[atlas:bill]

AN ACT Relating to parental and community involvement grants; adding a new section to chapter 28A.300 RCW; creating a new section; and providing an expiration date.

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

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. (1) The legislature finds that:

(a) Strong parental and community involvement in schools is of vital importance to the state's efforts to improve student learning;

(b) When parents are involved in schools, student achievement improves, regardless of factors such as socioeconomic status, ethnic or racial backgrounds, or the education level of parents;

(c) When parents become active partners in their children's education, grades and test scores increase, attendance and graduation rates improve, and students complete homework more consistently;

(d) In programs that are designed to involve parents in full partnership with schools, student achievement for disadvantaged students not only improves, but it can reach levels that are standard for children from middle-income families, with students who are the farthest behind making the greatest gains; and

(e) When schools and communities work together, both are strengthened and make gains that outpace those that each could accomplish on its own.

(2) The legislature intends to help parents, schools, and communities form partnerships to help improve student learning and strengthen the role of parents and the community in the educational process.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. A new section is added to chapter 28A.300 RCW to read as follows:

(1) The parental and community involvement grant pilot program is established. The purposes of the program include:

(a) Helping parents and educators establish effective two-way communication;

(b) Helping parents and educators devise ways to support each other's efforts to help children succeed in school;

(c) Helping parents, educators, and community members design and implement school volunteer programs that provide volunteers with an opportunity to contribute to the educational process in meaningful ways;

(d) Helping parents and educators devise ways to involve parents in collaborative decision-making and advocacy processes in a child's education; and

(e) Helping schools and communities form partnerships to support children and their families.

(2) The parental and community involvement grant pilot program shall be administered by the office of the superintendent of public instruction, with the assistance of an advisory committee that may include, but need not be limited to interested individuals and representatives of parents and educational and community organizations. When selecting schools and school districts for the pilots, the office shall adhere to the following principles:

(a) The application process shall be simple and shall use as its sole requirement of the applicant a statement of commitment to participate in the program from a group of parents, community members, and representatives of the school or school district;

(b) Any reporting requirements of the participants shall be as minimal as feasible and, to the extent possible, shall be designed to permit applicants to provide information in a simple, standardized format;

(c) School and districts selected for participation shall, to the extent feasible, represent a balance of some of the different characteristics of the state's public schools, including geography, student demographics, urban and rural locations, and district or school size;

(d) The office shall give priority to elementary schools; and

(e) A local match of thirty percent from an applicant school or district is encouraged; but the match may be in the form of in-kind contributions from the school or district or from private sources.

(3) One hundred schools or school districts shall be selected to participate in the pilot program.

(4) Grants shall be awarded solely to schools that do not have a paid coordinator for parent and community involvement and do not have a program to recruit or coordinate the efforts of parents and community members.

(5) The maximum state grant is eight thousand dollars per school per year and sixteen thousand dollars per school over the grant period.

(6) By September 2003, the office of the superintendent of public instruction shall report to the governor and the education committees of the house of representatives and the senate on the results of the program. The report shall include any recommendations from the office of the superintendent of public instruction or the participants for the expansion, continuation, modification, or elimination of the program.

(7) This section expires June 30, 2004.