S-3289

AN ACT Relating to community schools; amending RCW 28A.305.140, 28A.150.220, and 28A.150.260; adding new sections to chapter 28A.240 RCW; adding a new section to chapter 28A.150 RCW; repealing RCW 28A.240.010, 28A.240.020, and 28A.240.030; and making appropriations.

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

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that in order to achieve the goal of reforming the public schools, each citizen of the state must accept the commitment of developing our most important resource, our children. The legislature further finds that part of building this commitment includes having persons enrolled in school and persons working in the field of education form partnerships with other persons in the community. To build a learning community, with the local school as a community focus, and develop this commitment, the legislature intends:

(1) That school boards of directors, school administrators, teachers, staff, employee unions, students, and members of the community find new ways of working collaboratively, and changing existing policies and agreements where appropriate;

(2) To encourage the creation of site-based councils, where parents, teachers, staff, students, and citizens will join to make decisions for our schools;

(3) To give school districts and schools broad discretion in establishing their site-based councils;

(4) To enable parents, teachers, staff, students, and citizens to have the time to participate in school governance; and

(5) To encourage the creation of community schools, by coordinating a wide array of community services at the local school.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. (1) A school district board of directors may adopt a policy authorizing site-based councils.

(2) The policy adopted by a school district board of directors may include but is not limited to:

(a) Procedures for forming a site-based council and official recognition of the council by the district;

(b) Membership of the site-based council including the principal, certificated and classified staff, students, parents, and persons in the community. Existing organizations may be used to form the site-based council;

(c) Designation of activities with which site-based councils may become involved, such as: Development of school improvement plans, student assessments, parent involvement, and developing community schools;

(d) Delegation of authority to site-based councils to adopt their own bylaws and charter; and

(e) Provisions for educating members of site-based councils to ensure that all members are knowledgeable about school funding, educational programs, and options for change.

(3) School district boards of directors shall not delegate to site-based councils the authority to make personnel decisions regarding either instructional, administrative, or classified staff.

(4) Each school district board of directors that adopts a policy authorizing site-based councils shall provide, by resolution, plans for attendance policies that are consistent with the requirements of any desegregation plan in order to promote stability for schools with site-based councils.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. If modifications to existing local bargaining agreements are necessary to implement school site-based councils, those modifications shall be clearly stated in the written agreement between the school district board of directors and the exclusive bargaining representative for district certificated instructional staff, and the exclusive bargaining representative for district classified staff.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. (1) Schools with site-based councils may receive funds to provide resources for restructuring their educational programs. The superintendent of public instruction shall allocate funds, as may be appropriated for this purpose, to school districts to distribute to the schools with site-based councils.

(2) School districts shall submit reports about the plans and use of funds to the superintendent of public instruction. The superintendent of public instruction may transmit information to other schools and school districts through the state clearinghouse for educational information and assistance.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. Each site-based council shall adopt a plan for student community service.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. (1) Subject to available funds, the superintendent of public instruction, upon request from a school or school district, shall provide or contract to provide the following:

(a) Technical assistance to implement site-based councils under section 2 of this act;

(b) Technical assistance in the development of community schools under section 2 of this act, including strategies for pooling state and local resources; and

(c) Technical assistance in areas including, but not limited to, curriculum development, instructional strategies, assessment of student performance, and program evaluation.

(2) The superintendent of public instruction shall provide for the sharing of information between schools adopting site-based councils and schools and districts not adopting site-based councils.

(3) To the extent possible, the superintendent shall ensure that agency staff work collaboratively with teachers, students, and parents, local schools and districts, state and local government, and community agencies, to promote local educational awareness and restructuring. The state clearinghouse for educational information and assistance should be used as a focus within the agency to provide training and information to agency staff teams for the purposes of this section.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. The legislature finds that the demands of the workplace and of local school governance need to be balanced to promote community participation in schools. Changes in workplace leave policies are desirable to accommodate changes in local school governance, and allow businesses to contribute to local schools in an effective manner. The legislature declares it to be in the public interest to provide reasonable employee leave to promote participation in site-based school councils.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. Unless the context clearly requires otherwise, the definitions in this section apply throughout sections 7 through 10 of this act.

(1) "Employee" has the definition in RCW 49.78.020(3).

(2) "Employer" means any person, firm, corporation, partnership, business trust, legal representative, or other business entity that engages in any business, industry, profession, or activity in this state and includes any unit of state or local government including, but not limited to, a county, city, town, municipal corporation, quasi-municipal corporation, or political subdivision.

(3) "Local school governance leave" means paid leave from employment, as provided in section 9 of this act, to participate as an elected or appointed officer in local school governance organizations, including but not limited to, school site-based councils as established in section 2 of this act, school boards of directors, and parent-teacher organizations.

(4) "Reduced leave schedule" means leave scheduled for fewer than an employee's usual number of hours or days per work week.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 9. (1) An employee is entitled to thirty-two hours of paid local school governance leave during any twenty-four month period. This leave shall be in addition to any vacation or sick leave to which the employee might otherwise be entitled.

(2) Local school governance leave may be taken on a reduced leave schedule subject to the approval of the employer.

(3) The leave required in this section is in addition to family leave provided under RCW 49.78.030.

(4) An employer may require verification of participation in local school governance activities.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 10. (1) An employee planning to take local school governance leave under section 9 of this act shall provide the employer with written notice at least thirty days in advance of the anticipated date or dates of local school governance activities, stating the dates during which the employee intends to take local school governance leave.

(2) If the employee fails to give the notice required by this section, the employer may deny that request for local school governance leave.

Sec. 11. RCW 28A.305.140 and 1990 c 33 s 267 are each amended

to read as follows:

((~~The state board of education may grant waivers to school districts from the provisions of~~)) (1) The self-study process requirements under RCW 28A.320.200, the teacher classroom contact requirements under RCW 28A.150.260(4), and the minimum one hundred eighty day school year requirement and program hour offerings under RCW 28A.150.200 through 28A.150.220 ((on the basis that such waiver or waivers are necessary to implement successfully a local plan to provide for all students in the district an effective education system that is designed to enhance the educational program for each student. The local plan may include alternative ways to provide effective educational programs for students who experience difficulty with the regular education program.

~~The state board shall adopt criteria to evaluate the need for the waiver or waivers~~)) shall be waived for school districts or individual schools within a district if the school district submits to the state board of education a plan for restructuring its educational program, or the educational program of individual schools within the district that includes:

(a) Adoption of policies for site-based councils;

(b) Specific standards for increased student learning that the district expects to achieve;

(d) How the district plans to determine if the higher standards are met;

(e) Evidence that the board of directors, teachers, administrators, classified employees, and community members are committed to working cooperatively in implementing the plan;

(f) Evidence that opportunities were provided for parents and citizens to be involved in the development of the plan; and

(g) Identification of the state requirements that will be waived.

(2) Waivers granted by the state board of education under this section shall be renewed every two years upon the state board of education receiving a renewal request from the school district board of directors. Before filing the request, the school district shall conduct at least one public meeting to evaluate the educational programs that were implemented as a result of the waivers. The request to the state board of education shall include information regarding the activities and programs implemented as a result of the waivers and a summary of the comments received at the public meeting or meetings.

(3) If a school district intends to waive the program hour offerings under RCW 28A.150.220, it shall make available to students enrolled in kindergarten at least a total instructional offering of four hundred fifty hours. Each school district also shall make available to students enrolled in grades one through twelve at least a district-wide annual average total instructional hour offering of one thousand hours. The state board of education may define alternatives to classroom instructional time for students in grades nine through twelve enrolled in alternative learning experiences. The state board of education shall establish rules to determine annual average instructional hours for districts having fewer than twelve grades.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 12. A new section is added to chapter 28A.150 RCW to read as follows:

The superintendent of public instruction shall work with appropriate organizations to ensure that teachers, administrators, and school boards are aware of the waivers available under RCW 28A.305.140.

Sec. 13. RCW 28A.150.220 and 1990 c 33 s 105 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) For the purposes of this section and RCW 28A.150.250 and 28A.150.260:

(a) The term "total program hour offering" shall mean those hours when students are provided the opportunity to engage in educational activity planned by and under the direction of school district staff, as directed by the administration and board of directors of the district, inclusive of intermissions for class changes, recess, staff participation in site-based councils, and teacher/parent-guardian conferences which are planned and scheduled by the district for the purpose of discussing students' educational needs or progress, and exclusive of time actually spent for meals.

(b) "Instruction in work skills" shall include instruction in one or more of the following areas: Industrial arts, home and family life education, business and office education, distributive education, agricultural education, health occupations education, vocational education, trade and industrial education, technical education and career education.

(2) Satisfaction of the basic education goal identified in RCW 28A.150.210 shall be considered to be implemented by the following program requirements:

(a) Each school district shall make available to students in kindergarten at least a total program offering of four hundred fifty hours. The program shall include reading, arithmetic, language skills and such other subjects and such activities as the school district shall determine to be appropriate for the education of the school district's students enrolled in such program;

(b) Each school district shall make available to students in grades one through three, at least a total program hour offering of two thousand seven hundred hours. A minimum of ninety-five percent of the total program hour offerings shall be in the basic skills areas of reading/language arts (which may include foreign languages), mathematics, social studies, science, music, art, health and physical education. The remaining five percent of the total program hour offerings may include such subjects and activities as the school district shall determine to be appropriate for the education of the school district's students in such grades;

(c) Each school district shall make available to students in grades four through six at least a total program hour offering of two thousand nine hundred seventy hours. A minimum of ninety percent of the total program hour offerings shall be in the basic skills areas of reading/language arts (which may include foreign languages), mathematics, social studies, science, music, art, health and physical education. The remaining ten percent of the total program hour offerings may include such subjects and activities as the school district shall determine to be appropriate for the education of the school district's students in such grades;

(d) Each school district shall make available to students in grades seven through eight, at least a total program hour offering of one thousand nine hundred eighty hours. A minimum of eighty-five percent of the total program hour offerings shall be in the basic skills areas of reading/language arts (which may include foreign languages), mathematics, social studies, science, music, art, health and physical education. A minimum of ten percent of the total program hour offerings shall be in the area of work skills. The remaining five percent of the total program hour offerings may include such subjects and activities as the school district shall determine to be appropriate for the education of the school district's students in such grades;

(e) Each school district shall make available to students in grades nine through twelve at least a total program hour offering of four thousand three hundred twenty hours. A minimum of sixty percent of the total program hour offerings shall be in the basic skills areas of language arts, foreign language, mathematics, social studies, science, music, art, health and physical education. A minimum of twenty percent of the total program hour offerings shall be in the area of work skills. The remaining twenty percent of the total program hour offerings may include traffic safety or such subjects and activities as the school district shall determine to be appropriate for the education of the school district's students in such grades, with not less than one-half thereof in basic skills and/or work skills: PROVIDED, That each school district shall have the option of including grade nine within the program hour offering requirements of grades seven and eight so long as such requirements for grades seven through nine are increased to two thousand nine hundred seventy hours and such requirements for grades ten through twelve are decreased to three thousand two hundred forty hours.

(3) In order to provide flexibility to the local school districts in the setting of their curricula, and in order to maintain the intent of this legislation, which is to stress the instruction of basic skills and work skills, any local school district may establish minimum course mix percentages that deviate by up to five percentage points above or below those minimums required by subsection (2) of this section, so long as the total program hour requirement is still met.

(4) Nothing contained in subsection (2) of this section shall be construed to require individual students to attend school for any particular number of hours per day or to take any particular courses.

(5) Each school district's kindergarten through twelfth grade basic educational program shall be accessible to all students who are five years of age, as provided by RCW 28A.225.160, and less than twenty-one years of age and shall consist of a minimum of one hundred eighty school days per school year in such grades as are conducted by a school district, and one hundred eighty half-days of instruction, or equivalent, in kindergarten: PROVIDED, That effective May 1, 1979, a school district may schedule the last five school days of the one hundred and eighty day school year for noninstructional purposes in the case of students who are graduating from high school, including, but not limited to, the observance of graduation and early release from school upon the request of a student, and all such students may be claimed as a full time equivalent student to the extent they could otherwise have been so claimed for the purposes of RCW 28A.150.250 and 28A.150.260.

(6) The state board of education shall adopt rules to implement and ensure compliance with the program requirements imposed by this section, RCW 28A.150.250 and 28A.150.260, and such related supplemental program approval requirements as the state board may establish: PROVIDED, That each school district board of directors shall establish the basis and means for determining and monitoring the district's compliance with the basic skills and work skills percentage and course requirements of this section. The certification of the board of directors and the superintendent of a school district that the district is in compliance with such basic skills and work skills requirements may be accepted by the superintendent of public instruction and the state board of education.

(7) Handicapped education programs, vocational-technical institute programs, state institution and state residential school programs, all of which programs are conducted for the common school age, kindergarten through secondary school program students encompassed by this section, shall be exempt from the basic skills and work skills percentage and course requirements of this section in order that the unique needs, abilities or limitations of such students may be met.

(8) Any school district may petition the state board of education for a reduction in the total program hour offering requirements for one or more of the grade level groupings specified in this section. The state board of education shall grant all such petitions that are accompanied by an assurance that the minimum total program hour offering requirements in one or more other grade level groupings will be exceeded concurrently by no less than the number of hours of the reduction.

Sec. 14. RCW 28A.150.260 and 1991 c 116 s 10 are each amended to read as follows:

The basic education allocation for each annual average full time equivalent student shall be determined in accordance with the following procedures:

(1) The governor shall and the superintendent of public instruction may recommend to the legislature a formula based on a ratio of students to staff for the distribution of a basic education allocation for each annual average full time equivalent student enrolled in a common school. The distribution formula shall have the primary objective of equalizing educational opportunities and shall provide appropriate recognition of the following costs among the various districts within the state:

(a) Certificated instructional staff and their related costs;

(b) Certificated administrative staff and their related costs;

(d) Nonsalary costs;

(e) Extraordinary costs of remote and necessary schools and small high schools, including costs of additional certificated and classified staff; and

(f) The attendance of students pursuant to RCW 28A.335.160 and 28A.225.250 who do not reside within the servicing school district.

(2)(a) This formula for distribution of basic education funds shall be reviewed biennially by the superintendent and governor. The recommended formula shall be subject to approval, amendment or rejection by the legislature. The formula shall be for allocation purposes only. While the legislature intends that the allocations for additional instructional staff be used to increase the ratio of such staff to students, nothing in this section shall require districts to reduce the number of administrative staff below existing levels.

(b) ((~~Commencing with the 1988‑89 school year,~~)) The formula adopted by the legislature shall reflect the following ratios at a minimum: (i) Forty-nine certificated instructional staff to one thousand annual average full time equivalent students enrolled in grades kindergarten through three; (ii) forty-six certificated instructional staff to one thousand annual average full time equivalent students in grades four through twelve; (iii) four certificated administrative staff to one thousand annual average full time equivalent students in grades kindergarten through twelve; and (iv) sixteen and sixty-seven one-hundredths classified personnel to one thousand annual average full time equivalent students enrolled in grades kindergarten through twelve.

(c) In the event the legislature rejects the distribution formula recommended by the governor, without adopting a new distribution formula, the distribution formula for the previous school year shall remain in effect: PROVIDED, That the distribution formula developed pursuant to this section shall be for state apportionment and equalization purposes only and shall not be construed as mandating specific operational functions of local school districts other than those program requirements identified in RCW 28A.150.220 and 28A.150.100. The enrollment of any district shall be the annual average number of full time equivalent students and part time students as provided in RCW 28A.150.350, enrolled on the first school day of each month and shall exclude full time equivalent handicapped students recognized for the purposes of allocation of state funds for programs under RCW 28A.155.010 through 28A.155.100. The definition of full time equivalent student shall be determined by rules and regulations of the superintendent of public instruction: PROVIDED, That the definition shall be included as part of the superintendent's biennial budget request: PROVIDED, FURTHER, That any revision of the present definition shall not take effect until approved by the house appropriations committee and the senate ways and means committee: PROVIDED, FURTHER, That the office of financial management shall make a monthly review of the superintendent's reported full time equivalent students in the common schools in conjunction with RCW 43.62.050.

(3)(a) Certificated instructional staff shall include those persons employed by a school district who are nonsupervisory employees within the meaning of RCW 41.59.020(8): PROVIDED, That in exceptional cases, people of unusual competence but without certification may teach students so long as a certificated person exercises general supervision: PROVIDED, FURTHER, That the hiring of such noncertificated people shall not occur during a labor dispute and such noncertificated people shall not be hired to replace certificated employees during a labor dispute.

(b) Certificated administrative staff shall include all those persons who are chief executive officers, chief administrative officers, confidential employees, supervisors, principals, or assistant principals within the meaning of RCW 41.59.020(4).

(4) Each annual average full time equivalent certificated classroom teacher's direct classroom contact hours shall average at least twenty-five hours per week. Direct classroom contact hours shall be exclusive of time required to be spent for preparation, conferences, or any other nonclassroom instruction duties. Up to two hundred minutes per week may be deducted from the twenty-five contact hour requirement, at the discretion of the school district board of directors, to accommodate authorized teacher/parent-guardian conferences, recess, passing time between classes, and informal instructional activity. Implementing rules to be adopted by the state board of education pursuant to RCW ((~~28A.150.220(6)~~)) 28A.150.220(4) shall provide that compliance with the direct contact hour requirement shall be based upon teachers' normally assigned weekly instructional schedules, as assigned by the district administration. Additional record-keeping by classroom teachers as a means of accounting for contact hours shall not be required. ((However, upon request from the board of directors of any school district, the provisions relating to direct classroom contact hours for individual teachers in that district may be waived by the state board of education if the waiver is necessary to implement a locally approved plan for educational excellence and the waiver is limited to those individual teachers approved in the local plan for educational excellence. The state board of education shall develop criteria to evaluate the need for the waiver. Granting of the waiver shall depend upon verification that: (a) The students' classroom instructional time will not be reduced; and (b) the teacher's expertise is critical to the success of the local plan for excellence.)) Waivers from contact hours may be requested under RCW 28A.305.140.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 15. The following acts or parts of acts are each repealed:

(1) RCW 28A.240.010 and 1990 c 33 s 248 & 1985 c 422 s 2;

(2) RCW 28A.240.020 and 1985 c 422 s 1; and

(3) RCW 28A.240.030 and 1990 c 33 s 249 & 1985 c 422 s 3.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 16. Sections 1 through 10 of this act are each added to chapter 28A.240 RCW.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 17. The sum of forty-nine thousand dollars, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated for the biennium ending June 30, 1993, from the general fund to the superintendent of public instruction for the purposes of section 4 of this act.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 18. The sum of forty-nine thousand dollars, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated for the biennium ending June 30, 1993, from the general fund to the superintendent of public instruction for the purposes of section 6 of this act.