WA State Bill 1296 states schools can wait 48 hours before informing parents of sexual assault

If This Ain't Your Tipping Point Washington, I Don't Know What Is

Washington Gun Law

Feb 1, 2025

Can you imagine living in a State where your elected representatives are willing to go on the record to protect pedophiles instead of your children in the public education setting. Washington Gun Law President, William Kirk, discusses how that is the exact state of the Progressive movement in Washington State today as every single member of the House Education Committee with a "D" next to their name has voted down an amendment that would have required school districts to immediately notify parents if their children are suspected of being victimized by the pedophile that has, of course, been employed by the school district. If I didn't have the receipts to show you, none of you would believe me. So learn more today and arm yourself with education.

Read the bill here. https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bills/House%20Bills/1296-S.pdf?q=20250201112646

Read the bill summary here. https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2025-26/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/House/1296%20HBA%20ED%2025.pdf?q=20250201112646

Read the rejected amendment here. https://app.leg.wa.gov/committeeschedules/Home/Document/277054#toolbar=0&navpanes=0

Read the Tacoma News Tribune Article here. https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/education/article296902579.html#storylink=cpy

Read the Article on Washington's failing school system here. https://x.com/thehoffather/status/188535661287095550

>>22566735

[excerpt]

=$51M in payouts: Are Pierce County schools doing enough to protect kids from sex abuse?January 01, 2025

Pierce County schools pay annually for liability and property coverage from one of two risk management pools in Washington state.'''

Nearly $52 million has been paid out to resolve sex-abuse allegations in Pierce County school districts over a decade, much of it in the past four years, a News Tribune analysis has found.

Ten districts either agreed to or were ordered to pay a total of at least $51.8 million, stemming largely from lawsuits filed against them between 2013 and 2023, according to court records and attorneys who represented plaintiffs in those matters. The amount derives from settlements and jury verdicts involving cases that described alleged events spanning from the mid-1970s to 2022.

Allegations have been lodged against adults, such as coaches and teachers, as well as peers. Student-athletes accused an ex-volunteer wrestling coach of fondling and masturbating them in the mid-2000s. A teacher denied sliding his hand underneath a teen’s skirt and squeezing her inner thigh in 2018. A 17-year-old girl with a disability was purportedly coaxed into a bathroom by a fellow student and assaulted in 2020.

As sex-abuse litigation adds up, the cases have proven costly to resolve for school districts weighing the financial risks of proceeding to trial, even though districts generally aren’t paying outright because they are covered by insurance. School administrators insist that their top priority is the well-being of students, yet plaintiffs’ attorneys say they have found too often that schools fall short. Meanwhile, students and their families feel the toll.

“For the longest time I just kind of felt like nothing would ever happen. It was just this horrible thing that happened to me and I was like, ‘OK, push on through this, try to forget that it happened,’” a former University Place School District student, whose case against an ex-coach settled for $9.5 million in May of last year, told The News Tribune at the time.

The tally of tracked payouts includes at least some claims resolved prior to a lawsuit being filed but doesn’t account for certain fees or districts’ legal defense costs, which can range from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands of dollars per claim, spending data shows.

Most of the associated court cases, 35 of 46 reviewed by The News Tribune, involved events purported to have occurred in 2010 or later. Nine were related to allegations stemming from 2020 and afterward.

Many of the payouts have been recent: Settlements or jury verdicts reached since 2020 accounted for $37 million, according to The News Tribune’s analysis.

Five districts that responded to The News Tribune’s request for comment assured they take allegations seriously, focus immediately on student safety, investigate claims and have policies and procedures in place to prevent and address wrongdoing, including regular training regarding sexual abuse and harassment.

https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/education/article296902579.html#storylink=cpy

>>22566735, >>22566760

71% of Washington State’s eighth graders are not proficient in math and 69 percent are not proficient in reading

71 percent of Washington State’s eighth graders aren’t proficient in math and 69 percent aren’t proficient in reading, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as the Nation’s Report Card. This is despite record spending.

The assessment is administered every two years and measures national and state student achievement in math and reading in fourth and eighth grades.

According to the latest results released Wednesday, 71 percent of 8th-grade students in the Evergreen State were not proficient in math compared to 58 percent in 2013. 69 percent of Washington’s eighth graders weren’t proficient in reading compared to 58 percent in 2013.

Scores have been declining since 2017, even though school districts and teachers' unions have attempted to put the majority of the blame on the school shutdowns in response to the 2020 COVID pandemic. Ironically those same entities were the ones who insisted on the closures despite the virus posing almost no risk to children.

From 2013 and 2024, the amount of students in Washington performing below the basic NAEP level of proficiency in math spiked by 20 percent, even exceeding the national rate, and the percentage of eighth graders performing at or above the NAEP proficiency level dropped 12 points, while the national rate of decline for this group was 7 points.

The 4th grade average math scores dropped eight points since 2013 as the national average dropped four points during the same time period.

The latest NAEP results also show a decline in literacy at the state and national levels.

According to the results released Wednesday, 69 percent of Washington eighth graders were not proficient in reading compared to 58 percent in 2013.

The average reading score for Washington’s fourth-graders dropped 9 points, over the past decade. The national averages dropped 7 points for eighth graders and 9 points for fourth graders.

As scores declined over the past decade, state and federal spending on education continued to skyrocket as spending on the education of Washington students doubled

to approximately $20,300 per student, one of the highest per pupil amounts in the US.

Yet, Washington’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal, who has been in office during the entire decline, believes the solution is to throw more money at the problem. He said in a statement

following the abysmal scores, “This legislative session, I put forward funding proposals to make gains in multiple critical areas. Our schools are doing the best they can to battle the effects of inflation while maintaining high-quality programming and services for students, but we can’t expect them to hold the line year after year with no relief in sight. There is no question that state funding in public education has not kept pace with the real costs of providing services, and my proposals aim to close those gaps.”

Washington has already squandered $3 billion in federal pandemic relief funds sent to Washington for academic recovery with nothing to show for it. Now the Democratic-controlled state legislature is gearing up to blow even more money while not addressing the problem that have led to failing grades and a massive student exodus.

Despite his decade of failure, The Seattle Times endorsed Reykdal

in his recent re-election campaign. The outlet wrote at the time, “Reykdal’s experience, political acumen, and energy to make the case for increased school funding are strengths that should enable him to turn things around,” despite providing no evidence to make the case. Additionally, the endorsement went on to list his areas of failure, claiming he was “learning from the past and moving forward stronger.”

State Rep Travis Couture said in response to the disastrous results, "NAEP report card on education outcomes came out. WA continues to have some of the most abysmal scores in reading and math in roughly 3 decades. OSPI and Dems are failing our kids. Instead of fixing academics, they/them plan to make it better by erasing parent’s rights tomorrow."

https://x.com/thehoffather/status/1885356612870955504