Earlier this month, the 2024 legislative session in Washington state came to a close. The Legislature increased funding for special education services and invested in student mental health and well-being. Below, you can find summaries and highlights of this session from WA state organizations.
During the interim, there is so much to continue doing in our advocacy for students with disabilities and multilingual learners. The True Measure Collaborative aims to stay engaged in coalitions across the state pertaining to education issues related to Special Education and Multilingual Learner supports. We look forward to sharing more about our work around inclusionary practices. Stay tuned for stories featuring educators, families, and students as well as issue awareness pieces around SpEd and MLL issues.
Click this button to check out our organization’s policy priorities and learn how you can support & take action. Connect with the TMC to get involved in advocacy work. Contact David Mendez, Associate Director – Resource Development at dmendez@thetruemeasure.org.
Source: Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction | March 7, 2024
“This session, the Legislature made meaningful progress for our students across many critical areas,” said State Superintendent Chris Reykdal. “Through their final budgets, the Legislature has made clear their commitment to sustaining evidence-based investments in student learning and well-being that are targeted to have the greatest impact.”
Special Education
Over the past few years, the Legislature has made monumental progress in funding for schools to provide high-quality services to students with disabilities. This year, the Legislature furthered that progress and has brought the state much closer to full funding for special education services. Further, recognizing the continued need for highly effective special education teachers, the Legislature invested in Superintendent Reykdal’s request to sustain a residency program to train and prepare future special education teachers.
Five years ago, the Legislature provided funding to develop a statewide effort—called the Inclusionary Practices Professional Development Project—to increase the amount of time that students with disabilities spend learning in general education settings with their peers. The Legislature invested to continue the project, which has increased the number of students with disabilities spending 80–100% of their school day in general education settings by 8.5 percentage points in 5 years.
Student Mental Health and Well-Being
With an investment of the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s (OSPI) federal emergency relief funds, the nine regional educational service districts have operated a multi-year initiative to provide prevention education and coordinated intervention supports to students. As emergency relief funds roll off, the Legislature has invested to support the initiative so students across the state will continue to receive these mental and behavioral health supports at school.
Resource Source: Investing in Student Potential | March 8, 2024
See how the legislature supported Special Education in the Investing in Student Potential supplemental budget summary.
Excerpt and Graphic Source: The Arc of King County | March 12, 2024
Ending Isolation
We aren’t letting up on passing legislation to end isolation of students in schools. It is a deeply harmful practice, with no educational or therapeutic benefit … BUT … we want to take a minute to CELEBRATE investments to end the practice, including investments in inclusionary teaching practices.
In its supplemental operating budget, the state invested $8.1 million to end isolation. $5 million of that goes to inclusionary practices (isolation is mostly used on segregated kids). The rest goes to professional development and demonstration sites to “build school- and district-level systems that eliminate student isolation, track and reduce restraint use, and build schoolwide systems to support students in distress and prevent crisis escalation cycles that may result in restraint or isolation. The schoolwide systems must include trauma-informed positive behavior and intervention supports, de-escalation, and problem-solving skills.”
