Key Findings

1. SB 5563 would provide districts “stabilization” funding based on 2019 student enrollment counts.

2. Over 41,000 families have withdrawn their children from the public school system since 2019.

3. SB 5563 would provide about $500 million to districts for students who are no longer in the public system.

4. K-12 school funding is not unstable, and each year receives $17.5 billion in total state, federal and local funding, about $16,800 per student.

5. The COVID school shutdown has driven families out of the public schools, and destabilized the learning of students.

6. Seventy percent of Washington’s students failed the state math test in November 2021.

7. HB 1633, sponsored by Representative James Walsh, would give 100,000 families $10,000 to educate their children at a private school or in a homeschool.

8. Lawmakers should direct education funding to students, not to a system with declining enrollment.

Introduction

SB 5563 would provide so-called “stabilization” funding to school districts in Washington based not on the current need to educate students but on the pre-COVID level of “2019 enrollment numbers.” The bill would require the state to spend extra money on students who are no longer in the public system. Official numbers show over 41,000 families have withdrawn their children from the public schools since 2019.

SB 5563 has no fiscal note, and provides no hard spending figures, but state superintendent Chris Reykdal, says his office will seek a minimum of $500 million in extra funding for districts that are no longer educating students who have withdrawn from the schools.

Click here to read the full Legislative Memo.