House and Senate working bills

The House and Senate have been meeting in caucuses and spending time on the floor today passing bills in time for next Tuesday's 5:00 p.m. deadline.

That also means keeping a steady supply of fresh bills in the pipeline. The Senate today "pulled" 10 education-related bills from the Rules committee straight to the floor.

This included bills that would require OSPI to keep a web portal of all school district collective bargaining agreements, including whether the CBA has a "no strike" clause and how the CBA will help close the education opportunity gap. (2SSB 6062 and SSB 6250).

Also pulled to the floor was SB 6061, which would mandate that districts use an automatic enrollment policy, placing students who pass a statewide assessment in a specific subject area into the next most rigorous level of courses. A bill that made the policy permissive was adopted by the legislature last session, and WSSDA issued a model policy that could be adopted by districts seeking to have an academic acceleration policy and take advantage of a small grant program created to help districts get their program started.

The Rules committee was also relieved of 2SSB 6163, which started out life as a summer learning pilot program of 20 additional days for up to 10 school districts and has been whittled down to a study of the feasibility of creating a program to mitigate summer learning loss.

Also potentially of interest is SB 6242, which would allow up to five school districts with fewer than 500 students to apply to the State Board of Education for an economy & efficiency waiver, which is a fancy way of saying a four-day school week.

For its part, the House passed the school equipment nutrition grant program bill and a bill designed to help student who are homeless. Last night the House passed a number of education bills. Check www.leg.wa.gov and use the House and Senate floor tracking sheets for the latest information on bills.

Next up on today's Senate's schedule is 2SSB 6552, the omnibus bill that spans the 1080 hours, 24 credits and academic course equivalencies along with repurposing the $97 million appropriated last year.