Let the Legislators Know TODAY

The next couple of days are very important to get bills out of committee in the State Legislature.  If you believe charters would be wrong for our state, please contact the following members of the Legislature:

Hotline number - 800-562-6000 to leave a message for any legislator or committee

House Education Committee:
House Bill 2428

santos.sharontomiko@leg.wa.gov;  She is the Chair and could be the most valuable to contact.
kristine.lytton@leg.wa.gov;
fred.finn@leg.wa.gov;
andy.billig@leg.wa.gov;
sam.hunt@leg.wa.gov;
connie.ladenburg@leg.wa.gov;
maxwell.marcie@leg.wa.gov;
john.mccoy@leg.wa.gov;
probst.tim@leg.wa.gov
bruce.dammeier@leg.wa.gov
glenn.anderson@leg.wa.gov
cathy.dahlquist@leg.wa.gov
john.ahern@leg.wa.gov
susan.fagan@leg.wa.gov
mark.hargrove@leg.wa.gov
brad.klippert@leg.wa.gov
kevin.parker@leg.wa.gov
jt.wilcox@leg.wa.gov

Senate Committee:
Senate bill 6202

Chair
Rosemary.McAuliffe@leg.wa.gov;
Vice Chair
Christine.Rolfes@leg.wa.gov;
Committee Members
Steve.Litzow@leg.wa.gov;
Tracey.Eide@leg.wa.gov;
joe.fain@leg.wa.gov;
Nick.Harper@leg.wa.gov;
andy.hill@leg.wa.gov;
Steve.Hobbs@leg.wa.gov;
king.curtis@leg.wa.gov;
sharon.nelson@leg.wa.gov;
Rodney.Tom@leg.wa.gov

What should you say?  Here are some suggestions:

- The Legislature has been cutting K-12 funding the last few years.  The state Supreme Court just ruled that the State is not fully funding our existing schools.  How is bringing on-line more underfunded schools going to help?
- Where is the money (roughly $10-15M) to support this bill going to come from if you are cutting programs and there are no additional revenues coming in?
- This bill is really three bills in one - a charter bill, a "transformation zone" school bill and a parent trigger bill.  Let them know that initiatives and referendums can't have multiple topics and neither should legislative bills.

This bill (among other things):

• will cost school districts money.  If a school loses students, they will lose teachers as well as money for other staffing positions like librarians, counselors and nurses
• the bill does NOT provide enough measures to make sure that the majority of charter schools would be of the best quality to serve educationally disadvantaged students
• the "parent trigger" portion of this bill is not strict enough.  In California, it takes a majority of parents AND teachers to convert an existing public school to a charter.  This measure only takes a majority of either group.
  
  • This legislation does NOT provide for background checks and child abuse registry checks for charter school board members.
• Allowing for-profit companies to run/manage public schools is a bad idea.   
• There is no clause for a trigger for review of a charter school if it drops below a certain number of students.  Most charter laws do have a limit somewhere around 100 students. 
• It creates more administration at the state level.  That's money that is NOT going into classrooms.  
• The bill allows for several types of authorizers but those authrorizers can then contract out their responsibilities to other employees or contractors.   With this system, how does the public know who read and reviewed any charter proposal? 
• There is virtually no mention of parental involvement in this bill.  There is no requirement for parents to be part of the process whether it is parents in a neighborhood where a school is to be located OR for parents whose child attend the school.
• In talking about providing a plan for educationally disadvantaged students, the bill mentions, “student discipline for Special Education students.”  Why are these students are called out specifically for discipline issues?
  
  Charters have the right of first refusal to purchase/lease at or below fair market value, a closed facility or property OR unused portions of a public school facility or property if the district decides to sell or lease the facility or property.  This means district-owned buildings would pass out of the hands of the district.