This week (Jan 22-28) is National School Choice Week. There is no better time to highlight the six important education bills in the Washington legislature that should be on your radar!
Support:
- HB 1071: Securing schools by authorizing funding for a school resource officer in every school.
- HB 1093: Providing parents and their children with more choices for a quality elementary and secondary education through the family empowerment scholarship program.
- SB 5009: Requiring parental or legal guardian approval before a child participates in comprehensive sexual health education.
- SB 5029: Empowering school district boards of directors.
- Instead of allowing grassroots involvement to shape and 9 enrich student educational experiences, the state has empowered the 10 superintendent of public instruction to enforce strict regulatory 11 compliance without consideration of local beliefs and values. As a 12 result, school boards are forced to take actions they know are at 13 odds with the needs of the people they serve. To halt this erosion of 14 local control and return power to communities, the legislature 15 intends to clarify that the primary duty of the superintendent of 16 public instruction is one of support, not supervision, and that 17 school boards are vested with the final responsibility to set 18 policies that serve their students.
Oppose:
- SB 5020: Concerning elementary education starting at six years of age.
- Lowering the age of compulsory school attendance from eight to six years old
- SB 5237: Establishing complaint procedures to address noncompliance with certain state education laws.
- Increasing state control over local school boards
National School Choice Week should be about empowering parents and local communities, not granting further control to the state, which often demonstrates itself to be opposed to the interests of families – particularly Christian families.
Remember to use FPIW Action’s legislation dashboard to track important bills like these and reach out to your state representatives and senators and ask them to respectively support or oppose these bills.
