I'll know how to do better is if you tell me so put a couple things in the chat for you to have I will include the PowerPoint presentation as well we are at time but I would just offer that I'm available if you need anything and I'm grateful for all of your service