North Olympic Peninsula school district superintendents don’t know how a bill overhauling public K-12 education will affect them.
They know just one thing: The revamping of basic education, which Gov. Chris Gregoire is expected to sign, contains no funding.
The state legislation, HB 2261, passed the Senate last week and the House on Monday.
The 66-page bill calls for a full day of school for kindergartners — rather than the half-day that the state now pays for — and commits the state to pay for six classes a day for middle- and high-school students rather than five. It also require districts to provide gifted and bilingual education.
It recommends that the state offer preschool to students from low-income families.
Impacts uncertain
Sequim Superintendent Bill Bentley said he was glad that the state Legislature is addressing the issue of changing its idea of basic education, but that he wasn’t sure of the affect on individual districts.
“There are just a whole bunch of details that are not worked out at this point in time,” he said.
Port Angeles Superintendent Gary Cohn agreed that, without specifics, the impact was unclear.
“I think that everyone likes that the target is a little clearer,” Cohn said.
But he added, “This is just not meaningful without money behind it, because to lay more requirements on this system without resources is a break-the-bank strategy.”
Chimacum Superintendent Mike Blair said he hadn’t “wrestled with the formulas” set up in the bill.
“I think it is positive that they are dealing with it,” he said. “But in reality, most of us are just trying to deal with the upcoming budget cuts today, and this stuff is quite a ways away from having any impact on us.”
He went on to say it wouldn’t affect a lawsuit that he has helped lead against the state. The lawsuit claims that the Legislature’s paramount duty is to amply fund education.
“Perhaps the lawsuit has helped them start moving in that direction, and if so, all the better,” he said.
The Legislature is constitutionally mandated to “fully fund basic education” but what basic education consists of is left up to the lawmakers.
A significant change has not been made to the law since 1979.
The bill’s funding will be left to a plethora of committees, work force teams and study groups who will determine how the various aspects of the bill should be implemented.
Most aspects of the bill will require more action on the part of the Legislature before they are implemented.
The bill also includes a multitude of new accountability requirements for teachers and districts, but clearly states that the districts are not required to implement anything without state funding.
Peninsula lawmakers
North Olympic Peninsula lawmakers Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, and Sen. James Hargrove, D-Hoquiam, both voted in favor of the bill when it went through their respective houses.
Rep. Kevin Van de Wege, D-Sequim, voted against the bill on Monday.
The three represent the 24th District, which covers Clallam, Jefferson and part of Grays Harbor counties.
Kessler said she voted against the bill in the first round before the bill went through the Senate.
Van de Wege voted in favor of the bill at that time.
“I voted against the first version because I was concerned that the state would be responsible for funding all of it and it would cost so much money, which we don’t have,” Kessler said.
“I do believe we need to bring our education into the 21st century and get up to speed.”
She said that the bill wasn’t meant to give specific mandates or specific funding but to begin the structure.
“The framework for that funding is now in place,” she said. “It is good to set the structure and the bones.”
The funding that is in place — such as funding for all-day kindergarten, which was already in the education law — will be phased-in over time, with the intent to fund all schools by 2018, Kessler said.
“We did give ourselves a little wiggle room, which is good,” Kessler said.
Wanted funding
Van de Wege said he was unhappy that the Senate had removed the funding mechanism of the bill.
“I had voted in favor of it earlier, but they removed the funding mechanism, which included that for all of the revenue above a 5 percent of revenue growth — which the state commonly has — 50 percent of that would have gone to the education system,” he said.
“I think it was a good bill going in, although it was a conflicted bill.”
Van de Wege said he was glad that the Legislature was working on redefining basic education but that he still had some quibbles with the bill.
The bill includes a committee set up to evaluate how to increase teacher pay based on student performance on tests — commonly called merit pay system, he said.
It also sets up the potential to increase the core curriculum for high schools to 24 credits rather than the current 20.
“That takes some flexibility away from students,” he said.
Hargrove did not return calls for comment.
__________
Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
