Z-1242.4 _______________________________________________
HOUSE BILL 2170
_______________________________________________
State of Washington 53rd Legislature 1994 Regular Session
By Representatives Sommers, Silver, Ogden, Fuhrman, Dunshee, Dorn, Brough, L. Johnson and J. Kohl; by request of Legislative Budget Committee
Read first time 01/10/94. Referred to Committee on Education.
AN ACT Relating to special services demonstration projects; amending RCW 28A.630.845 and 28A.630.850; and repealing RCW 28A.630.851.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
Sec. 1. RCW 28A.630.845 and 1992 c 180 s 3 are each amended to read as follows:
(1) The legislature finds that the state system of funding handicapped education has fiscal incentives to label children as handicapped and that unnecessary labeling can be detrimental to children. The legislature encourages demonstration projects that provide needed services without unnecessary labeling. To test this approach, the legislature intends to maintain the funding level for innovative special services programs that reduce the incidence of unnecessary labeling.
(2) School districts
may propose demonstration projects under this ((section)) subsection
to provide needed services and achieve major reductions in the percentage of
district students labeled as handicapped in one or more specified categories.
State handicapped funding for districts with such projects shall be based ((for
the duration of the project and for two years after the end of the project))
on the average percentage of the kindergarten through twelfth grade enrollment
in the specified categories ((during the 1991-92 school year or, for
projects approved after April 1, 1992,)) during the school year before the
start of the project.
(3) School districts with specific learning disabled enrollment at or above four percent of the district's kindergarten through twelfth grade enrollment may propose demonstration projects under this subsection to provide needed services and reduce unnecessary labeling to below the four percent level. When the specific learning disabled enrollment is below the four percent level, funding for the district shall be based on four percent of the kindergarten through twelfth grade enrollment considered as specific learning disabled, without regard to the actual number of students so identified.
(4) Funding
under subsections (2) and (3) of this section is contingent on
the following: (a) The funding is spent on children needing special services;
and (b) the overall percentage of first through twelfth grade students in the
district labeled as handicapped declines each year of the project ((after
the 1991-92 school year)), excluding handicapped students who transfer into
the district.
(((4) School
districts with approved demonstration projects that wish to convert to a
project under this section shall by May 1, 1992, notify the selection advisory
committee and the superintendent of public instruction and propose appropriate
modifications to the project.
(5) This section
expires September 1, 1997.))
(5) The selection advisory committee shall request proposals for up to ten more projects under this section and make appropriate recommendations to the superintendent of public instruction.
Sec. 2. RCW 28A.630.850 and 1991 c 265 s 7 are each amended to read as follows:
((Sections 1 through
5 of this act)) RCW 28A.630.820 through 28A.630.845 shall expire ((January
1, 1996)) September 1, 2001.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. RCW 28A.630.851 and 1992 c 180 s 4 are each repealed.
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