It was another historic meeting this September as student member Pavan Venkatakrishnan was elected to the Board’s Executive Committee (it provides guidance on the Board’s agenda and oversight of the budget). The Executive Committee is now comprised of Mary Fertakis, Harium Martin-Morris, Pavan Venkatakrishnan, Bill Kallappa, and Kevin Wang (photo to the right). Pavan will be the first student member of this committee. The Board also received Government-to-Government training from special guests, Dr. Michael Smith (Rochester), Willie Frank III and Hanford McCloud (Nisqually Tribe), Bill Kallappa (SBE chair), Washington’s 2022 Teacher of the Year, Jerad Koepp (North Thurston), and Representative Debra Lekanoff (40th District).

The annual planning and a business meeting was held in Anacortes September 13-15. The business/action-item portion of the meeting was held on September 15 (watch on TVW). Topics included graduation requirements, legislative priorities and requests, basic education compliance, private school approvals, and more. 

Graduation Requirements Alignment – The Board reviewed a draft outline for the report about aligning graduation requirements with the Profile of a Graduate, They discussed refining draft recommendations, and reviewed initial feedback on draft recommendations. Members viewed preliminary findings of the third year of graduation pathway research. SBE staff will host additional listening sessions on this topic. Find more information about these at sbe.wa.gov/alignment.

2023 Legislative Priorities – Staff and Legislative Committee members presented potential platform priorities for consideration based on previous Board discussions. The Board further developed the priorities for potential inclusion on the platform, which will be finalized and adopted at the November 2022 Board meeting.

2023 Legislative Requests – The Board approved the legislative requests proposal presented by the Legislative Committee and staff. The request bill would add two options to the graduation pathways that a school district may offer: a performance-based option and a work-related option. It would also clarify the purpose of graduation pathways and establish ongoing data and monitoring requirements at the state and local levels. The budget request presented to the Board would add funding to the Mastery-based Learning Collaborative (established last session) to continue serving the first cohort of schools and add a second cohort. After the meeting, the Board will submit its legislative requests to the Governor’s Office for review.

Agency Budget, Fiscal Year 2023 – The Board adopted a $5.7 million budget, including $3.5 million for Mastery-based Learning Collaborative work. The budget also includes $263,000 in new funding for community engagement and $100,000 in new funding for school climate-related work. Find the adopted budget on SBE’s meetings page.

Basic Education Compliance – At the meeting, 117 school districts were certified for basic education compliance. According to the law, school districts must certify their basic education compliance (confirm they are offering the required educational programming) by no later than September 15. Learn more about basic education at sbe.wa.gov/basiced.

Private Schools Approvals – Seven schools were approved by the Board—four fully, and three provisionally. 

Approvals of Waivers of Credit-based Graduation Requirements – Two previously approved districts were approved for the renewal of their waivers for the 2022-23 to 2025-26 school years: Chelan School of Innovation in Lake Chelan School District and Quincy Innovation Academy in Quincy School District. Tulalip Heritage High School in Marysville School District No. 25 was approved for a new waiver of credit-based graduation requirements for the 2022-23 to 2025-26 school years. The rule authorizes the granting of a waiver by the Board that would enable students to earn a diploma by a demonstration of mastery in core required subject areas meeting state learning standards, in place of earning the credits required by Chapter 180-51 WAC (High school graduation requirements). See background information about the waiver and requests in the Memo and Addendum. 

Upcoming Board Meeting
The next meeting is scheduled for November 2-3, 2022, on Zoom. The agenda and materials will be posted one week in advance of the meeting on SBE’s meetings page.

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