This Week in Olympia
Week 2, January 18 - 22
Welcome to “This Week in Olympia,” the weekly rundown on the action in our state’s capitol this legislative session.
Eyman’s initiative unconstitutional
WEA President Kim Mead issued this statement in response to the Superior Court’s ruling that Tim Eyman’s I-1366 is unconstitutional:
“This ruling is good news for students.
“Eyman’s unconstitutional attempt to implement a tax break was exactly the wrong move at the wrong time.
“We urge the Legislature to get serious complying with the McCleary decision and increase K-12 funding for smaller class sizes and professional pay for educators.”
McCleary
On Monday, the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee held its hearing on SB 6195, also known as the plan for the plan to fund McCleary. The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ann Rivers (R, 18th LD), noted, she is “sick to death of talking about McCleary, and a lot of other people are, too.” Word of advice: Stop talking, start acting.
On Wednesday, the House heard the companion bill, HB 2366, sponsored by Rep. Kris Lytton (D, 40th LD). On Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee voted HB 2366 out of committee. It now goes to the House Floor for further action.
We continue to urge the Legislature to take concrete steps toward meeting its McCleary obligations this year by increasing wages, reducing class sizes which are critical to students right now, funding higher maintenance, supplies, and operating costs for CTE programs, and raising state allocations for health benefits.
Levies
The House and Senate both heard bills (HB 2698, and SB 6353) that would avoid the so-called levy cliff, by extending the higher levy authority one year. In addition, the Senate heard SB 6183 to extend the higher levy authority by four years followed by a phase down. All bills make corresponding changes to levy equalization funding. The House passed HB 2698 out of the Appropriations Committee on Thursday. No votes were taken yet in the Senate.
We support efforts to ensure funding predictability and stability for school districts.
Paraeducators
The House Education committee held a hearing on HB 1293 to require paraeducators to be licensed. Incredibly, the bill doesn’t provide any funding or paid time for paras to earn this licensure, nor any increase in pay to accompany the increase in qualifications. No votes were taken.
We continue to oppose this bill. The chair of the Education Committee is asking stakeholders to come together to see if a compromise is possible.
Testing
Last week we highlighted a “student testing bill of rights,” HB 2670. This week, the Senate’s companion bill, SB 6476, sponsored by Sen. Pam Roach, (R, 31st LD) was proposed. No hearing dates yet.
Return to work for early retirees
The House Appropriations Committee heard SHB 1737 on Monday. The bill would allow retirees who took “2008 Early Reduction Factors” (ERF) to return to work for up to 430 hours per year as substitute teachers.
This bill is not perfect, but would provide some immediate relief to ease the substitute teacher shortage, by expanding the number of experienced educators who are available to work as substitutes. We support it. The House Appropriations Committee passed this bill on Thursday. The next stop is on the House Floor.
Charter schools
After dragging its feet for four years since the McCleary decision, the Senate took just over a week to pass a charter schools bill.
SB 6194, sponsored by Sen. Steve Litzow (R, 41st LD) was introduced in committee on Jan. 12, moved to Ways and Means on the 19th and passed on the floor with one amendment on the 20th. The amendment transfers money from the general fund into the lottery account, so that other programs funded by the lottery don’t get cut. During the floor debate, attorney and Sen. Jamie Pederson (D, 43rd LD) questioned the constitutionality of the bill.
In passing the measure, Sen. Mark Mullet (D, 5th LD) stated, “I believe we have an obligation to more than 1,200 students attending charter schools to allow them to stay at the schools they have come to depend on to meet their educational needs.” He did not comment on the state’s obligation to the 1.1 million public school kids awaiting full funding under McCleary.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D, 37th LD) took up the issue, saying, “We can't substitute a solution on 1,200 kids in charter schools when we have not even begun to have a real discussion in this body about how we address the million kids around the state.” Senators on both sides of the aisle spoke against the bill.
WEA continues to oppose the effort to fund charter schools. It's especially egregious given that legislators are being held in contempt of court and are being fined $100,000 a day for failing to fully fund basic education for Washington’s students.
Next week:
Looking ahead, here are a few key bills we expect to see action on:
Testing
Several testing bills are in the hopper for next week. Most don’t go as far as the student testing bill of rights bills we support, HB 2670 and SB 6476. WEA continues to advocate for robust measures of proficiency, including the use of teacher-driven tests and successful completion of coursework. Graduation should not be linked to a single standardized test score.
Higher Ed
Tuesday the House Higher Education committee will hear HB 2615, a bill that converts part-time positions to full-time to improve pay and benefits for two-year college faculty. AHE Chair Carla Naccarato-Sinclair is expected to testify in favor of this bill.
Teacher shortage
A number of bills addressing various aspects of the teacher shortage have hearings next week. Most notably, the Senate Early Learning-K-12 Committee is expected to consider SB 6241, which includes Governor Inslee’s proposal to increase starting pay to $40,000 and to provide a 1% pay raise to all other school employees.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: This is a modest first step toward improving educator pay. It doesn’t go far enough. Short legislative sessions are generally used for operational tweaks. In that context, we appreciate that the governor included this modest bump in the budget. We support it. We also look to 2017 for a more comprehensive solution to providing competitive professional pay for all educators.
Paraeducators
Sen. Andy Hill (R, 45th LD) just released his new paraeducator bill, SB 6408. It is scheduled for a hearing on Thursday. It addresses some, but not all of WEA’s concerns about requiring paraeducators to eventually have to gain some type of certificate to remain employed.
