AN ACT Relating to education and human development; adding new sections to Title 28A RCW; creating new sections; and making appropriations.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. (1) Research indicates that parental involvement and support can positively impact students' school performance and social development including conduct, human relations, and self-concept. Research also shows that from birth to age five children acquire a tremendous amount of knowledge including learning to both speak English and understand spoken English.

(2) Results from Missouri's highly successful parents as teachers program show that parents, as their children's primary and most important teachers, and children can benefit from a parent education program which can enable parents to support more effectively their children's preschool educational and social development and thus help parents and children alike be ready for the children's initial public school experiences.

(3) Teachers, and other school personnel, also need to be prepared to contribute to students' initial and ongoing public school experiences. New and experienced teachers should be capable of transmitting to their students the concept that each student can master the fundamental skill of learning how to learn and that learning does not end upon graduation from high school or college. As the state continues to move forward into an information and service-oriented age, a student's personal orientation to life-long learning will become a new basic skill the student can use to adapt to the rapidly emerging technological age and to mentally process increasingly larger amounts of information.

(4) It is the intent of the legislature to establish and support a program of interrelated initiatives to improve the public education system by promoting and encouraging efforts designed to provide young students with positive early educational experiences leading to successful progression through the common school system.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. (1) The superintendent of public instruction is directed to establish a voluntary, grant-based, parents as first teachers program to provide parents of children up to age three with information and guidance to increase parental confidence and involvement in the educational and social development of their children and to establish positive home and school partnerships before children enter school to help prepare children, parents, and school personnel for the children's first public school experiences.

(2) This program shall be a voluntary enrichment program and shall be offered only as funds are available and shall not be part of the basic program of education which must be fully funded by the legislature under Article IX, section 1 of the state Constitution.

(3) The superintendent of public instruction may accept, receive, and administer, from public or private sources, such gifts, grants, donations or bequests as may be expressly given to support the parents as first teachers program.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. The parents as first teachers program shall provide for resource materials on home learning activities, private and group educational guidance, individual and group learning experiences for the parent and child, and other appropriate activities to enable parents to improve learning in the home, understand the relationship between developmental stages and behavior, and monitor their children's growth and development relating to:

(1) Understanding and use of language;

(2) Perception through sight and hearing;

(3) Motor development and hand-eye coordination; and

(4) Health, physical development, and emotional, social, and mental development.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. (1) The superintendent of public instruction shall adopt rules under chapter 34.04 RCW to carry out the purposes of sections 2 and 3 of this act.

(2) The superintendent of public instruction shall submit biennially a report to the legislature on the parents as first teachers program.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. The superintendent of public instruction, the director of community development, and the secretary of social and health services shall jointly develop and submit to the legislature not later than January 1, 1990, a plan that includes the following elements:

(1) One or more options for integrating the parents as first teachers program established under sections 2, 3 and 4 of this act, the early childhood education and assistance program established under chapter 28A.34A RCW, the governor's proposed family independence program, and other state programs as may be appropriate, and including a recommendation on which state agency should be the lead agency in administering an integrated, comprehensive early childhood development assistance program;

(2) A suggested timetable for phasing-in or otherwise implementing an integrated, comprehensive early childhood development assistance program;

(3) Suggested options and cost estimates for phasing-in an expansion of the programs under subsection (1) of this section as component elements of an integrated, comprehensive early childhood development assistance program; and

(4) Other recommendations as may be appropriate.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. The sum of .......... dollars, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated from the general fund for the biennium ending June 30, 1989, to the superintendent of public instruction to carry out the purposes of sections 2, 3, and 4 of this act.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. The sum of .......... dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary is appropriated from the general fund for the biennium ending June 30, 1989, to the superintendent of public instruction for the purposes of section 5 of this act.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. Sections 2 through 4 of this act are each added to Title 28A RCW.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 9. If any provision of this act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the act or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances is not affected.