OSPI NEWS RELEASE: Reykdal Asks Public to Help Develop K-12 Education Budget

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State Superintendent Chris Reykdal


Reykdal Asks Public to Help Develop K-12 Education Budget

Washingtonians will now have a chance to influence OSPI’s budget requests to the governor and legislature.

OLYMPIA — April 25, 2018 — Today, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) released a survey that asks the public to determine how important they find additional public K-12 education investments.

“This will be OSPI’s first biennial budget request since I took office,” said Chris Reykdal, Superintendent of Public Instruction. “It’s important to me that it is created with input from educators, families, students, and community members across the state.”

“Even as the Legislature has added new resources to shore up ‘basic’ education, we are still a state that invests less in our schools than the national average,” Reykdal continued. “We must do better! Future investments need to increase student achievement, and we want Washingtonians to help shape that future.”

The survey asks participants to decide how important they find things like student support services such as counseling and mental health, family engagement and outreach, school safety enhancements, programs that specifically address racial disparities in learning and discipline, and more.

“The Legislature worked hard on solving the McCleary math problem,” Reykdal said. “Now it’s time to build a budget we can take to Governor Inslee and the Legislature that transforms our system to better reflect the innovations that will be necessary to close opportunity gaps, increase graduation rates, and move more students to post-secondary training and career development.”

“It’s time to focus on the additional investments that ensure our public schools are among the best in the nation,” he continued. ”We are in a global competition and it will take additional investments by our Legislature to redesign our system to better support our students and our educators.”

The survey will remain open until Friday, June 8 and is available in 10 languages. Reykdal plans to release a second survey in mid-summer that will provide Washingtonians an opportunity to prioritize budget request items that emerge from this survey.

For more information

 


Contact

Nathan Olson
OSPI Communications Director
360-725-6015

About OSPI

The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is the primary agency charged with overseeing K–12 education in Washington state. Led by State Superintendent Chris Reykdal, OSPI works with the state's 295 school districts and nine educational service districts to administer basic education programs and implement education reform on behalf of more than one million public school students.

OSPI provides equal access to all programs and services without discrimination based on sex, race, creed, religion, color, national origin, age, honorably discharged veteran or military status, sexual orientation, gender expression or identity, the presence of any sensory, mental, or physical disability, or the use of a trained dog guide or service animal by a person with a disability.

Questions and complaints of alleged discrimination should be directed to the Equity and Civil Rights Director at 360-725-6162 or P.O. Box 47200, Olympia, WA 98504-7200.