ByRepresentatives Dolan, Callan, Valdez, Santos, Ortiz-Self, J. Johnson, Ryu, Simmons, Lovick, Fitzgibbon, Bergquist, Thai, Bateman, Paul, Berg, Ramos, Pollet, Goodman, Sells, Peterson, Leavitt, Duerr, and Davis

AN ACT Relating to experience factor adjustments for certificated instructional staff; amending RCW 28A.150.412; and creating a new section.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature intends to prioritize serving students through a more just and racially equitable education system that prioritizes the whole child. Key to this effort is attracting, recruiting, preparing, and retaining a diverse, skilled, responsive, and reflective educator workforce. Washington state and school districts will strive to hire an educator workforce that reflects the diversity of the students they teach and will establish systems to retain their educator workforce as critical teaching skills and practices are cultivated and developed over time. A fair and equitable salary allocation to districts is foundational to this work.

This act develops a salary allocation model that more closely matches the salaries of the teachers who are hired by school districts. To accomplish this, each district will continue to annually report the experience and education of their teaching staff. State funding will be allocated accordingly to keep up with the increasing costs of a stable teaching force as they gain experience or attain additional education or degrees across their career and avoid creating disincentives that prevent districts from hiring the best teacher, while simultaneously meeting state expectations for class size.

(1) Beginning with the 2023 regular legislative session, and every four years thereafter, the legislature shall review and rebase state basic education compensation allocations compared to school district compensation data, regionalization factors, what inflationary measure is the most representative of actual market experience for school districts, and other economic information. The legislature shall revise the minimum allocations, regionalization factors, and inflationary measure if necessary to ensure that state basic education allocations continue to provide market-rate salaries and that regionalization adjustments reflect actual economic differences between school districts.

(2)(a) For school districts with single-family residential values above the statewide median residential value, regionalization factors for school years 2018-19 through school year 2022-23 are as follows:

(b) In addition to the regionalization factors specified in (a) of this subsection, school districts located west of the crest of the Cascade mountains and sharing a boundary with any school district with a regionalization factor more than one tercile higher, are regionalized by six additional percentage points.

(c) In addition to the regionalization factors specified in this subsection, ((for))an experience factor for certificated instructional staff is provided as follows:

(i) For school districts that have certificated instructional staff median years of experience that exceed the statewide average certificated instructional staff years of experience and a ratio of certificated instructional staff advanced degrees to bachelor degrees above the statewide ratio, an experience factor of four percentage points is added to the regionalization factor, ((beginning)) in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years.

(ii) For districts that have certificated instructional staff median years of experience that exceed the statewide average certificated instructional staff years of experience, an experience factor of three percentage points is added to the regionalization factor, beginning in the 2021-22 school year.

(iii) For districts that have a ratio of certificated instructional staff advanced degrees to bachelor degrees that is above the statewide ratio, an experience factor of one percentage point is added to the regionalization factor, beginning in the 2021-22 school year.

(iv) Beginning in the 2021-22 school year and annually thereafter, district eligibility for the experience factors under (c)(ii) and (iii) of this subsection must be determined based on staffing data reported by the district to the superintendent of public instruction in the fall of the previous school year.

(v)(A) For districts not eligible for an experience factor under (c)(i) or (ii) of this subsection, but eligible under (c)(i) or (ii) of this subsection in the previous school year, the experience factor is reduced to two percentage points in the first year the district is ineligible.

(B) For districts not eligible for an experience factor under (c)(i) or (ii) of this subsection, but eligible under (c)(i) or (ii) of this subsection in the school year two years prior, the experience factor is reduced to one percentage point in the second consecutive year the district is ineligible.

(C) In the third consecutive year a district is not eligible for an experience factor under (c)(i) or (ii) of this subsection, the experience factor is removed if the district is not eligible for the one percentage point experience factor under (c)(iii) of this subsection.

(d) Additional school district adjustments are identified in the omnibus appropriations act, and these adjustments are partially reduced or eliminated by the 2022-23 school year as follows:

(i) Adjustments that increase the regionalization factor to a value that is greater than the tercile 3 regionalization factor must be reduced by two percentage points each school year beginning with school year 2020-21, through 2022-23.

(ii) Adjustments that increase the regionalization factor to a value that is less than or equal to the tercile 3 regionalization factor must be reduced by one percentage point each school year beginning with school year 2020-21, through 2022-23.

(3) To aid the legislature in reviewing and rebasing regionalization factors, the department of revenue shall, by November 1, 2022, and by November 1st every four years thereafter, determine the median single-family residential value of each school district as well as the median value of proximate districts within fifteen miles of the boundary of the school district for which the median residential value is being calculated.

(4) No district may receive less state funding for the minimum state salary allocation as compared to its prior school year salary allocation as a result of adjustments that reflect updated regionalized salaries.

(a) "Median residential value of each school district" means the median value of all single-family residential parcels included within a school district and any other school district that is proximate to the school district.

(b) "Proximate to the school district" means within fifteen miles of the boundary of the school district for which the median residential value is being calculated.

(c) "School district employees" means state-funded certificated instructional staff, certificated administrative staff, and classified staff.

(d) "School districts in tercile 1" means school districts with median single-family residential values in the first tercile of districts with single-family residential values above the statewide median residential value.

(e) "School districts in tercile 2" means school districts with median single-family residential values in the second tercile of districts with single-family residential values above the statewide median residential value.

(f) "School districts in tercile 3" means school districts with median single-family residential values in the third tercile of districts with single-family residential values above the statewide median residential value.

(g) "Statewide median residential value" means the median value of single-family residential parcels located within all school districts, reduced by five percent.