001greetings School directors and Friends of public education thanks for joining us for wda in session live it is Thursday February 27th happy to be able to spend the next hour with you today and with uh one of our favorite colleagues Dan steel from the uh Washington Association of school administrators to drop some knowledge on us about the State of the State as it relates to school funding and finance uh maybe there will be some good news he can relay but uh mostly just updates to keep you appr prised uh until we get there I just wanted to acknowledge that our public lands our public schools and Facilities operate on the traditional lands of indigenous peoples and we engage in the 20125 legislative session remembering that the lands of our state capital were cared for by
002the people of the and and the squali tribes we make these acknowledgements to open a space of recognition inclusion and respect for our Sovereign tribal partners and all IND students family staff legislators and board members in our communities a little bit in the know um there are two links provided here that I'm not going to go into too much depth because there's a lot to dig into if you have some Curiosities about it maybe we'll go a little further next week but wanted you to know that the floor um the floor schedule for both the house and the Senate are available online it gives you a picture of which bills are up for floor debate and you are able to watch those debates through tvw and would encourage you uh to keep be keeping a
003lookout for some of our favorite bills around potentially MSO and special education as we hope for their advancement out of fiscal committees this week uh without further Ado and to make sure we give him ample time we love that word ample Dan uh to share an update on what's going on with the legislature and how School finance and the state budget is looking I'm going to pass it to my friend and College Dan steel to take it from here great thanks Marissa appreciate the opportunity let me uh if I can drop my share on there um so when Marissa actually originally asked me to talk it was really more kind of a kind of the basics of the budget so I kind of focused most of this presentation really on the budget what some of
004the details are and that sort of thing we can certainly talk about issues and that sort of thing if you'd like but I know the big three and the other key issues that are floating around I know you've had a lot of conversation with Marissa and leavon already um so really going to focus in on the budget stuff and gonna kind of fly through fairly quickly um if you have questions if I'm going too fast if there's something that needs more detail we can certainly uh slow down a little bit but the first thing I want to show you is this you've probably seen for me or Marissa or other folks along the way but this this really is a comparison of the overall State operating budget that blue line that's being spent on all
005areas of government the green line which is mostly below the Blue Line uh is what the percentage of the operating budget is dedicated to K12 education and there's a couple of things I want to point out first of all if you look where it started to ramp up it's 2013 and remember the timing of that that the mlar decision was brought down by the Supreme Court in January 2012 and at that point the legislature said oh boy you know we're not complying with the Constitution we better start providing more funding and you can you can see that there was a ramp up at that point um at one point there we actually crossed over and had more money going to K12 education than other areas of government jumped up over 50% and again the timing
006is important it was 2017 2018 where we actually crossed over the line and remember that in 2017 the legislature adopted their so-called mlar solution which required them to provide a significant uh increase in K12 education so at that point we crossed over uh very pleased about that good thing but then almost immediately we dropped down and went under under the 50% and we keep keep going down we're at about 43% right now and you can see the blue line at that same point where we started going down spiked up uh because the legislature basically said they had pent up priorities we're going to spend money on areas other than K12 education so this is the scenario right now that we're dealing with but I also want to step back and remind you that the 50%
007number is not really a valid metric um what we should be concerned about is whether or not K12 education basic education is being amply funded and if we're amply funded with five or 10% of the overall budget I think we'll be satisfied with that if it takes 50 or 70% that's what it takes um so 50% really is kind of a false metric but it it part of the reason we show this is that it shows that there are priorities outside of K12 outside of the parent amount Duty the legislators are focusing in on more than us the other issue is when they crossed over that 50% barrier virtually every legislator padded themselves in the back ran around talked in their newsletters about how great they were doing for K12 education well they're not talking
008about that anymore because that percentage keeps going down so I just want to have you keep that in mind so this is the the historical look for over over the last nine years or so of the forecasted Revenue growth in the state and you can see that the our state economy is really good I mean it's running hot and this is an average of about 9% over this course of nine years and the legislature when there's additional money they want to actually spend additional money the problem though is if you look into the future a little bit you can see that revenues continue projected the increase except for that little blip in fiscal year 2024 revenues continue to increase they keep coming into the state we have more money than we've ever had before the
009problem is the increase starting to flatten off and so the problem and I don't want to get too political here but the problem that we have with the the 10 to 12 billion dollar shortfall is that legislators knew this information the econom forecaster told them this is what's going to happen in the next several years but instead the legislature continued spending at the same rate they had been when we had 9% average increases the next several years is an average of about 3% but again the legislature continued spend like it was before and you just can't do that more for for more than a little bit of time before you come into a problem I have to tell you that if any school boards any school school districts actually spent more money than they actually
010had coming in all of you would be recalled your superintendent and CFO would probably be fired um but the legislature they do what they want to do and so we're sitting looking at a 10 to 12 billion do shortfall even though we're talking about a shortfall again I talked about Revenue continuing increase the current budget to the next budget is projected the increase by about 5 billion the next BM is again is projected to increase another $5 billion so there is more money coming in but again the reason we have a shortfall is that the legislature for the last couple of years has spent more money than they actually had in the bank and more money that they projected to receive in the future um and so that's a real problem so I want to
011one of the issues of the the increases and the required increases why we have such a big shortfall is the case loads keep changing the impacts the maintenance level so maintenance level we'll talk about that a lot maintenance level is really basically having the same spending that you've had before but making adjustments required adjustments for inflation for case loads uh and and other enrollment issues so for example in K12 education if we have more special ed kids our case load goes up in Corrections if there's less people going to prison their case load goes down medicaid uh Social Services all of those things go up or down and so one of the problems though is maintenance level which again is the major driver is calculated in different ways the office of financial management which is
012the the governor's budget office the economic and revenue forecast Council the house and the Senate all four of those bodies calculate maintenance level in a different way so it's really hard to figure out what maintenance level is and what the actual shortfall is uh obviously at the end of the session the governor the legislature they're going to have to come together and agree on what maintenance level is uh to actually adopt a budget but this just shows you where the concerns are with the increase so this this is comes from the November 24 revenue forecast opr is the office of um office of uh I can't even remember what it stands for but but it's the House Appropriations basically it's the it's the office that actually works with uh the uh um works with the
013legislature on the house side uh in an ofm as I mentioned is the the governor's budget office cbas are the state employe collective bargaining agreements so this shows you the the estimate of the shortfall using different numbers so with the House Appropriations Committee using their maintenance level number they originally projected uh about $4.4 billion in the current banum and then $7.7 billion in the next bium so about 122 billion ofm again the governor's budget office is a little bit higher if you looked at the governor's budget proposal uh in December Governor Ensley they out going Governor his maintenance level was even higher than these numbers are uh and then it's also able to be calculated again the House Appropriations including the state employee collected bargaining agreement there's a debate about whether or not the collected
014bargaining agreements or maintenance level or if it's a policy decision um so they're actually separated out you can see the different numbers there the the projections of the shortfall dramatically increases on the right hand side is what the economic and revenue forecast Council puts together as a 4.5% revenue growth percentage and it's important to know that when the economic and revenue forecast Council provides these numbers the legislature by law when they talk about their Outlook and their spending they can either use the 4.5% revenue growth or whatever whatever actual growth is and the legislature for the last several years has used the the arbitrary 4.5% growth number even though projected growth was between 2 and a half and 3 and a half per. so again they knew that their revenues weren't going to meet that
0154.5% but because it was allowed in their projections and law that's what they used and again that's part of the reason we came up with a shortfall if you look at those 4.5% numbers you can see that the numbers are actually lower than what the forecast forecasted revenues are so that getting into some of the weeds here and it's probably some detail that you're not necessarily interested in but if you look at the maintenance level changes these are the maintenance level changes uh over the next bium for each of the different sectors of government and you can see down the K12 huge increase of about $1.3 billion almost all of that increase in that $1.3 billion is for compensation and I have to tell you it's important for you to know the maintenance level number
016for K12 because I will tell you at the end of the session when they adopt a budget K12 education will increase between two between one and two billion dollar and on the face of it that's that's great that's what we're looking for we need more investments in K12 you have to understand that if most of the money is going for compensation and going for maintenance level it means all of the programs that you're currently operating that are underfunded they're not getting additional dollars and so I think it's important to put those numbers in context about whether or not we're getting policy level decisions or we're getting maintenance level decisions so I want to talk about Jay insley's budget just really quickly um to show you where he was coming from his proposal in December his
017total spending increases of about $7.5 billion and I just showed you the numbers the increase about5 billion and obviously well you can't spend more money than you have um in fact we have all these deficit spending in DC Washington state is not allowed to have a deficit budget it must be balanced at the end of the when they actually adopt a budget so how does the governor actually get away with this maintenance level increases again a little bit higher than what I just showing you in that previous slide but about $5.4 billion policy level again discretionary issues about two billion dollars and how does he get away with actually doing that well he also proposes a new Revenue package of about $4.4 billion this is $4.4 billion for 2527 that increases over the 4-year period
018of time to about 122 billion so a pretty significant increase uh in his budget so I don't want to necessarily talk about the the details you've got a link down there to the governor's budget if you want more details but I just want to move along talk about K12 in the governor's proposal again spending increases about $2 billion great that's awesome but when you look at it the maintenance level the required spending in the governor's budget for maintenance level is $2.4 billion and wait a minute that's higher than what he actually wants to spend in total so what does that mean his policy level the discretionary areas actually is a reduction for K12 education so if this budget passed tomorrow legislators and the public and the governor would be talking about boy we just provided
019one point 2.3 uh 2 2.13 billion dollars for K12 education and they'd be very happy about it but when we look at the policy level it's actually a reduction and that's not a good thing for K12 education um number of increases in this area again don't want to go through those details um but want to show you this again you know we showed that maintenance level increase let's talk about policy level you can see here that policy level we're on the leftand side in the negative of how much our budget is actually being increased in the policy level and that's not a good thing for K12 education so this is also his overall budget you know I talked about us being about 43% of the overall operating budget if his budget actually passed that would
020actually drop down the 41.9% I I will tell you this budget's not going to pass Governor's gone this is essentially a throwaway budget but it actually provides some in information for the legislator as they carry forward to to move for their own budget so we've got a new governor oh let me back up and make talk about this first so the the governor's budget is a a revenue budget but when the governor releases a budget he's required by law to introduce a no new Revenue budget and the no new Revenue budget's called the book One budget what he released with revenues is called a book two budget or a new law budget what this shows is the book one budget or the current law budget versus the new law or book two with revenues and
021for K12 education so the first two columns are the new law with no new revenues using currently what we have and you can see down below that there's there'd be a reduction of about $131 million so if you look over in the the next two columns that's the new law essentially what he actually introduced in December and you go down to the bottom you can see there's reductions of about $210 million and what's interesting about this and frustrating about it is if Jay Ensley introduced a budget that had no new Revenue K12 education would be reduced by $131 million in the budget where he actually said I want to increase taxes by $4.4 billion K12 education actually has a greater loss if you carry over to the last couple of columns this is actually the
022four-year total so again J enle in the in the new law budget is talking about increasing 122 billion in taxes the reduction proposed for K12 is half a million dollar if he has no new Revenue the reduction over four years is $260 million how that happens I don't know but it really shows you that the priority of the Le of the governor uh is not and was not K12 education but he's gone he's away so we've got a new governor again not going to go through all the details you've got a link to his budget priorities uh if he'd like to look at them he is actually saying before we start talking about taxes let's scrub the budget see if we can find some savings and efficiencies and he's actually proposed a reduction of about
023$4.4 billion uh general fund uh just in the last hour or so we had a press conference to actually talk about the details of this um and one of his priorities is that to not make any Cuts in K12 education but they did find about $4 billion worth of cuts um that have been submitted by state agencies they've reviewed them and so uh we're going to be seeing more information there so this kind of walks through the details um the major majority of that $4.4 billion about 4 billion of it comes from a across the board uh 6% reduction in most state agencies excluding the state patrol excluding uh K12 education and a couple other uh areas um so this is where the governor the new governor has actually found some work and it should
024also add that $4 billion he's actually accepting Jay ensley's reduction so so if you add the four to the three he's actually proposing some recommendations that has about a$7 billion reduction which leaves still a little bit of a hole that the legislature is going to have to Grapple with and they're probably going to actually adopt some some tax revenues so that that's all I've got with the with the budget I just want to make sure you kind of knew kind of the overall situation again what we're looking for Wason and wden the rest of the education Community is actually talking about basic education looking for about $1.5 billion um and one of our messages I'm sure you're aware of this but one of our messages is we don't want to play in this Revenue conversation
025because the legislature has more than enough money to amply fund basic education the concern is their priorities have not been on K12 education um so if they want to actually raise revenue to deal with other issues fair enough let them do that but they shouldn't be raising revenue on the backs of K12 education um so that's all I've got but I wanted to make sure there was enough time for leavon to to do his work and whatever conversation you have but I also wanted to take take some time to answer any questions either on the budget or policy issues or anything else you might have on your mind thanks so much Dan you know more about school F Finance than most of us or or many of us combin so I appreciate your insights um
026one very important question that was asked is can they get a copy of the slide deck that's that's a a very important question well I actually sent it to Marissa so it's up to her whether or not she wants to send it on um maybe for six billion dollars um uh yes I will send it out to the group I will upload it into the chat but I know some of you have a challenge getting that so if you would email me directly then I can um send it to you an attachment for any of you who would like to have access to it um and then I guess uh it might be helpful for folks to get a sense uh Dan you and I have been on many emails and text message exchange over
027the last 24 hours about the everchanging landscape of our priority bills um so I imagine there are some questions about where we stand with those do you mind giving just a quick overview of what it's looking like right now from your perspect yeah so I'll just give you really quick and you can tell me if you agree or disagree but um for special education uh Senate Bill 5263 is kind of our our our major issue um the out of coming out of the education committee they dra dramatically lowered the the tiered multipliers so we're supporting that bill uh but we're hoping at the end of the day they actually go back and increase the multipliers on the house side 1310 was kind of our our major Bill uh the House Appropriations Committee uh in the
028last couple of days though has actually set that down they're not going to adopt that bill they've actually brought forward 1357 I believe it's 1357 1367 uh is a bill from Monica stonier that that provides a very very very minor increase in the tiered multipliers but also focuses in on inclusionary practices um again we're hoping that those numbers actually go up uh whether it be the house bill or the Senate bill at the end of the day when they actually adopt a budget on IMO Senate bill 5192 has about a 10% increase uh in the the IMO numbers um what what the bill does though I'm not going to go in all the details but the major issue with that bill is it takes the current eight categories individual categories for insurance and libraries technology
029and the other issues and actually merges them together um makes it one funding source and we get a lump sum again about a 10% increase at the end of the year though school districts have to actually report to OSI using the current eight categories about where you spent your money so there's some technical issues with that bill and some concerns about the philosophy of it uh but that bill is moving forward on the house side our preferred Bill house Bill 1338 was actually introduced at the request of us and included everything we were asking for um unfortunately that bill is moving forward in Appropriations probably in the next hour or two and they actually have a striking Amendment on the table which is likely going to pass uh without too much difficulty I'm sure all
030of the Democrats are going to say yeah let's do it and it actually takes about a $310 million in inlux of cash for an increase of 20% of all of those categories and drops it down to about a 5% increase you remember last year when we got an in we were looking for a three or $400 per student increase and we ended up getting a $21 increase per student for Seattle $21 times 40,000 that's some real money if you have a school district that has 150 or maybe even a th000 that's not much money if they actually talk about this increase so we were actually trying to eliminate the gap between expenditures and revenues dropping it down to $5 per student I don't know what that's going to give um you know if you're in
031a school district that has a th kids thousand times five you know you can probably actually just have a pizza party for all the staff and then it's eaten up not that you should use MSO for pizza parties but um my point um so we're really conc concerned about that bill and and a lot of the work that Marissa was just talking about this morning we've been sending emails to the Appropriations Committee uh expressing our severe concern and disappointment that they're taking the best bill that we have on the table and dramatically altering it it you know don't use these terms with legislators usually but what the Amendments do is gut the bill and and it it won't really do much of anything for us so very concerned about that um I should also mention
032Transportation as a part of our big three package the Senate bill um 5187 uh got out of the education committee it doesn't look like it's going to pass out of the Ways and Means Committee and the house bill was introduced late has had no action at all so we're left with um competing special ed bills and we're left with competing uh IMO bills one of which is going to be uh uh not a pale version of the original on the house side so we've got a lot of work left to do 45 days in we still have 60 what is it 61 whatever the number is 59 oh it's even better um left to go um and so um what what we've talked about and I think Marissa's mentioned this to you before is Now's
033the Time When a lot of people get tired and it's like okay I've I've sent in my notes I'm going to go do something else now' Now's the Time to actually push the pedal down a little bit farther um we have more work to do especially now that we see what the house especially wants to do with our bills it's really important for us to continue to be engaged and I know a lot of you have been if you haven't now is it the time if you have ramp it up yeah I think I Ed the expression put the pedal to the metal this is a this is Dan and my second Zoom meeting of the day we probably got a couple more and lots more text message exchanges to go um uh just so
034you all know I sent out a a a call to action to the ledge committee members who you should be hearing from a representing director areas uh messaging first year House Appropriations um members as well as Senate Ways and Means about what the real implications for those Bill uh especially the Striking Amendment on 1338 I got a really helpful email back and this school district is planning on sharing this with their legislators that the original version of the bill would have provided their district with approximately $3 million to uh support Moc that would have closed their existing funding shortfall in that area instead with the Striking Amendment on 1338 they'd be receiving approximately $50,000 total for their District so which is peanuts right by a few books with that so um I would encourage you
035use that kind of data when you're communicating with your legislators uh the the bigger the numbers the more um oh fairy tale like they may seem but when you actually give concrete numbers like that uh it really illuminates uh what the bills proposing it won't do really which is meet the basic education needs of our students so use those real stories put the pedal to the metal do not let up right now because if we let this go go unnoticed um then uh we'll wake up in two weeks and decisions would will have been made without our voice it's very dangerous for us to be quiet yeah I will let you know that you know today last couple of days has been really disappointing and just kind of disheartening um but we still have some
036hope that if we continue to push the especially the Senate I think is going to kind of have our backs to a certain degree and so there's going to be a fight between the house and the Senate um also I should have mentioned in all the talk about the budget um March 18th the revenue forecast is going to come out and that will actually trigger some action by legislators that they're working on budgets and reductions right now but as soon as that forecast comes out they'll do some tweaks to actually match what the new numbers are uh and then we'll start seeing legislative budget proposals and um unfortunately right now if the if the house released their budget proposal tomorrow I'm sure it's going to include a $5 increase in IMO and so um that
037will be the next battle to actually deal with the budget issues um I think we're clear of questions in the chat but I would invite folks to keep asking them if you have them in the meantime I will ask for some predictions Dan um is this is this a setup this um is this a setup right now like you got to see the bills the way you were hoping for responsive to your needs now we slicing them because this is the reality we're working in um if you want us to get back to the originals uh we we're going to have to increase Revenue AKA taxes um so don't fight us on this don't get in the way if you actually want your your bills is that am I being too mellian about this or
038there maybe some truth to that I I think that's part of the issue um the the house especially is really pushing this message of if we don't have Revenue there's going to be devastating cuts and oh by the way K12 education all your increases they're not going to be there and so I I think there that's part of the issue I I would just caution Schoolboard members or Educators generally to to be careful of the revenue conversation the message that we've sent to them is is a number of different pieces number one we're not tax experts we're Educators you know you figure out how to fund us and then we'll deal with what we need to do in terms of curriculum and actually getting our kids to to the bar the second thing is K12
039education is the Paramount Duty and the three issues that we're asking for specifically are basic education items that are required constitutionally to be amply funded and they're not and so try to be careful about how you say this to legislators but you know what you've got more than enough money to amply fund us what you're doing is using the money that's currently in the budget for other things outside of your required Paramount Duty and so those are a couple of things you know in my mind again it's you have to be careful about actually using those words and that tone with legislators but I getting back to your original question I do think this partially is a little bit of a show to express to us that we're asking for more than they can actually
040Bear unless they actually figure out how to get a tax package and by the way it's interesting to not I'm sure you're aware of this but the the tax increase conversation has not really been hanging out there for the first four or five weeks of session but just this week all four of the budget committees the the ways and means Appropriations capital budget and finance all of them have been rolling through a series of tax and fee increases um and so they're actually setting the stage for themselves to actually be prepared to say what can we actually adopt what can't we adopt so the the tax conversation will uh be a major issue okay last question from me unless somebody else ask one but do you think that leads us to uh special session yeah
041so you and I have talked about this a bunch and and uh there are some Rumblings from some key legislators saying you know what we might not be able to get this done in 105 days um I'm not sure about that um we once we see the budgets we'll get a better idea about how far apart the House and Senate are and how much they have to figure out in terms of Revenue and that sort of thing but what we're hearing specifically is there's some real tension especially in the house Democrat Caucus about what to buy about how much to raise about what to raise and if you have dissension within one caucus they're not going to be able to come to an agreement to actually pass anything um the Senate Democrats sounds like they're
042more coest and that Jamie Peterson is kind of corralling them a little bit better but if the house Democrats can't agree internally about what to do it may very well Force um extra time thanks we won't so in other words we probably won't have a a good sense for that definitively until April yeah probably not and in fact you know what oftentimes happens you know they'll they'll release a budget and people start talking about oh this is going to take us special session and in a week later it's like oh everything's coming together and you know it the farther apart they are usually is the easier to come together for whatever strange reason the human nature act acts in the process but um yeah so be on the lookout we're we're hoping 105 days because
043I know all of you are starting to actually draft your budgets and it's really difficult to actually talk about where you want to spend your money when you don't know if you're going to have the money to spend um and it complicates your life so we're hoping they get done in time for a whole lot of reasons but I'm gon to focus in on you and hopefully for you that it gets done on time thanks Dan really appreciate it uh there are no there are no questions in the chat from our folks but really grateful for you being here and sharing what you know with us makes us smarter and hopefully more ready to advocate so and if there are questions you know ask them to Marissa and she can relay them or you can
044get to me directly anytime more than help you out there's a question one last question did Dan say it would be a decrease from 20% to 5 % or to5 I think you said both uh actually it's it's from 20% from from about 300 million dollar down to $5 20% and I believe the percentage number is like about 1% um I'd have to do the math I can't do the math on the fly but um it's it's just let me just say it's a minor minor increase compared to what we actually need and what we ask for yeah um the Striking Amendment document um which I will put in the um chat for you all here momentarily uh does at the bottom of striking amendments it lists the effect that the amendment would take and
045it says that the effect of the Striking Amendment would reduce uh the total amount to a $5.50 increase per pupil they actually told us in the effect which is helpful question mark well that that's not really meant for you to actually read and criticize it's for for legislators to figure out whether or not they can support it or not right all right now people are getting warmed up um we'll take one more question and pass it on to Lon uh any update uh on bonds 60 50 55 yeah just really quickly um so everybody knows the Senate joint resolution 8200 and house bill 50 186 um was changed from the 55% down the simple majority um part of the reason the bill is moving is there's been a a bargain uh worked out with uh
046the building industry Association of Washington uh it includes a an elimination of school district impact fees um we we have not taken a firm position on the the deal yet uh we're still working the numbers trying to figure out how much districts really are going to be negatively impacted um and we're working on language with uh legislators and legislative staff um and what I told the legislators specifically is we want the simple majority this would be a good thing we can't actually commit to supporting this deal until we figure out how impacted our districts are going to be and we don't want to get a win at the expense of a certain set of District so the other thing we're looking at is is some kind of bridge funding or some other mechanism to provide
047those districts that are going to lose impact fees uh with a something to cover them um so that bill is uh presumably going to get out of Ways and Means by tomorrow uh and what our message is what our message to our members was is whether you like the impact fee deal or not we encouraged you to actually support it s sign in Pro because we want to keep the bill moving and have the conversation going and just a technical issue if if folks came in and were concerned about the impact fees and that bill died we would not have it revived it would not happen um so it's a lot easier to actually have a bill go forward and pull the plug at the end and say we don't want anymore and kill the
048bill as opposed to actually trying to revive a dead bill so we're continuing to support it publicly uh but we're talking internally about what this really means fair enough thanks Dan okay that's it that clears the que you're off the hook until next time appreciate you Dan will there be a next time yeah absolutely remember you were one of the folks requested by membership to hear from so one time just cannot be enough possibly appreciate it Dan thank you so much all right so uh without further Ado in the time we have remaining I want to be sure to give space to wasa's advocacy and polic policy analyst leavon Williams one of the reasons we were excited to bring leavon onto our team is that he um has unique background and experience uh professionally in
049supporting and serving uh students uh more at the local level and we haven't talked a lot about student centered bills that continue to progress through the legislative session so he and I were talking about uh some of the valuable ways you can keep focused on some of the Le proposed legislation that has real classroom staff and student level impacts uh Beyond just talking about school funding which is important but not the only thing that's important so I'm going to pass it to you leavon uh to tell us what are some other things that are going on with the legislature besides all this give us some hope what's good I'll try I'll try my best to give the hope uh hey thank you for the introduction Marissa yeah um leavon Williams the advocacy and policy analyst
050um I believe there are some some things we we should keep an eye on um that are students entered um to really I guess uh continue to support the overall success of of students um communities and districts and throughout the state of Washington uh let me share my screen actually with folks sorry so sorry bear with me are folks able to see sure can I'm dealing with some issues over here on my screen we good to go all righty so as uh Marissa stated earlier I think these are some important bills to are folks can folks see my notes yes we can see your notes okay if you click on uh use slideshow up there on the top what has the double screen right above where you're seeing there you go that should move it
051to what just the viewer perfect cool do want El show my notes I don't want to show my notes but I do want to actually read from my notes I'm sorry I'm sorry just give me one second can folks still see my notes we can okay I don't I don't really hey uh so I I think these are some really important bills um that as I stated earlier that talk that's centered around Student Success and student development uh um you know we're we're looking at uh dual language dual credit opportunities uh really improving Pathways for students uh and also uh strengthening um Civics and in media literacy and education I think that's a really big one um you know as we're as we're looking at these bills it's really essential to um to to consider
052the the the benefits and the challenges that come along with these bills that are are passed um as I go through my brief presentation I'll talk to you about you know the impacts um that it will have on the districts whether you know in terms of Educators uh students and just the overall uh District Community um I this is hilarious I'm sharing my notes and I'm reading from them I believe that um you know majority of these bills uh provide opportunities for students to really to gain some valuable uh skills whether that's um certifications at an early age uh you know having more opportunities in the workforce uh development stage I think uh students can uh will be prepared and better informed in terms of Civic engagement and having a and having a pulse on
053what's happening at this at the state and local level I think that's really important for students to to grasp those Concepts CS um districts uh I think this will offer a form of a form of uh funding and resources and curriculum in terms of the Civic engagement bill um let me as I as I'm thinking about um you know all three of these bills um 1237 which is a house bill uh Prime sponsor is senator Paul currently it's um schedule for executive session I think today or tomorrow and um looking at this bill I I I think it it um some of my notes as you can see I don't want to go for word for word I think there are some benefits from uh 12 1273 in terms of you know school districts having
054a chance to to apply for for grant funding uh to update curriculum to train staff to to improve uh the reporting systems for dual for dual programs dual credit programs I think there's some curriculum alignment there as well um you know districts could could be more aligned with CTE courses and to really connect with the the the uh the job sectors and create somewhat of a pipeline of success for uh students to enter the workforce and and also have opportunities such as appren interships um there are some concerns about the bill right like I think the the funding uncertainty is one of the big concerns um is it longterm is it sustainable is it sufficient for for districts uh some districts might you know deal with the challenges of updating their curriculum um you have
055the the staff trainings right like how how would that look um and also implementing new technology systems I think some districts might uh be opposed to that um and another concern that comes to mind is uh is the equity component um will all districts um have access um and you know especially those districts who are you know come from vulnerable populations and those who have limited resources um I think that could be a challenge um and to conclude I think I think 1273 is is really uh important because it it create you know continue to create Pathways um for students uh in a dual credit sphere and uh students could really benefit from this um and um I think educ I think this bill would really help um align um educ um with the industry
056needs and Workforce as I was stating earlier um so I just wanted to to highlight 1273 I think it's a it's a it's a good change um we're keeping an eye out on that bill and and more to come on that so House Bill uh as we move on House Bill 1722 uh the prime sponsor is representative Connors uh right now it's in a rule rules committee it is not scheduled for public hearing at the moment um to to give a highlevel brief overview I'll try not to read Reba them from my notes as you could clearly see them um it's really aiming at um removing barriers for for 16 and 17 year olds to U in in these CTE courses um especially in EMS programs and fire Services uh to to have more access
057to these type of professional trainings and programs uh for these young students um I think some of the the benefits of this bill is districts will will need to adjust their uh their their CTE programs to to allowing uh younger students to to begin the EMS and fire Services train fire Services trainings um this is another great opportunity for students to enter the workforce early and and gr and Gain valuable experience uh and pursue certifications that really are in high demand at the moment and um it's it's just a great opportunity for younger students to to have access um to these type of uh opportunities and and there are some concerns probably right with this with this bill um funding right Staffing could could really be a challenge um I think there's life liability and
058safety component um that comes along when you have youth in these highrisk uh professional professions that could really raise some uh some safety concerns um and potential some some legal liabilities um to conclude on this bill I would say that uh you know it really expands opportunities for the young students to gain some valuable uh certifications in in the profession earlier so um however the districts look at this and they they understand there's challenges whether there's resources and they they have to you know look at the safety component and and have an equity lens on this um I I think this is a a really good opportunity for for students to um have access at such an early age and and lastly I I'll go over 5637 um it's talking about the uh having students
059um have the media literacy uh in curriculum and within the school district so um you know teachers and will have to expand curriculum and and support students and and learning their Civics education and and giving them just like a basic overview but um I think it's important to to highlight some of these um components of this bill and how they how students will learn about you know the legislative process and how elections work and how you know being a register voter and and I think those are all relative skills in today's political climate um I'm not going to read word for word but um to conclude on this bill I would um say it really strengthened students um you know ability to to engage throughout you know the the media and and Civic in a
060Civic engagement process um there might be some challenges obviously uh in terms of curriculum uh Resources Staffing uh I think of you know I think from a standpoint of like what are the guard rails will it be a partisan curriculum uh at districts so um overall these bills are really centered around student development and and and really uh improving access uh for for students entering the workforce uh for students to engage in in media literacy and understands you know basic Civics 101 um at the school level and to support that teachers will uh be provided with trainings and so on so I think that's uh really important but um overall I'll I'll stop sharing my screen sorry about that I had my notes just fills really out of the loop but um I think it's
061important we'll keep an eye on these bills and and I'll report back to you hopefully soon thanks Leon appreciate it I think it's always important for our members to remember that they have problems with technology and so do we sometimes it happens it is just the way things work even post pandemic uh you know we're we're always trying to figure out how things go so thank you so much for the overview I think it's really important for us to remember that uh there are really student Centric bills that are happening in addition to school funding bills so uh nice to keep our eye on those prizes I'll also just note that last bill that uh leavon reviewed um about media and Civic literacy was brought forward by the Legislative youth advisory Council it's a group
062of students from across the state in partnership with a republican legislature so a really nice um sort of uh student voice um Republican Le uh minority caucus Le proposal that's very student centered um and and classroom supporting so very cool um I'm going to share one last thing in the few minutes that we have remaining I wanted to remind all of you that we uh we have advocacy work that continues even after the legislative session and so wanted to be certain you had on your radar and were remembering that every year school boards have the opportunity to submit uh position proposals through the prop uh pos position proposal window say that 10 times quickly position proposal window um so you'll note here a variety of activities and events and resources that wasda provides in support
063of your advocacy efforts both during session and in the interim and I would draw your attention to the month of April we will still be in a legislative session um we may still be in a legislative session in May too but we will definitely be in session during April and simultaneously will be accepting for the entire month proposals that would impact wasa's position catalog so um you have 233 currently adopted positions that include both legislative and permanent positions you could propose either consolidation of duplicate or um overlapping positions we we like that idea idea um you could also suggest retirements of positions that are maybe obsolete out of date no longer uh applicable to the work that we do um or maybe have already been achieved uh thereby those two options would reduce the number
064that we have then you could also revise existing member adopted positions or propose new uh member adopted positions all of those proposals are reviewed by the resolutions and legislative committees in May and June they provide a recommendation of do pass or do not pass for all of those proposals uh and then membership uh by voting delegate each board has a voting delegate representing the school board has the opportunity to come to General Assembly in September to uh vote for or against position proposals and you'll have the opportunity to see all of those proposals packaged into one document called the general assembly handbook which will be released July 1st so just wanted you to remember that if you're considering position proposals of any kind you should be having those conversations during your board meetings or work
065sessions in the month of March your board has to uh uh agree by majority vote uh to submit proposals on behalf of your board through that window and that window will be open through the entire month of April so if you're meeting two times a month you could cover these things in uh two of your March board meetings uh make an adoption or take a formal vote at the beginning of April and then submit by the end so just wanted to give you ample timing so that you don't realize it's mid April and you've run out of board meetings to have this discussion and therefore don't have the opportunity to weigh in so just a reminder about your year-long advocacy work and we are at time so I am going to say thank you so
066much for all of the work that you do and for sharing your time with us today this will be recorded and posted to our website along with all the previous in sessions please keep that pedal to the metal you should be writing to your Senate Ways and Means and House Appropriations Committee members even if they're not your legislators I would encourage you to write to them uh and let them know how some of these Bill proposals or striking amendments would detrimentally impact your District budget talk to you soon thank you so much bye