Title: An act relating to family and consumer science education.

Brief Description: Providing for family and consumer science education.

Sponsors: House Committee on Education (originally sponsored by Representatives Quall, Curtis, Anderson, Talcott, Eickmeyer, Kirby, Haigh, DeBolt, Dunshee, McDonald, Morrell, Buri, Miloscia, Rodne, Lovick, O'Brien, Shabro, P. Sullivan, Wood, Sells, Chase, Ormsby and Kilmer).

Brief History: Passed House: 3/11/05, 88-4.

Committee Activity: Early Learning, K-12 & Higher Education: 3/24/05, 3/25/05 [DPA, w/oRec].

SENATE COMMITTEE ON EARLY LEARNING, K-12 & HIGHER EDUCATION

Majority Report: Do pass as amended.Signed by Senators McAuliffe, Chair; Weinstein, Vice Chair; Schmidt, Ranking Minority Member; Benton, Berkey, Carrell, Delvin, Eide, Kohl-Welles, Pflug, Rasmussen, Rockefeller, Schoesler and Shin.

Minority Report: That it be referred without recommendation.Signed by Senator Pridemore, Vice Chair.

Staff: Heather Lewis-Lechner (786-7448)

Background: Currently, there are no statutes requiring a family preservation course to be taught in Washington high schools. The State Board of Education (SBE) rules require that high schools provide an opportunity to take at least one course in Home & Family Life. Program frameworks have been developed by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to fulfill this requirement. The Home & Family Life courses generally are intended to prepare students for family life, work life, and careers. The courses are broad based and touch on issues such as interpersonal relationships or parenting.

Summary of Amended Bill: School districts are encouraged to adopt a family preservation education curriculum and offer a unit in family preservation education to high school students. School districts may adopt the model curriculum or may develop a curriculum with input from the community. The OSPI must adopt a model curriculum for family preservation education and a list of what should be included in the model curriculum is in the bill.

Amended Bill Compared to Original Bill: The list of what topics should be addressed in the model curriculum developed by OSPI is amended to include instruction on domestic violence and dating violence.

Appropriation: None.

Fiscal Note: Available.

Committee/Commission/Task Force Created: No.

Effective Date: Ninety days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For: The most important tasks in life we don't get a lot of training for. We let a lot of major things slip through our education system and this bill will not fix all of that but it could help. It will make a positive statement. This bill is very permissive and does not over-burden the districts. The model is already available and so it will not be costly to implement this bill. The people teaching in our school districts support this bill. The point of family and consumer science is about producing responsible and healthy individuals which creates strong, healthy families. It is family and consumer science where students will put what they are learning in every other subject to use and where they are learning essential life skills. We need this education because everyone will experience family life. Helping students learn relationship and communication skills will help produce stronger families and reduce divorce. Divorce costs the state in many ways and it negatively impacts our children. Relationships is the fourth "R" that we should be teaching in our schools. The only change we would suggest is to include information about domestic violence and dating violence in the model curriculum.

Testimony Against: None.

Who Testified: PRO: Representative Quall, prime sponsor; Monica Milburn, Carol Milburn, Family Career and Community Leaders of America; Larry Kvamme, Roxanee Trees, Citizens; Heather Peters, Student; Kathleen Lopp, Marianna Goheen, WA-ACTE; Grace Huang, WA State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.