Superintendent Chris Reykdal to address NPI’s 2020 Virtual Spring Gala on April 17th

As of today, we’re just one week out from NPI’s twelfth Spring Fundrais­ing Gala, which will be held vir­tu­al­ly instead of in-per­son for the first time due to the nov­el coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Although we won’t be able to gath­er in per­son in Ren­ton for our tra­di­tion­al ban­quet, we will still have an infor­ma­tive and inspir­ing speak­ing pro­gram that you can watch from the com­fort of your couch at home.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, we announced that State Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhin­gra would be our Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies, and that Red­mond City Coun­cilmem­ber Var­isha Khan would be one of our open­ing speak­ers. Today, we’re pleased to announce that State Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion Chris Reyk­dal (him­self a par­ent with kids in pub­lic schools) will be speak­ing. Chris will brief us on OSPI’s response to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic in his capac­i­ty as the state’s chief edu­ca­tion­al officer.

This will be Chris’ sec­ond gala appearance.

Super­in­ten­dent Reyk­dal pre­vi­ous­ly spoke at NPI’s 2014 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala, back when he was a mem­ber of the Wash­ing­ton State House of Representatives.

As a mem­ber of the State House, Chris was a prin­ci­pled and con­sis­tent voice for tax reform, for the rights of work­ing men and women, and for under­rep­re­sent­ed con­stituen­cies with no lob­by­ist and no voice in our state’s capital.

As Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion, Chris has been a leader in the effort to secure a land­mark com­pre­hen­sive sex­u­al health edu­ca­tion (CSHE) bill for Wash­ing­ton’s youth — a key NPI leg­isla­tive pri­or­i­ty for 2020 that was recent­ly signed into law by Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee. He is seek­ing reelec­tion this fall.

Chris has also over­seen efforts to mod­ern­ize Wash­ing­ton State’s grad­u­a­tion require­ments and lib­er­ate par­ents, teach­ers, and stu­dents from the scourge of waste­ful, high stakes stan­dard­ized testing.

We’re look­ing for­ward to get­ting an update from Chris. We hope you can join us.

Get tick­ets for NPI’s 2020 Spring Gala (and FallFest!)

If you have not yet pur­chased a tick­et to the gala, you can either buy a Vir­tu­al Gala Access Pass for $25/person, or you can buy com­bined tick­ets to the Vir­tu­al Gala and FallFest for $100 (Indi­vid­ual) or $150 (House­hold). The choice is yours.

You’ll save $25 on admis­sion to both events by pur­chas­ing an Indi­vid­ual Tick­et and save $50 or more on admis­sion by pur­chas­ing a House­hold ticket.

Please note that the Vir­tu­al Gala will not be pub­licly livestreamed. To par­tic­i­pate, you must either have a Vir­tu­al Gala Access Pass or a Gala/FallFest tick­et. All pro­ceeds from the Vir­tu­al Gala and FallFest will ben­e­fit the North­west Pro­gres­sive Institute’s essen­tial research and advocacy.

If you have ques­tions, please use our con­tact form to get in touch.

Thanks for your sup­port of NPI’s work, it’s deeply appreciated.

We hope to see you — vir­tu­al­ly! — next week.