Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction

There is a bigger conflict on Washington's eligibility, um, policies.

Federal officials have opened an investigation into Washington's Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

That happened back in April 25.

Their state superintendent, Chris Reykdal, defended the Washington protections.

There's nothing, uh, coming out of public education.

But at this point, you've got the Washington Education Association, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, uh, Chris Reykdal basically saying, "We don't want any part of this because some people might wanna send that money to, uh, to private schools and not public education, and it would take away from public education." But that's not a true statement at all because this program is completely and totally additive.

Doesn't touch any current funding from the state or federal or local levies that go to our K through 12 public schools.

This is simply in addition.

There's been all of these, uh, accusations of sexual misconduct, et cetera, that has led to this.

So at the same time, what would you do if you're the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction? What would you do if you're these school districts? You would say, "You guys, we gotta do something about this.

We got to prevent sex abuse allegations and actual incidents of child sex abuse", as if they should need another reason to do that, right? That should be the goal always to make sure that that doesn't happen, that staff and teachers aren't preying on students.

But if they couldn't do it for just the reason that you don't want it to happen in the first place, at least they could do it because their insurance rates are going up so much that they're having to lay off staff in order to cover the increase.

Meanwhile, enrollment has gone down.

Data from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction shows an over 4% drop in students enrolled statewide in recent years.

Officials say it's due to declining birth rates and parents choosing alternatives to public school since the pandemic.

And enrollment drives how much money districts get from their main funder, the state.

And then finally, we're seeing K through 12 education funding once again take its, uh, a spot in, in, in the, uh, in, in the spotlight.

Um, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, uh, announced that they're seeking an investment of $2 billion in K through 12 education.

$1.2 billion would be to maintain basic education and meet the state's constitutional requirement that, uh, the state has a paramount duty to fund education.

And eight hundred thousand of that request was to provide learning assistance to low-income families and transition to kindergarten, um, um, programs.