Greetings folks,
Today is the day that the PTA
staff breathes a sigh of relief after a successful Focus Day – and the
legislature speeds up its action to get bills out of committee before the
policy cut-off on Friday.
Two key occurrences today – the
first was the CTE Bill, HB 2540, passed out of House Education on a party line
vote. One of the sticking points for Republicans was the inability to
identify funding for some of the smaller school districts to provide the
courses required in the bill. Representative Dahlquist indicated that she
would continue to work with the Chair and Vice Chair to come up with
solutions. We wish them well as this is a priority bill for the
PTA. The second major occurrence was the substantial agreement between
Senators Dammeier and Rolfes that culminated in an omnibus bill presented for
hearing today in the Senate K-12 Education Committee. The bill addresses
a series of fixes to bills before the Senators in committee and lumped them
together under a broad title “Improving Student Success by Increasing
Instructional Hour and Graduation Requirements.” The bill had the
following components:
Postponed the 1080 instructional hour requirement
Adopted the State Board of Education 24 Credit Requirement
Gave districts the 5 day waiver for graduating seniors
Incorporated HB 2540, the CTE Course Equivalencies that just passed the House
earlier today
Two other bills of note were
voted out of committee – the first being Senate Bill 5958 which seeks to
improve transition for special education students and Senate Bill 5986 which
would change the funding allocation of Forest Land Subsidies to allow for
additional resources to rural schools in Washington.
Bill Report for 5958 - http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2013-14/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/Senate/5958%20SBR%20EDU%2014.pdf
Bill Report for 5986 - https://app.leg.wa.gov/CMD/Handler.ashx?MethodName=getdocumentcontent&documentId=1RTTE94Ezg8&att=false
Bill Report for 2540 – http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2013-14/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/House/2540%20HBR%20ED%2014.pdf
Bill Report for 6552 - http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2013-14/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/Senate/6552%20SBA%20EDU%2014.pdf
On a down side, the House
Education Committee had to close before it ran through the list due to floor
action. As a result, several good bills died including the House version
of the Paraeducator bill. The good news is that the Senate version is
still moving forward.
And with that – onto the E-Wire!
You may not be thinking this
now, but you should be
Teacher Pay Raises face
uncertain future
Seattle Councilman Tim Burgess
proposes universal Pre-K
Have to vouch with the Majority
Leader on this one…
More on our latest PTA member
cum elected official
Yeah, Utah School District
taking lunches – more on that here
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/when-schools-literally-take-food-out-of-the-hands-of-children/283566/
- and here - http://www.boston.com/news/education/2014/02/05/utah-district-hears-why-school-lunches-were-taken/kVgiVIU25VB2BKkgKmNV3N/story.html
Students in Louisiana rebel
against charter schools
Addressing special needs issues
with new graduation requirements – something PTA leaders will be chatting about
in an hour actually - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/01/29/19grad_ep.h33.html?intc=mvs
We say Pre-K; Tennessee says
Free College
Hans Zeiger has a “good little
bill” worth watching – actually, Hans has several worth watching this session
This might not be a bad idea
folks
Oregon is failing in its quest
to ban dangerous chemicals – Washington Ban is still moving forward so far
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