H-3718              _______________________________________________

                                                   HOUSE BILL NO. 1495

                        _______________________________________________

State of Washington                              50th Legislature                              1988 Regular Session

By Representatives Walker, Peery, Rust, Cole, Holm, Spanel, Rayburn, Taylor, Betrozoff, Rasmussen, Pruitt, P. King, Cooper, Holland, Butterfield, Appelwick, Brough, Grimm, Winsley, Valle, May and Doty

Read first time 1/18/88 and referred to Committee on Education.

AN ACT Relating to elementary school counselors; adding new sections to chapter 28A.03 RCW; and making an appropriation.

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

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  A new section is added to chapter 28A.03 RCW to read as follows:

          A student's ability to learn can be affected by a number of factors, including but not limited to: Parental involvement and support, child abuse, poor nutrition, peer influence, and other factors.  Such factors may manifest themselves in forms such as absenteeism and truancy from school, drug and alcohol abuse, delinquency, and dropping out.  The legislature finds that the provision of counseling services at the elementary school level will enhance the state's commitment to providing comprehensive early childhood education programs and prevention services.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2.  A new section is added to chapter 28A.03 RCW to read as follows:

          (1)  The superintendent of public instruction shall grant funds for the employment of elementary school counselors to school districts which meet the criteria of subsection (2) of this section.

         (2)  To be eligible for receipt of funds a school district shall submit an application including the following information:

          (a)  That the applicant district shall commit local matching funds equal to the grant funds to be used for the employment of an elementary counselor;

          (b)  That the applicant district has fewer than ten thousand students;

          (c)  That the application is based on one elementary counselor for an elementary school with three hundred or more students or one half-time counselor for a school with fewer than three hundred students;

          (d)  That the district does not currently employ an elementary counselor;

          (e)  That the district has developed a plan for evaluating the effectiveness of the elementary counselor on an annual basis including, but not limited to, the number of student, teacher, and parent contacts; community referrals; types of problems identified; and the effectiveness of the services provided.  The annual evaluation shall be presented to the superintendent of public instruction no later than August 1, 1989, to enable the superintendent of public instruction to report to the legislature no later than January 15, 1990.

          (3)  School districts awarded such grants may enter into cooperative agreements or contract for the provision of counseling services with another school district, the appropriate educational service district, with qualified individuals meeting the requirements of chapter 18.83 RCW, or with a local provider of health care services meeting the requirements of chapter 71.24 RCW:  PROVIDED, That the service provider shall spend the majority of the total time contracted for within the school building or buildings for which services are being provided to assure that the service provider is knowledgeable of the unique nature of the individual school and the families and children served by the school.

          (4)  The superintendent of public instruction shall grant awards to eligible school districts in an amount not to exceed fifteen thousand dollars for a school with three hundred students or more and seven thousand five hundred dollars for a school with fewer than three hundred students.  The sum of all grants shall not exceed the  amount appropriated by the legislature for such purposes.  The money appropriated may be expended for program start-up costs and salaries for elementary school counselors.  No district or cooperative of districts may be eligible for a grant of more than fifteen thousand dollars.

          (5)  The superintendent shall appoint a volunteer advisory committee on elementary school counseling composed of a counselor, principal, parent, classroom teacher, and administrator and a member of the superintendent of public instruction's staff.  The committee shall develop criteria for the award of funds which will assure that the funds are distributed evenly between eastern and western Washington and what criteria, in addition to those identified in subsection (2) of this section, should be used to  award funds if more applications are received than can be funded by the appropriation made for this purpose.   Additional criteria may include, but are not limited to: The lack of counseling services in the community in which the school is located, location of an early childhood assistance program in the district, and participation of parents in adult literacy programs for parents of at-risk children.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3.     The sum of three hundred thousand dollars, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated for the biennium ending June 30, 1989, from the general fund to the superintendent of public instruction for the purposes of this act.