For more information, please contact our Issaquah PTSA Council Legislative Chair:
Anne Moore
(425) 643-0278
annemoore5@comcast.net
Action Alerts! click here to take action
At a glance...
The State Board of Education (SBE) is proposing that the 3rd year of math that the Legislators and Governor approved in the 2007 legislative session as a change to the graduation requirements should be Algebra II. The SBE also indicated that a Career and Technical (CTE) course that aligns with Algebra II would also be accepted, in addition an alternate course could be approved through an agreement with a student's parents, counselor and principal.
At our April 17 Meeting, the Issaquah PTSA adopted the attached resolution to the Issaquah PTSA Council. A similar resolution was adopted by the Washington State PTA at our annual Convention on May 3.
Following is more information on the adoption of Math standards. If you would like to present this resolution to your PTA and would like any additional information please let me know.
Thanks,
Anne Moore
Issaquah PTSA Council
Legislative Chair
From Region 2 Legislative Chair Kelly Munn:
Skyline High School PTA Board in Issaquah today endorsed a
resolution requiring Algebra II as the required third year of math. We are
also sending this issue to our general membership for a discussion. This
endorsement is based on the rule that is being put forward by the State board of
Education.
The state board rule includes:
This is an important discussion for our PTA's to be having. What our high school requirements are determines the goals, strategies of math for every grade level all the way down to kindergarten. Currently Washington State HS graduation requirements do not match what employers need, what vocational schools need, what community colleges need, what 4 year colleges need. The state board of education is trying to figure out what the New High School Requirements should look like.
For those of you who think this is a "slam dunk", it's not. The education communities, Principals, Superintendents, School Boards, Teachers union are all concerned about raising the requirment without giving more money.
More money will be needed. But do we put the goal in place first, or wait for the money? What is best for kids? Who represents the needs of Kids? As PTA members we need to state what is best for kids, and help to find the resources later. This is an interesting discussion. I suggest you bring this up at your PTA's. I have info you can use. Just contact me.
The WS State PTA Board of Directors will also be looking at this resolution.
The next meeting of the Washington State Basic Education
Finance Joint Task Force will be held on March 24, 2008, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
in Senate Conference Room A,B,C in the John A. Cherberg building on the Capitol
Campus in Olympia. The March 25 portion of the meeting has been cancelled.
The March 24 meeting will focus on Task Force discussion of policy questions
related to the state's basic education finance system. For more
information about the Task Force, visit
http://www.leg.wa.gov/Joint/Committees/BEF. Documents to be discussed
at the meeting will be posted on this website as they become available; they can
be found under “Task Force Policy Topics.”
Following the March meeting, the Task Force will invite individuals and
organizations to submit proposals for Task Force consideration. A two-day
meeting will be held on April 14 and 15; this meeting may include time for
public testimony regarding finance proposals. The two-day May 5 and 6 meeting,
as well as future meetings (tentative dates are listed below) will also include
time for proposal presentations. A structured questionnaire can be submitted to
clarify aspects of the proposals; this questionnaire is currently in draft form
and will be posted online within the next month.
Tentative Task Force meeting dates (all in 2008):
April 14 and 15
May 5 and 6
June 9 and 10
July 7 and 8
August 6
September 15 and 16
October 14 and 15
November 3 and 4
December 8 and 9
The second draft of the OSPI Math
Standards have been posted at
http://www.utdanace
From Anne Moore, September 11, 2007
Leg Reps,
Simple Majority! Now that school is in session we need each of you to be
talking about the Approve 4204 Campaign to change our State Constitution to
allow school levies to pass with a Simple Majority. The PTA plays a
crucial role in this campaign - we are great communicators and that is what we
need to be doing! Our membership (the parents) are the easy Yes votes for
this campaign. We just need to make sure they are informed about the
ballot measure and that they understand how important it is that they vote.
The important things you can be doing are at your school - see the WA State PTA
website under Legislation ( http://www.wastatepta.org/legislation.htm) for all the links/files
referenced.
1) Talk to your PTA about Simple Majority for School Levies
1) Use the "Simple Majority Pro/Con
Rationale Document" to start the discussion
&nb 2) Ask your PTA to endorse the ballot
measure - use "Conducting a PTA/PTSA Endorsement"
3) Use the "Newsletter Article Flyer
(approved for school use)". This has been approved and can be sent home
via kidmail.
4) At PTA events put out the "Simple
Majority "Yes on 4204" flyer"
5) Use the "PTA Organizing Sheet for
Simple Majority" for information and ideas on other things to do to help the
campaign.
6) Use the "September Newsletter
Article (NOT approved for school use)" in a PTA newsletter (not sent home via
kidmail), put it on your website or hand out printed copies at PTA meetings or
events.
2) Make a donation to the People for Our Public Schools (ref="http://www.simplybetterschools.org/">http://www.simplybetterschools.org/)
to help the campaign if possible.
3) Commit money to mail a postcard to your membership telling them you have
endorsed the Simple Majority ballot measure. If you are interested in
doing this, let me know as the Volunteers for Issaquah Schools (VIS) can help
you with the message.
4) Using the "Simple Majority Talking Points for PTA" to keep the issue at the
fore front. If you don't feel comfortable doing this presentation please
let me know and we can get someone from the Speakers Bureau to come to your
meeting and present it.
5) VIS will need volunteers to help with the the Get Out The Vote phone calling.
These phone calls are just to remind votes to actually cast their ballot.
You and your PTA President will be contacted about this soon.
The Education Community has been waiting a long time for the opportunity to
change the state Constitution to a Simple Majority for School Levies. Now
is the time - we must do all we can to get this ballot measure approved.
The email below is an update from the campaign and also has links to helpful
sites.
Please let me know if you are having any issues getting this message out to your
membership. I want to help you in anyway that I can.
Thanks,
Anne Moore
Issaquah PTSA Council
Legislation Chair
--------------
Forwarded Message: --------------
From: "Simple Majority for Our Local Schools "
<info@simplybetterschools.org>
To: kellymunn@comcast.net
Subject: Campaign Update from Simple Majority for Our Local Schools
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:57:52 +0000
|
|
A Simple Majority for Our Local Schools:
Campaign Update
|
September 10, 2007
Dear Kelly,
The campaign to APPROVE 4204, Simple Majority for Our Local Schools, is heating up. Approving 4204 this November will allow school levies, which pay for fundamental local needs like teacher training, class size reduction, and textbooks, to pass with a simple majority vote, instead of the unfair 60% supermajority that’s now required.
Many of you were among the more than 600 community leaders,
parents, school employees and dedicated volunteers who joined us at 14 campaign
kickoffs around the state in August. Thanks to your energy and enthusiasm the
Simple Majority campaign is a true grassroots effort. Local volunteers and
leaders are now
telling the story of why a vote to Approve 4204 matters to their local
schools and kids.
We are off to a great start. But now the real work begins.
If you missed the campaign kickoff in your community, it’s
not too late to get involved. We have a tough job ahead. To win this election,
it’s going to take all of us who care about public education and our kids
working hard to win this November. Here are three easy ways you can help right
now.
Step 1: Volunteer today to help us turn out thousands of education supporters in your community on Election Day. We will have locally driven Get out the Pro-Education Vote activities in communities around the state that will generate the votes we need to win. Please sign up and volunteer today.
Step 2:
Join the 51% Club and donate $51, $153 or even $510 today. Your online
contribution is secure.
Step 3: Spread the word to your family and friends and let them know why their vote to Approve 4204 is critical to local kids and schools. Go to our resources page and download an informational flyer, along with other documents, that you can distribute to your network.
Thank you for your leadership and work for our local
schools and kids. With your help, we can win simple majority for our local
schools and help kids get the quality education they need to succeed. Please
contact the campaign with questions, for more information, or to find out
what else you can do.
Sincerely,
Bill Monto
info@simplemajority.org
(206) 448-3403
www.simplemajority.org
From Anne Moore, August 20, 2007
Leg Chairs -
This is from Kelly Munn, WA State PTA Simple Majority Chair. Please take
the time to go to the WA State PTA website under Legislation (http://www.wastatepta.org/legislation.htm
) and look through the material on the Simple Majority Campaign. It is
very important to start getting the word out to your school community.
Only the Simple Majority Fact Sheet is kid-friendly and can go home through kid
mail - this is because it simply states the facts. Anything that tells
people to vote Yes on Simple Majority cannot go home via kidmail. Your PTA
can send it out to your membership but it cannot go through the school.
Please be cautious about this. If you have any questions or concerns
please contact me.
One thing in particular that you can help your President with is your PTA's
endorsement of Simple Majority EHJR 4204. There is information on
how to conduct an Endorsement Vote at
http://www.wastatepta.org/leg/endorse.pdf. Once you have endorsed make
sure you follow the instructions to let the Simple Majority Campaign know.
Again if you have any questions, please let me know.
Thanks,
Anne Moore
Legislative Chair
Issaquah PTSA Council
Approve 4204! - Simple Majority
New on the website
www.wastatepta.org:
1. A kidmail friendly Aug/Sept newsletter article – this article lists facts about 4204
2. A non-kidmail friendly Aug/Sept newsletter article – this article explains what each of us can do to help win 4204.
3.
Schedule of dates and places for the Campaign Regional Kick off
meetings.
What you can be doing in August:
Kelly Munn
Region 2 Legislation Chair
Vote!
It’s an election year! Please ensure that your voice is heard by voting on Nov 6th. If you have recently moved, you have to register to vote again. Please encourage your senior students, who will turn 18 on or before Nov 6th, to register and to vote. Registration forms are available ______________ for students and others. Registration should be mailed by Oct 6th, in order to be able to vote on Nov 6th. You can also register in person until Oct 22nd at the King County Election office. Registration forms are also available online in various languages at http://www.secstate.wa.gov/elections/register.aspx .
Get ready for the blockbuster debate over funding education as we move into the 2007 legislative session. Because so much is at stake, we urge folks to get smart about some basic concepts in K-12 education funding. To help plain folks – like us PTA-types – know their ed funding as well as their cuts of meat, we have answered a series of FAQs. The first set, listed below, deal with how much the state spends and on what.
1. Do we know the average amount spent educating a student in Washington State ?
Yes. In 2004-05, Washington State spent an average $7,876 per pupil to finance the routine and current expenses of K-12 education.
Some folks might report a different figure, depending on which education dollars are included in the spending figure.
The best practice recommended by school finance experts and used by nearly all private and public education groups is to separately report and analyze outlays for current and capital expenditures.
Current dollars are for the routine costs incurred each year in providing education services to the 1 million students in Washington state’s public schools. Such costs include those for instruction, the maintenance of school buildings and facilities, administration at districts’ central offices and schools, food services, and pupil transportation.
All current education funds come from the state’s General Fund account and include federal, state and local dollars. General Fund expenditures in 2004-05 totaled $7,724,204,969.
2. Are Basic Education programs financed by the state’s General Fund?
Yes. The General Fund pays for all Basic Education and some non-Basic Education programs.
Programs defined as “basic” are entitled to be fully funded by the law. Regular instruction, special education, bilingual education, the learning assistance program which targets students from poverty, some pupil transportation, and education programs for institutionalized students currently fall within the legislature’s definition of basic education.
Non-basic education programs include, for example, those funded by the Student Achievement Fund (I-728), food service, and cost-of-living adjustments for teachers (I-732).
3. Do districts pay for anything else besides Basic Education and other routine education services?
Yes. School districts pay to renovate existing school buildings or build new ones, purchase new buses, and repay debt. In school year 2004-05, school districts spent a total of $2,228 per pupil on these expenses.
Funds for these different purposes each have their own state account. The funds raised by students for extracurricular activities are also kept separately in the Associated Student Body account. None of these funds are included in comparing the cost of educating students across districts or states.
4. Why use 2004-05 spending figures and not school year 2005-06?
School year 2005-06 data in its entirety are not yet available.
The state needs time to collect and complete its quality checks of the data for the most recent school year, which just ended August 30, 2006. The state’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction has not yet published all 2005-06 data on its website.
5. Isn’t it true that school districts spend too much on administration?
No. Administrative expenses at the central offices for the state’s 296 school districts accounted for just 6.8 percent of General Funds in 2004-05. Administrative costs for principals in the state’s 2,200 schools accounted for another 6 percent.
By state definition, administrative dollars pay for superintendents, assistant superintendents, the managers of district-wide programs, school principals and assistant principals, and all administrative secretaries, clerks and supplies. Amazingly, not much variation exists in the share that administrative costs consume in each of the state’s 296 school districts.
The superintendent and other central office administrators are responsible for ensuring that over a million students are engaged in learning the appropriate curriculum, that students are safe on campuses and in schools that are properly maintained, that buses safely deliver students to school on time, that food services are nutritional and adequate, that schools and districts properly report their performance data to federal and state agencies, that school employees regularly receive their pay and benefits, and that all the utility and insurance bills are paid on time.
With all they are required to do, the consensus of school finance experts across the country is that public school administrative costs are surprisingly lean.
Unfortunately, public opinion surveys usually show that the public has the opposite view.
6. So why do surveys in this state and across the nation indicate that the public thinks there’s too much bloat in administration?
It seems to be a case of, in the absence of better information, assume the worst.
To counter this perception, school finance experts have urged educators to “think differently about how they track and spend the nearly $500 billion that goes toward American precollegiate public education each year.” This advice was reported by Robert Johnson, author of a January 2005 Ed Week article on the pressures school districts face to make every dollar count.
7. How much does the state spend on teaching versus everything else?
Teaching and teaching support accounted for 69.3 percent of the General Funds in school year 2004-05. However, it’s 75.3 percent if school principal costs are included in this category.
Teaching and teaching support includes the staff and learning resources associated with all instruction, extracurriculars, health, guidance, counseling and pupil management and safety. Some argue that school principals should be included in this category (can you imagine running a school without a principal?) and if so, that leaves less than 25 percent for everything else.
The next largest share is for the operation, maintenance and security of school buildings, totaling 9.2 percent.
As described earlier, central office administration accounts for 6.8 percent.
Finally, pupil transportation and food services each account for less than 4 percent.
The very small amount left over is for information services, printing, warehouse and distribution and other such activities.
Source: Except where noted, all data was obtained from the website for Washington State’s Office of the State Superintendent for Public Instruction, www.k12.wa.us.
PTA members at WSPTA Legislative Assembly voted these as the
2006-2007 WSPTA Legislative Priorities. We agreed that our schools need better funding, our kids need smaller class sizes, AND they also need recess!
1. K-12 Education Funding - WSPTA shall initiate and/or support legislation or policies that establish an updated definition of basic education and a basic education funding formula that reflects current education practices and requirements.
2. Mathematics and Science - The WSPTA shall initiate/support legislation/policies that strengthen science & math education
3. Simple Majority for School Levies and Bonds - The WSPTA shall initiate/support legislation that allow the people to vote on Simple Majority
4. Reduce Class Size - WSPTA shall initiate and/or support legislation or policies that support funding and policies that secure smaller class sizes for students.
5. School Recess - WSPTA shall initiate and/or support legislation or policies which require regular recess periods throughout the school day
The position of Legislation Chair is an important one to fill, but often left for last to fill as we recruit board members. I know the right person for the job is in your community, just waiting to be asked.
- Quote from Lisa Bond, WSPTA President 2003
What skills do they need? (In order of importance)
- Interested in educating the community on children’s issues
- Ability to engage the listener in a discussion
- Ability to write effective emails (short and concise)
(Note that knowledge of legislation is NOT listed…they can easily learn about legislation, the first three priorities are tougher to learn)
Who are they?
What is the job?
Sign people up for action alert emails
Speak at each of your PTA meetings (we will provide info to speak on)
Place newsletter articles in newsletter (we will provide)
Attend Legislative assembly October 13th and 14th in Yakima
Attend Focus Day and bring members of your PTA to Focus Day (February)
Attend Roundtable; an evening mtg with local legislators in November
What support will they have?
Region 2 legislative Wrap
Glenn Anderson from the 5th and Rodney Tom from the 48th
Thank You to Shelly Kloba and Brian Conlin for producing the event
Glenn Anderson spoke from 7:30-8:15 and had to leave, and Rodney Tom spoke from 8:15-9:00. Judy Clibborn also spoke and I have included notes from John Stokes on her comments. Note that some of the remarks contradict each other…this is the nature of politics, and why it is soooo important for us to try to listen to multiple perspectives, and at least listen to both the Democrats and the Republicans. Below are my notes, I’m sure I’ve left something out, and may have misunderstood something…but this gives the general flavor of the conversations.
Main Points made by Glenn Anderson:
Main Points made by Rodney Tom:
Judy Clibborn 41st – John Stokes notes
One of the things that Judy noted was that it got to a point during the last session where she had heard our top priorities so many times that she wanted to get to another level of discussion, which I see as a sign that we are being effective, and have reached a good level with our increased activity and certainty of purpose. I love it when the legislators ask us to stop the message for a while, they get it. However, what Judy was saying was that we need to be even more sophisticated about how we work with our legislators and engage them in deeper conversations on our issues and strategies to get them in place and see them implemented once passed. It is not enough to pound the canned message in, we must take the next step and engage them in the whys and wherefores of our passion, and learn from them how to make it more effective. That would assist Mary Kenfield in her overall work, and make our concerted efforts even more powerful in conjunction with our Legislative Director and the Region, Council and local unit leadership.
Overall this was a very positive session for education. Below is a list of the issues that we were watching and what their outcome was. Please feel free to use this document as a brief of the overall session.
All asterisked issues were part of the Olympian Coalition lobbying platform. The coalition consists of the Issaquah Teachers union, Issaquah Council PTSA, Issaquah School Board and Issaquah School District. The Coalition has also been monitoring Washington Learns (The education funding study) and making sure we have a presence at most or all of the meetings).
The Coalition has just written a letter to the editor thanking our local politicians for working so hard to support education. It may be in the Issaquah Press next week…
Thank you to all of the Issaquah School District’s Legislators, Rep. Anderson, Rep. Rodne, Sen. Pflug, Rep. Jarrett, Rep. Clibborn, Sen. Weinstein, Rep. Tom, Rep. Hunter, and Sen. Esser. Their support for education this session was significant in the passage of several issues and budget items.
The Issaquah Olympian Coalition, a coalition of education supporters, agreed on three main legislative goals for this session: funding for remediation for those students not passing the WASL, reimbursement of increased fuel costs, and continued levy rollback provisions. Our legislators supported all three issues. This years projected increases for the Issaquah School district is $191,000 for WASL remediation, $79,000 in fuel reimbursement, and $700,000 in rollback provisions. These three issues alone bring in an additional $970,000 for Issaquah students. Since our school district is disadvantaged in state funding formulas (levy lids and state teacher salary pay scales), we are always so grateful for any additional income we get from the state to help fund basic education.
We look forward to the results of the Washington Learns study as the next step in the revision and updating of the state’s education funding system. And again, we thank our legislators for their support of education and their efforts in passing these issues and budget items.
Sincerely,
The Olympian Coalition,
Kelly Munn, Issaquah Council PTSA
Kathy Linderman, Issaquah Education Association
Connie Fletcher, Issaquah School Directors Association
Janet Barry, Issaquah School District
Kelly Munn
Issaquah PTSA Council
Legislation co-chair
The January 28, 2006 issue of Grassroots Connection gives an overview of Focus Day 2006
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Martin Luther King Jr.
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Last uLast updated May 13, 2008