Legislative Session Week Three: Third Week is the Charm

The third week of the 2021 legislative session gave us two big takeaways.

Week three reminded us that:

  • School director testimony is crucial
  • Public education impacts so many facets of government

Legislators have told us that their lawmaking work has benefited from hearing stories and data from school board members directly through testimony. This reminds us of the importance of engaging many different voices in our advocacy efforts. Also, seeing that we gave testimony to so many legislative committees, we are reminded that public education and many other sectors of our government highly impact each other.

WSSDA testimony

Martha Rice, Yakima SD
Testifying on HB 1208
Brian Giannini-Upton, Mercer Island SD
Testifying on HB 1214

This week, WSSDA provided verbal and/or written testimony on the following bills:

  • SB 5252 – Concerning school district consultation with local tribes.
  • HB 1225 – Concerning school-based health centers.
  • HB 1264 – Establishing an equity impact statement for legislative proposals.
  • HB 1139 – Taking action to address lead in drinking water.
  • HB 1332 – Property tax deferral.
  • HB 1368 – Responding to COVID-19/Federal funding
  • SB 5326 – Concerning health and pension benefits for school bus drivers employed by private nongovernmental entities.
  • SB 5181 – Providing school districts serving low-income communities with flexibility in financing their facilities.
  • SB 5200 – Establishing a tax credit for contributions to student scholarship organizations.
  • SB 5202 – Establishing school district depreciation subfunds for the purposes of preventative maintenance.
  • HB 1208 – Modifying the learning assistance program.
  • HB 1214 – Providing K-12 public school safety and security services by classified staff or contractors.

Legislator Spotlight: Senator T’wina Nobles

Listen in as Senator, and University Place school director, T’wina Nobles shares her perspective on how the session is going, how her priorities are advancing, and how you can support them.

Use your voice

If you want to provide testimony as an individual, school board member, or on behalf of WSSDA, email WSSDA Strategic Advocacy Director Marissa Rathbone for more information.

If you have a student leader who would like to provide testimony, email WSSDA Strategic Advocacy Coordinator Logan Endres for more information.

See the full issue of InSession

The information above is excerpted from the full January 29 issue of InSession. View the full issue for more resources and information.