Senate Bill 5807 and House Bill 1897 won’t be moving forward in the 2024 legislative session.
Tag: School Funding
Posted inLegislative Advocacy
U.S. Supreme Court rejects Quinn legal challenge to Washington’s capital gains tax on the wealthy, dashing right wing hopes
The decision keeps hundreds of millions of dollars flowing each year to education, childcare, and early learning in the Evergreen State.
Posted inLegislative Advocacy
Legislative leaders signal support for universal, no cost school meals at 2024 CityClub legislative preview
On January 5th, leaders representing all four of the Legislature’s Democratic and Republican caucuses visually indicated that they are on board with making no cost school meals truly universal.
Posted inPolicy Topics
Washington State Supreme Court rebuffs Wahkiakum School District’s school construction funding constitutional challenge
The highest court in the Evergreen State has unanimously ruled against a rural Washington school district that brought a constitutional challenge over the state’s longtime K‑12 facilities funding regime, finding that the state’s paramount duty does not extend to school capital construction costs.
Posted inPolicy Topics
Voters say Legislature has a responsibility to act to prevent school closures, staff layoffs
55% of 874 voters interviewed from March 7th-8th, 2023 said they agreed that Washington’s public schools are underfunded and we need to raise state revenue to fully fund them, while 35% disagreed and 10% were not sure. 59% of those surveyed subsequently said they agreed that the Legislature has an obligation to respond to the fiscal crises districts are facing by substantially increasing school funding.
Posted inPolicy Topics
64% of Washington voters want legislators to fund universal, no-cost school meals for kids
64% of 874 likely 2024 voters interviewed March 7th and 8th by Public Policy Polling for NPI said they strongly or somewhat supported universal no-cost school meals, while a total 33% said they were strongly or somewhat opposed.
Posted inPolicy Topics
Gem State win: School privatization schemes fail in Idaho’s Republican-run Legislature
A right wing effort to authorize the diversion of public tax dollars into privately run schools has collapsed in the Republican-dominated Idaho State Legislature, in a significant victory for public education and progressive organizations working to protect and strengthen the commons of the Gem State.
Posted inPolicy Topics
A plurality of special election voters in Seattle disapprove of how their schools are being run
41% of six hundred and fifty-one February 2023 special election voters interviewed by Change Research for NPI last month said they somewhat or strongly disapproved of the way the Seattle Public Schools are currently being run. 28% said they somewhat or strongly approved, and 31% were not sure.
Posted inPolicy Topics
VICTORY! School seismic safety grant bill clears state House; heads to Governor Inslee
Senate Bill 5933, one of NPI’s top legislative priorities for 2022, received a unanimous vote of support in the House of Representatives on March 3rd, 2022, a few weeks after getting a unanimous vote in the Washington State Senate.
Posted inPolicy Topics
Washingtonians want state legislators to make big investments in K‑12 public schools
More than three-fifths of voters in Washington State surveyed in mid-February 2022 support adding at least $2 billion more to the state’s education budget to help K‑12 public schools address needs stemming from the pandemic.
Posted inPolicy Topics
Washington State Senate unanimously passes much needed school seismic safety grant bill
All forty-nine Washington State senators have voted to pass a bill that would establish a grant program to upgrade seismically vulnerable school buildings in Washington State, providing sorely needed funds to ensure our kids have safe facilities to learn in.
Posted inPolicy Topics
School seismic safety bill passes out of Senate Ways & Means with bonding plan removed
The purpose of the legislation is to protect schoolchildren, faculty, volunteers, and community members from geologic hazards by modernizing decrepit, dangerous old school buildings that are vulnerable to earthquakes, tsunamis, and lahars.
Posted inEducation
Most Washington voters think upgrading our seismically vulnerable school buildings is a state responsibility, NPI poll finds
The finding, unveiled by NPI at a public hearing in the Senate Ways & Means Committee, affirms that voters see the Legislature as principally responsible for upholding the state’s paramount duty to “make ample provision” for the education of all of the state’s children, as the Framers of the Constitution intended when they wrote Washington’s plan of government.
Posted inPolicy Topics
Big news! Meaningful school seismic safety bills have been introduced in the Legislature
The bills (HB 2095 and SB 5933) would create a school seismic safety grant program, backed by general obligation bonds that would need to be voter-approved in a special statewide vote to be held in November of 2022.