Big 3 Briefing, Week 13 - Rung by Rung

Rainy Day Recess, Episode 32

See our Show Notes

Contact us at big3@rainydayrecess.og

[00:00:01] Christie Robertson: Welcome to Rainy Day Recess, a podcast about Seattle public schools and the forces that impact the district out in the world. I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:00:10] Megan Larkin: And I am Megan Larkin. This is Week 13 of the Big 3 Briefing series where we're tracking what the Washington State Legislature is doing about the Big 3 funding gaps for school districts across Washington. The Big 3 are: special education, student transportation, and MSOC, which stands for materials, supplies, and operating costs.

[00:00:35] Christie Robertson: Today we're talking about the final phase of budget negotiations between the House and the Senate.

[00:00:42] Megan Larkin: We're also going to reflect on what's happened over the last 12 weeks and how to think about our advocacy now and in the future.

[00:00:50] Christie Robertson: Let's start with a recap.

Recap

[00:00:54] Megan Larkin: Since the first episode we've been talking about how there's a cadence to how a bill gets past the legislature. There's all these hurdles that they have to clear. 

So first: policy committee --> fiscal committee --> rules committee --> then they have to get voted off the floor of the house that introduced the bill.

Then they go to the opposite house and they have to go through those hoops on a more compressed timeline. 

This session, we've seen our Big 3 bills go through that process, and we've seen some get cut down along the way, but we still have two left, which are SB 5192, our MSOC vehicle, and SB 5263, our special education vehicle.

We're also now thinking about SB 5167, which is the name of the bill that contains the budget. 

We've seen our bills go through the process in the “same house”. And then we've seen them go through the process in the “opposite house”. Now we have two very different versions of the same bill. 

This is particularly striking with the budget, where literally the Senate passed it, the House "caught it on the fly", and then on the floor, they just used a striker amendment and were like, “Okay. Instead of any of the stuff you said in your bill, we're going to have our version of the budget in here.” So we have competing versions of 5167 – two versions that don't match. 

This is also true for our last two remaining Big 3 bills. You have two different versions of the MSOC bill, two different versions of the special education bill, two different versions of the budget. 

Reconciliation 

And legislators are now having all of these conversations about how they are going to compromise and come up with one joint version.

[00:02:56] Christie Robertson: The conference committee is the official means through which they negotiate. They already appointed the Senate members – June Robinson, who is the chair of Ways & Means, Derek Stanford, who is vice Chair of and Chris Gildon, who is the ranking member, who is a Republican, who is probably being left out of the negotiations right now.

[00:03:54] Megan Larkin: Yeah, eventually they will meet publicly on TVW, but all of the decisions will be made prior to...

[00:03:56] Christie Robertson: ...will have been made. Yeah, just like when they have executive committee hearings, all the decisions have already been made. Nobody's almost ever surprised about what anybody says. They know who's going to speak for each bill. They know what they're going to say. And they basically know how everybody's going to vote.

[00:04:14] Megan Larkin: Yep.

And we don't know for sure, but the House might hold off on appointing the members that they're going to send, because we've entered a part now where there's no way any Republican is going to vote for this operating budget because it's going to include some form of new revenue. 

[00:04:36] Christie Robertson: The Republicans are going to stand up and say what they have already been saying, which is, “we don't have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.”

[00:04:45] Megan Larkin: Yep. So the conversation is just happening within the Democratic caucuses. The public-facing parts of the operating budget negotiation is going to be more performative.

It's worth noting that the capital budget and the transportation budget won't necessarily work this way. There might be a lot more bipartisan stuff happening, because Republicans could actually vote for those. The public facing parts of the transportation budget, for example, might be more substantive. 

Bill Land

[00:05:30] Christie Robertson: Okay, let's take a quick visit to Bill Land so we can talk about what happened with 5263 – special education. 

[00:05:47] James Mackison, staff: This amendment, offered by Representative Gregerson, strikes the underlying bill that increases special education funding formulas, and replaces it with provisions largely similar to 1357, which you passed out of this committee earlier. It increases the excess cost multiplier to 1.186 and 1.09, compared to a multiplier of 1.32 in the underlying bill. This reduces the impact assumed in the Senate budget from about $967 million in the 25-27 biennium to approximately $200 million.

[00:06:10] Christie Robertson: ...and 5192 – MSOC.

[00:06:17] James Mackison, staff: MAC 382 offered by Representative Gregerson strikes the increases to the material, supplies, and operating costs in the underlying bill and replaces them with the updated 25-26 school year MSOC amounts under current law.

[00:06:32] Timm Ormsby: Thank you. Are there any questions?

[00:06:36] Christie Robertson: I updated the spreadsheet in the show notes about where the features stand. The special education bill that came through Appropriations is slightly different then 1357 that came out of the House. But it still does not lift the special education funding cap. It's slightly more money than it initially was, but still nowhere near enough. 

And I just want to play some of what legislators said on the floor to illustrate what the talking points are at this phase in the discussion. And also to give us an opening to talk about, how maddening some of this is.

[00:07:20] Megan Larkin: Yes.

[00:07:22] Christie Robertson: Here's Representative April Berg talking about the MSOC bill that now contains no increase in funding.

[00:07:30] April Berg: I believe that everyone here wants to fully fund schools and education and do our paramount duty. I do want to say, just as I said on the final passage of our House version of the MSOC bill, that this does represent a beacon. It's still a beacon. It's just not shining as brightly as we need it to be right now. And I'm confident that as we move into further budget discussions, we can let its light shine a little bit more. I'm asking for a yes vote, Mr. Chair. 

[00:07:56] Christie Robertson: ...and for Megan to have a chance to talk me down about how frustrating it is to hear people say things that just seem like they actually really don't care at all about education. 

[00:08:09] Megan Larkin: So. Even though the House version, like, it's very disappointing that they stripped the MSOC bill again, and they stripped a lot of the special education stuff away, again, we still need these bills to pass. Because we need to have a vehicle for MSOC and a vehicle for special education funding. And if these bills die in the House, we don't have that. So we want these bills to get to the point where they have to have their own conference committee, or otherwise figure out a way to get that compromise. Or else we don't have a vehicle to get any sort of new money for either MSOC or special education. 

[00:07:56] Christie Robertson: And here's Representative Gerry Pollet, making that point.

[00:08:58] Gerry Pollet: I’m rather fond of the underlying bill for many reasons. About how it addresses the three levers and interlocking gears that contribute to a deficit of over $500 million a year, as verified by the legislative auditor for special education, which drives 50-75% of our school districts’ deficits. 

This is the normal process, however, of the House proceeding to substitute its adopted policy. And then it goes to the conferees to work out final budget and policy. And it is vitally important that we continue to move forward this special education funding legislation. 

And it has some really terrific policies that we've put into it in the amendment, such as professional development and pilots for inclusion of students with disabilities in general ed classroom, isolation and restraint trainings, the safety net distributions, and the commitment to progress on eliminating the cap on how many students with disabilities the state will pay for in each district. And those things are vitally important. This is real progress, and we want the bill to move forward and have a discussion between the House and Senate on the final funding levels. And therefore I urge a yes vote.

[00:10:40] Christie Robertson: But couldn't the Appropriations committee just pass them through as is?

[00:10:47] Megan Larkin: Then that would've blown their budget. 

[00:10:50] Christie Robertson: Yeah. So you're saying they could have just not heard them, and then they would've died, and that would be a disaster.

[00:10:55] Megan Larkin: Yes, exactly. So we’d rather they just alter the bills so they reflect what is in the House's initial proposed operating budget, and then we start a negotiation between the House and Senate about how to fund those. That's what we want to see happen. That is better than there being no sort of policy to enshrine these funding increases. Because if something is just in the budget, but it's not written into policy, then it's totally at the whim of the legislature if they fund it, and how much

[00:11:30] Christie Robertson: Right, which is what we were talking about last week, where we don't want to just rely on revenue bills that say, “I'm for education.” We want the actual funding to be written into policy, so the whims of time don't snatch that money away.

[00:11:47] Megan Larkin: Exactly. And because this is happening concurrently with budget negotiations, that's why the House is just putting the level that is in their budget already. Because they have to have a balanced budget. So they're thinking about this all holistically now. If I increase funding for this thing, am I decreasing funding for this thing? Or how are we going to pay for this? 

So they're having this, like, larger conversation about the operating budget within the Democratic caucuses, and probably also with the governor and his advisors, all behind closed doors. The House putting the MSOC and special ed bills at the levels that's in their budget – that's expected. It's not a surprise. 

Revenue

[00:12:36] Christie Robertson: And just touching briefly on what's happening with the revenue conversation...

[00:12:42] Megan Larkin: Yes. As a reminder from last time, legislators can call their revenue bill “Yay Funding K-12”, and it doesn't necessarily fund K-12. Because if it gets dumped in the general fund, those dollars can literally be used to fund anything. Anbud if it's dumped in the Education Legacy Trust Account, that's slightly better, but that money can be used to fund any type of education, including early childhood ed and higher ed. 

So it's not that we don't want new revenue, but new revenue bills grow the pot of money that's available over all. It does not in any way follow that because there's a bigger pot of money overall that we will fund education more. Like if you look at the House, this proposed operating budget, they're assuming all the new revenue is there, that pot of money is increased. And they're funding K-12 LESS as a percentage of the budget than they were before. 

[00:13:49] Christie Robertson: There's also a big risk that has been introduced by the fact that the wealth tax references funding K-12, and the wealth tax is not going to fly. Because the governor has spoken out against it, and he holds the veto pen. I'm very worried that's going to be an excuse to not fund K-12 even the paltry amount that they've suggested funding it. Because they're going to say “this revenue source that we had counted on is not going to be there, and so we need to cut K-12 funding more.”

[00:14:21] Megan Larkin: Yeah. It would be so infuriating if something like that happened, because we know that wealth tax was never actually going to be used to fund K-12 anyway. 

[00:14:49] Christie Robertson: Exactly.

[00:14:51] Megan Larkin: But to pick up on what you just said, Christie, Ferguson did say in a press conference that he won't support a wealth tax. But he's been saying that consistently since last year. 

* Inslee's budget comes out with a wealth tax; Ferguson is like, “I'm not going to do a wealth tax.”

* Subsequent press conferences; he's like, “I'm not going to do a wealth tax.”

* He puts out his own budget; no wealth tax. 

There's a theme. Legislators know about it too, because they've been telling us all session to push the governor on supporting progressive revenue. And the governor in his press conference was basically like, “for the one millionth time, I don't support a wealth tax. This is because I want to see cuts and efficiencies in place first. And the wealth tax is vulnerable. Like, it could be challenged in courts very easily. So before we do a wealth tax, let's do, like, a smaller tax that has those same kind of parameters and see if that stands up to a legal challenge. But we want that to be, like, a small tax. Because if our entire budget is based around this tax that it's going to fall in court, we got problems. 

So he's not supporting a wealth tax. Legislators know this, so one hopes that they have a plan B for their budgets, like, that they've already figured out what they're going to do when Ferguson says no. Because this surprises exactly nobody.

[00:16:08] Christie Robertson: Majority Leader Pedersen said that they have a “Plan B, C, and D”. 

[00:16:09] Jamie Pedersen: We had plans B, C and D prepared already, and we're in active discussions with House leadership about that. We remain firmly committed to and optimistic that we will get our work done on time. 

[00:16:16] Megan Larkin: That is good.

[00:16:16] Christie Robertson: And hopefully that plan also involves funding schools.

[00:16:19] Megan Larkin: Yes. Shout out Senator Pedersen, who has just been amazing this whole session. So I feel more confident, with him as a majority leader, that special education, at least, will be still a priority in those plans B, C, D, and E.

[00:16:37] Christie Robertson: Why is he not on the conference committee?

[00:16:41] Megan Larkin: Because he isn't in leadership of Ways & Means.

[00:16:45] Christie Robertson: Okay. 

[00:16:46] Megan Larkin: I don't know this, but I assume that Pedersen is extremely involved in all of the behind the scenes negotiations that's happening. Probably him and Speaker Jenkins in the House are some of the main players in how the final budget is going to look and how the funding dials in the remaining Big 3 bills are going to look. So we'll see what comes out of that.

Budget Tricks

[00:17:14] Christie Robertson: Yeah. And as for budget tricks...

[00:17:17] Megan Larkin: Yeah. 

[00:17:17] Christie Robertson: There was a new bill introduced, 2050 which shifts apportionment AND takes some funding away from districts with alternative learning environments. It's basically a budget trick to short-term balance the budget for the legislature by shorting districts a little bit of money next year, and shifting that to the following year. 

[00:17:37] James Mackison, staff: Because a school year is September to August, whereas the state's fiscal year is July to June, state payments in a given school year can span two fiscal years. The apportionment schedule adjusts the monthly payments to school districts in the 25-26 and 26-27 school year, lowering the percentages in February, March, and April, and increasing the percentage in August. 

And the student enrollments used to calculate Local Effort Assistance (LEA) is reduced for school districts having more than 33% of their students enrolled in ALE courses. 

[00:18:17] Christie Robertson: There was some spicy testimony about this bill in Appropriations. I think education advocates, who are already feeling a little slighted, we're getting a little bit annoyed.

[00:18:35] Megan Larkin: Yes. 

[00:18:36] Mandy Rain: Dr. Mandy Rain. I'm superintendent of Valley School District, a property-poor school district. 20 years ago, Valley School District was innovative and developed an ALE school that serves students across Washington State. Our ALE program is a homegrown Parent Partnership online school. Families choose our ALE program because their children need it. Many of our students come to us because they were not successful in brick and mortar school, have medical conditions that keep them out of the general population, have behavioral concerns, are growing NCAA athletes, or suffer from depression and anxiety.

For years, our voters have approved a very small levy in the amount of $152,000. The ALE population and Valley School District is over the 33% you're considering, and we would stand to lose $300,000. 

[00:19:20] Carol Lewis: Carol Lewis, the superintendent in Moses Lake School District. My school district suffered a massive financial crisis last spring due to a double enrichment-levy failure and some financial errors. And we have done amazing work to recover from that crisis. House Bill 2050 targets February, March, and April for reduced apportionment, and that's the most fragile time for any school district suffering a financial crisis, and particularly without a levy. 

We have a cashflow plan to make payroll every month, next school year under the CURRENT apportionment schedule. But if House Bill 2050 passes, this will add an additional $2 million shortfall for my school district during this critical period in the spring of 2026. And we will be waiting for levy money to come in, but we won't have it yet. 

My district has already reduced staffing and spending as much as we possibly can. We've cut 215 jobs and critical maintenance projects have been postponed. We don't have any cuts left to make, and the additional enrichment shortage that apportionment shortage that would be caused by this bill will be devastating for my school district. 

[00:20:22] Dave Larson: I'm Dave Larson, a school board director in the Tukwila School District and representing the Washington State School Directors Association. I'm testifying Con on House Bill 2050 that proposes to move more of the school district apportionment payments to the end of the school year in July and August, from February, March, and April. 

For districts with local property tax levies that are due at the end of April, February, March, and April are the lowest cash flow months during the year. The biggest expense for school districts – salaries and benefits – must be paid evenly throughout the year. 

This bill would cause districts without high fund balances to either borrow money, which adds interest expense, or pay other bills late, which could add late payment penalties. 

Please do not balance the state's budget on the backs of students and do not pass this bill.

[00:20:22] Peter Finch:  Dr. Peter Finch, Superintendent of the West Valley School District in Yakima. This bill seems like an easy way to shift expenditures from one fiscal year to another for the state, but there will be actual negative impacts for all of us in the field. 

More and more school districts are having financial difficulties due to the unsustainable funding structure for Washington State schools. Some school districts ended the past school year with a negative fund balance, which means they're in binding conditions. This bill will increase the financial difficulties for school districts across the state. 

In the past. Legislature already adjusted apportionment. With this bill, 25% of our state apportionment will come to us at the end of the school year, July and August. Our teachers need their paycheck. They're not going to wait for 25% of their annual pay until July and August. Please, I strongly encourage you to reconsider your support of this bill. 

[00:22:11] Natalya Yudkovsky: Natalya Yudkovsky, a parent in the 46th district, speaking today for Washington State PTA. This bill uses budgetary gimmicks to financially help the state while creating financial instability for districts. Districts are trying to literally keep the lights on and the doors open. They need to make the same payroll and pay the same bills every month. We know that historically, districts like Northshore often have months where cash flow is low or even negative. When the state decides to apportion funds, unevenly districts are forced to borrow money to stay afloat, costing them even more money in the long run. Now is not the time to play fiscal games. The state should be a model of fiscal responsibility for districts by providing consistent apportionments every month. 

[00:22:55] Jim Kowlkowski: Jim Kowlkowski, retired school superintendent, director of the Rural Ed Center, a cooperative of over 103 small rural districts from across the state. With all due respect, the title of the bill “Implementing K-12 Savings and Efficiencies” is, in my opinion, misleading. If districts receive a quarter of their apportionment after the school year is over, that doesn't seem to be very efficient, particularly with the thin margins that many districts are dealing with concerning revenues and expenditures. 

[00:23:28] Charlie Brown: Charlie Brown on behalf of the South Sound Superintendents. The fact is, school districts are running out of money. The legislature has failed to fund the full costs of basic education for the last four years running, straight. 

You've heard from districts that are saying millions of dollars in MSOC is being paid out of local levies. And now you're asking them to change their apportionment, and you're going to pay them late. So they have to pay either their teachers and their staff late, or they have to dig into money that they simply don't have to fund their operations. 

I'm asking you to put this bill down. I'm asking you to fully fund MSOC. Put more money into special education, and keep your districts whole so they don't have to start laying people off. 

[00:25:07] Megan Larkin: So they are trying to do that trick about apportionment in HB 2050. And we need to tell them loud and clear, this would be disastrous for districts. This will mess up the cash flow and ultimately wind up costing more.

Rung by rung

[00:24:30] Christie Robertson: Speaking of telling them, let's talk about advocacy, Megan, because we have a lot of brand-new-to-the-game advocates this season. There's been a real groundswell. I still feel like I'm new – I've been around for a few years – and I definitely feel discouraged. I'm somewhat used to being discouraged by the legislature, but there's probably a lot of people who aren't as used to it. And so, I know that you have a perspective on what this all means. Tell me what you say to yourself at this stage of the game.

[00:25:07] Megan Larkin: Okay, so first I want to acknowledge how disappointing some of this is. And even how heartbreaking some of this is. Because we've been working so hard all session and having these conversations. And then you hear stuff like what they said in the House Appropriations committee, when they slashed the special ed, the MSOC bill again. And you're just like, “oh my God, it doesn't even matter what I say.  This is so heartbreaking.” You feel sad. And you feel angry. And these are all really valid. 

And also I think it's helpful to think about it like rungs on a ladder. So, like, we're down in this really deep hole, and we gotta climb out. And it's going to be rung by rung up the ladder. And a lot of times it's just going to feel like we haven't moved at all. Because, like, you can't even see the daylight up there. But each rung counts. You keep doing it, and you keep doing it, and eventually you get out of the hole. It’s just, it doesn't feel like it until you can see the daylight, and you're on those final couple of rungs.

[00:26:26] Christie Robertson: When you start the session, you tell yourself, like, “I'm going to get out of this hole. Let's all band together, and if we all work really hard, we'll get out of this hole.” 

[00:26:35] Megan Larkin: “This year will be the year!” And it's, it's not the year.

[00:26:38] Christie Robertson: It's actually rungs. Yeah.

[00:26:40] Megan Larkin: You just were gaining a couple of rungs. I think the rungs analogy also works well because what we're doing, like, how we are climbing out, it's partly with policy, right? It's getting policy shifts passed. Things like lifting the special education enrollment cap or getting a little more money for MSOC or whatever. 

But another big thing that we're doing is we are learning about our legislators, and we are figuring out how to persuade them, and maybe we're even moving the needle there a little bit. 

I think about Senator Wellman, who is the chairman of the Senate Early Learning K-12 committee. She used to think that we had to have the special education cap, because if we didn't, then there would be so much over identification that it would negatively impact already marginalized populations like Black boys. So she wouldn't lift the cap. Year over year, advocates are presenting her with evidence that this is not the case. We're requesting reports and studies. We're talking to Wellman and, like, building this relationship. And now, she's okay with lifting the cap. 

And it's like that. It's, like, the slow, rung-by-rung progression for advocacy and for relationship building. Every relationship that we've built with legislators, everything that we've learned about our legislators, that is something that can help us next session. It's important to remember that's one of the main things that we're doing with our advocacy, right? 

So we gotta keep it together, even though we're sad and we're tired and we're mad, and avoid lighting any of those relationships on fire. Because we can be passionate advocates. We can talk about what we want to see for special education, transportation, and MSOC. We can state our case boldly. But we don't want to be, like, a jerk to any of the legislators. Because then they will stop listening. 

If I'm a legislator, and all people are doing is yelling at me, I'm not going to set a meeting with those people. I'm going to set a meeting where I feel like I could have the conversation, where I could get good information. 

That is something we definitely want to be mindful of at all times. We want to conduct ourselves in such a way that we can continue to have long-term relationships with legislators who are persuadable.

Types of legislator relationships

[00:29:37] Megan Larkin: Because there's, maybe, three types of legislators we can think about here. 

One is allies – people like Gerry Pollet or Jamie Pedersen. Who we're, like, very aligned with in terms of what we want to see in these bills. We aren't going to need to do much persuading of Gerry Pollet that we need to see, like, the special education cap lifted or, whatever. Like we're really well aligned with him. So that's one category, is our allies. And we want to thank them. We want to lift up people like Pedersen and Pollet and let them know that we see the work they're putting in. 

Then there's that category of people who are persuadable. They're reasonable, and they're persuadable. It's just we have some disagreements in terms of what needs to be prioritized. Or, like Wellman with the cap – there is a policy dispute. So there's this large chunk of people in both parties who are persuadable. And we want to just create conditions where we can keep persuading them.

And then there are those people who are just, like, never going to vote for public education or help us anyway. But those folks I don't think are in Seattle area districts. 

[00:31:01] Christie Robertson: But even the ones that are pretty opposed to education spending, or want to see us converted to all charter schools or something, if the ground swell shifts, then your opponents might feel less emboldened, even if they're not going to change their minds. So I think there's something to be done for each category.

[00:31:32] Megan Larkin: That is an excellent point. Yeah. We want to keep that message out there that, like, “this is very broadly popular.” There are so many people that love the 1.1 million kids that are in Washington's K-12 system right now. There's so many of us. We vote. We're paying attention. And we want funding for the Big 3.

[00:31:53] Christie Robertson: So Megan talked about not giving into the very natural urge to yell at legislators and take out our anger on them. Another very understandable reaction is to walk away. And I think some of the tactics, some of the callousness and the heartbreak is intentional to try to get people to leave them alone about this. 

[00:32:04] Megan Larkin: Yup.

[00:32:13] Christie Robertson: So that's another place that we need to just suck it up and not give into that temptation.

[00:32:34] Megan Larkin: Yes, a hundred percent.

[00:32:37] Christie Robertson: Megan, you had some really interesting thoughts about moving from like rookie advocates to sophisticated advocates as time goes on.

[00:32:49] Megan Larkin: Yes. Because you can think of every session as a learning opportunity. Like, we know way more at the end of this session than we did at the beginning of this podcast series. We know more about our legislators as individuals, like, how they behave, what their priorities are. We've learned more about how the system works. We've met a bunch of other education advocates. Like, we as advocates have just gotten more and more sophisticated. And that's a really valuable thing. Because next year, if they try to do some of the tricks from this year, we will be able to identify it. 

So next year, if they're like, “oh, don't worry, we're going to fund K-12. Here's this tax called ‘Yay K-12’. We're done. Nothing more to see here. Go home.” We know: No, no, we gotta keep pushing. 

We also know more about the cadence of the session. Something that I was thinking the other day, if I could redo this podcast series, something that I would say at the very beginning is “Save some energy for the home stretch.” Because this budget portion - It is more complicated. It's more exhausting. But there's also a lot of movement that can happen. Christie was talking about the coldness as being a way to deter advocates. I think the complexity is another thing that they count on to deter advocates. By the end of the session, everybody is exhausted, things are more complicated... There's all kinds of things that are discouraging.

What we want:

[00:34:39] Megan Larkin: But we have to keep going. Because we know what we want. 

ONE: for special education to: 

* cover that funding gap, which just for last year was $558.7 million. And we know that we want to 

* remove the cap, 

* increase the multiplier, 

* lower the threshold for the safety net, and 

* add inclusionary practice funding

[00:35:37] Christie Robertson:  We also want a 

* statewide IEP system and 

* a path toward the ending of isolation for at least our youngest learners.

[00:35:39] Megan Larkin: TWO: For MSOC, just this last year there was a $613.7 million statewide shortfall. We need to 

* increase the current funding by 20% to fill this gap. We want 

* an annual inflationary factor specified in the legislation rather than it being the whim of the legislature. We want to 

* include a small school factor. We want to 

* include a rebase every four years to keep better alignment between costs and state funding. 

THREE: Transportation, just last year, was an $89.6 million statewide shortfall. We want to have them 

* redo the STARS formula, 

* add another highly mobile population for students in foster care,

* include our students with disabilities who require additional transportation services and 

* add support for multiple vehicle types. 

[00:36:04] Christie Robertson: And all of those things are still on the negotiating table.

[00:36:09] Megan Larkin: Yes, they're all still there. And we're going to just keep saying that for the rest of the session. And we know that if we still haven't seen that with the end of the session, with that backed up by money, we're going to keep going next session. And we're just going to keep climbing up that ladder until we get what we need.

Sophisticates 

[00:36:28] Megan Larkin: I think also there's, like, psychologically, something to be said about... It's almost like you get used to climbing a ladder in the dark because you know what you're signed up for. 

I know way back in the day when I was really new to all of this, there's this tendency to be like, “Oh god, there's so many things that are so wrong! I bet that's because no one has asked for these things or organized around these things!”

[00:36:56] Christie Robertson: Or, “they haven't done it loud enough!”

[00:36:57] Megan Larkin: Yes, “they haven't done it loud enough, there weren't as many people, and _I_ wasn't there! So we're going to do that. So this year is going to be the year that it's fixed! And then the problem is going to go away.”

All of those things might be true. Like, you might be an amazing advocate. You might do amazing organizing. You might be loud in a positive way. But we're still in this process that is fundamentally like you're climbing the ladder rung by rung, right? So because you know the nature of the beast, you are more equipped to deal with said beast.

[00:37:38] Christie Robertson: Yeah. And we didn't get out of the hole, but we may have gotten an extra rung because of all of your efforts.

[00:37:43] Megan Larkin: Yes, we for sure have. And I think everybody has done an amazing job organizing this session and should all feel really good about that. The fact that we are not going to get everything that we wanted doesn't mean that you did a bad job or that the situation is hopeless. It just means we still have some rungs to go. We can keep going.

But because we're entering the end game it's not, “oh, we want to see 5263 advance.” It's, “okay, what do we want to SEE IN the final version of 5263.” It's the contents. We want to keep the pressure on, and we want to remind our legislators exactly what we want. 

And in the show notes, there will be a way for you to do that.

[00:38:07] Christie Robertson: An action alert that has been put out by the Washington State PTA that is just reminding legislators of these things that we want to see, just to remind them that we're here, and we didn't go away. The action alert gives you lots of different ways. You can just click on a link and fill in a form. You can call your legislators. All of the information is in that action alert.

Long term advocacy

[00:39:01] Megan Larkin: Yes, and this seems like a good place to remind ourselves that we're going to use the heartbreak from this session to have a more sophisticated form of advocacy. And that means maintaining long term relationships with persuadable reps.

And we want to even start thinking about “okay, how can I use this knowledge in the future?” Like maybe after the session you get together with all of the other education advocates in your district. If you're through PTA, like, you get together with all the other PTAs in your legislative district, and you hold a town hall with your reps and you're like, “Okay. Tell us what you did for education. We're going to remind you of what we want.” And then, “What happened last session? What are you going to do next session? How are you going to help us?” And then do that again in the fall.

Because now we're more sophisticated, we've learned more about our reps, and we know the Big 3 asks like the back of our hand. So we're going to just keep that pressure on. We're going to keep it together, we're going to keep climbing that ladder, and each year we're going to get more and more sophisticated with our advocacy.

[00:40:24] Christie Robertson: Yeah, maybe in one of these last couple of Big 3 Briefings, we can talk about what does happen in between sessions. Because the bills that are introduced at the beginning of session have been developed over usually months or years. When session ends, legislators are going to go and start working on next session's bills right away.

[00:40:48] Megan Larkin: Yes, exactly. And advocates are going to get together, and they're going to decide on which priorities we're going to collaborate on. So it's a constant thing. Like, after the session, we'll take a little bit of a break, everyone will be exhausted, but then everyone starts thinking about the next session.

[00:41:08] Christie Robertson: So all of you awesome people who got activated this year and just started, you can power up and join the year round education advocacy space. 

And then another long game is how much we got to know legislators this session, and that we can be voters as well, and we can be more informed voters. People who are resistant to funding our paramount duty come up for elections. And now a lot more people are aware of where legislators stand on those issues. So.

[00:41:46] Megan Larkin: Yep.

[00:41:46] Christie Robertson: I think that's another valuable side effect of following things the way that we did.

[00:41:51] Megan Larkin: Yes. This actually reminds me of what I think is the most underutilized tool in an advocate's toolbox. And that's just, like, talk to people about this stuff. Voters and future advocates are going to be way more influenced by what their friends and neighbors say than they are by any kind of, like, messaging or article or whatever. So when schools comes up, talk about this stuff. 

A silver lining of that massive school closure plan in the fall is it got a lot of people talking about funding. And we want to keep people talking about funding. So just talk. It really is helpful.

[00:42:36] Christie Robertson: Awesome. And that's Week 13 of the Big 3 Briefing.

[00:42:42] Megan Larkin: Next week we'll talk about... whatever happens next week. It's more up in the air because we're in the end game. But we'll be back, and we will talk about whatever it is.

[00:42:55] Christie Robertson: You can find our show notes and transcripts at rainydayrecess.org.

[00:43:00] Megan Larkin: And contact us with your thoughts or questions at big3@rainydayrecess.org.

[00:43:06] Christie Robertson: Rainy Day Recess is a listener supported podcast, and if you want to be one of those listeners that helps support us, you can find sponsorship information on our website as well.

[00:43:17] Megan Larkin: Yay.

[00:43:18] Christie Robertson: Stay curious, stay cozy, and thanks for listening to Rainy Day Recess.