Jan. 10—Smoke-filled classrooms, dilapidated schools and bond election laws are a few issues the Washington state superintendent is asking lawmakers for help with this year.

The state was projected to spend 43% of its annual budget, about $10.5 billion, on K-12 education for the 2023-2024 academic year.

But coming out of a global pandemic only to grapple with students’ mental health in the wake of wildfires and high teacher turnover means the future of the state’s public education system often feels uncertain, and at times, dire.

On Wednesday, Chris Reykdal, superintendent of public instruction, held a presentation in Olympia to discuss the state of K-12 education in Washington.

“The paramount first and obvious obligation of the Legislature is your basic education rights for kids in our public schools,” Reykdal said. “We’ve shown ample evidence that that’s already slipping, and we’re flashing yellow right now.”

One in five public school employees in Washington is a paraprofessional teacher, also called a “para” or “teacher’s aid.” These employees are notoriously overworked and underpaid, and the problems that’s causing have been a topic of discussion in the Legislature this year.

“These paras go through a basic training component,” Reykdal said. “We get them prepared to be successful, but due to the low wage and the low number of hours, we see an enormous amount of turnover in the first two years.”

In his supplemental budget proposal, Gov. Jay Inslee asked the Legislature to bankroll a $3-per-hour average wage increase for the state’s 32,000 paraeducators. He also proposed an increase in the state’s special education spending cap.

Reykdal said he hopes the state will move forward with Inslee’s education spending proposals and maybe consider removing that special education funding cap altogether — if research warrants it.

In Washington, local school district bond elections need 60% of the vote to pass — also called a supermajority. This is more than the simple majority threshold of 50% needed to pass a school levy or be elected governor.

Reykdal said this threshold is hurting small, rural communities and causing school districts to go into debt. A lot of school buildings in Washington are old. Some weren’t built with HVAC systems or ventilation efficient enough to keep air safe to breathe indoors during wildfire season.

“Every fall, we have school districts asking us if they can get waiver days because they closed their schools due to fire smoke,” the superintendent said. “Particularly, with the prevailing winds to the east, we see impacts all over Eastern Washington increasingly.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle this year proposed legislation to lower that 60% bond threshold for school bonds to be 55%. For years, some Democrats have wanted the number dropped down to a plain old simple majority at 50%.

Last year, a Republican lawmaker met them in the middle with the 55% offer. That bill didn’t make it through to the end, and it is on the table again this session.

Rep. Paul Harris, R-Vancouver, is the prime sponsor on that bill to lower school bond thresholds to 55%.

Rep. Monica Stonier, D-Vancouver, said she’s been working on getting the school bond threshold back down to 50% since she first took office. Although the simple majority would be her preference, Stonier signed on as a co-sponsor for Harris’ 55% pitch.

As a teacher, Stonier said she sees firsthand how important it is for districts to fund school construction projects.

“In Clark County, we have many schools that continuously fail to meet that (60%) threshold,” she said. “The Republican-sponsored compromise at 55% would greatly help a couple districts in my county who were just under the current threshold at 59%.”

Some Republicans this week spoke against the proposed lowered threshold.

Senate Minority Leader John Braun, R-Centralia, said he finds the current supermajority threshold reasonable for school bonds.

“We’re asking voters to pay for a school bond for 20 to 30 years,” Braun said. “It’s a long-term commitment. … The answer is not to change the standard. The answer is to build a better case for the voters.”

Today, 45% of school district bond elections are passing that 60% threshold, according to the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Had the threshold of passage been a simple majority in those elections, that passage rate would have jumped to 85%.

Ellen Dennis’ work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.