HB 2690

Brief Description: Providing students with equitable access to a high-quality public education by developing an infrastructure that assists public schools in the delivery of integrated student supports.

Sponsors: Representatives Callan, Ortiz-Self, Dolan, Stonier, Davis, Bergquist and Pollet.

Hearing Date: 1/28/20

Staff: Megan Wargacki (786-7194).

Background:

Center for the Improvement of Student Learning. The Center for the Improvement of Student Learning (CISL), housed at the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), serves as a clearinghouse for information, promising practices, and research that promotes and supports effective learning environments for all students, especially those in underserved communities.

Washington Integrated Student Supports Protocol. In 2016, legislation was enacted that directed the CISL to develop the Washington integrated student supports protocol (WISSP). The stated purposes of the WISSP include:

• supporting a school-based approach to promoting the student success by coordinating academic and nonacademic supports to reduce barriers to academic achievement and educational attainment;

• fulfilling a vision of public education where educators focus on education, students focus on learning, and auxiliary supports enable teaching and learning to occur unimpeded;

• encouraging the creation, expansion, and quality improvement of community-based supports that can be integrated into the academic environment of schools and school districts;

• increasing public awareness of the evidence showing that academic outcomes are a result of both academic and nonacademic factors; and

• supporting statewide and local organizations in their efforts to provide leadership, coordination, technical assistance, professional development, and advocacy to implement high-quality, evidence-based, student-centered, coordinated approaches throughout the state.

The legislation established a framework for the WISSP that includes four components: student needs assessments, integration and coordination, community partnerships, and a requirement that the program be data driven.

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support. The OSPI's website states that a key strategy to realizing the vision of closing opportunity gaps in Washington is a comprehensive Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework. It goes on to say that the components of the MTSS framework are team driven shared leadership, data based decision making, family/student/community engagement, continuum supports, and evidence based practices. Examples of MTSS are found in many student support frameworks, for example the WISSP, Response to Intervention, Interconnected Systems Framework, and Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports.

School districts are not required to use MTSS except for when a student shows indications of below grade level literacy development or indications of, or areas of weakness associated with, dyslexia, in which case districts must to provide interventions using evidence-based MTSS.

Summary of Bill:

The staff within the CISL must create a plan for the development of a statewide MTSS infrastructure that assists public schools in developing local integrated student supports (ISS) that provide all students with equitable access to a high-quality public education. The plan must include, at a minimum the following elements:

• advance the purposes of the WISSP;

• identify and define essential components of a MTSS;

• identify and define essential components of a continuum of ISS;

• define the role of and set expectations for the OSPI, educational service districts, school districts, and public schools in the development and implementation of the infrastructure and the delivery of student supports;

• specify a timeline for the implementation of elements of the infrastructure;

• contain a proposal for the development and implementation of a data system for the collection and management of system and student data; and

• recommend a continuous improvement process that includes professional learning, coaching, and periodic performance evaluations practices.

The CISL must submit a preliminary plan to the OSPI and the Legislature by November 1, 2020. Before constructing the preliminary plan, the CISL staff must review the features of ISS and MTSS and the policies and practices established in other states to promote these systems; and examine the intersectionality between the infrastructure plan and other student support policies and programs that exist in Washington.

Public feedback on the preliminary plan must be considered before the final plan is drafted. The final plan is due by November 1, 2021.

Appropriation: None.

Fiscal Note: Requested on January 21, 2020.

Effective Date: The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of the session in which the bill is passed.