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Legislative Update


Over 25 education related bills that are dead for this session

Last week, the Legislature adjourned for the session (barring extraordinary circumstances), with the Senate voting on the last bills for the year on March 12th. The following bills were passed by one chamber but not the other. While they didn’t make it across the finish line this session, they will likely be back next session or in the future. See below to view the education related bills that failed to reach the governor’s desk in 2023-24. read more…

Redistricting 2024: state Assembly districts

With new state legislative maps getting signed into law and the end of the 2023-24 legislative floor session, lawmakers across the state are turning their eyes to the coming election season. New maps bring many changes, including possible changes to longstanding relationships you might have built with your state representatives. The WASB wants to ensure that school leaders have the resources they need to stay up to date on the changes coming to the Wisconsin State Legislature, and how your advocacy efforts could be affected.

Below we look at the districts up for reelection in Nov. 2024 and track what legislators have made announcements about whether they intend to seek reelection, retire, move to run in a different district or for another office, etc. This Fall will see the election of all 99 state Assembly districts. Assembly district maps 2022 and 2024 can be found and compared HERE. read more…

Redistricting 2024: state Senate districts

With new state legislative maps getting signed into law and the end of the 2023-24 legislative floor session, lawmakers across the state are turning their eyes to the coming election season. New maps bring many changes, including possible changes to longstanding relationships you might have built with your state Senators. The WASB wants to ensure that school leaders have the resources they need to stay up to date on the changes coming to the Wisconsin State Legislature, and how your advocacy efforts could be affected.

Below we look at the districts up for reelection in Nov. 2024 and track what legislators have made announcements about whether they intend to seek reelection, retire, move to run in a different district or for another office, etc. This Fall will see the election of half (even-numbered) of the 33 state Senate districts. Senate district maps for 2022 and 2024 can be found and compared HERE. read more…

WASBO/WSPRA: Video resource explaining public school funding is available for use by districts

Our public education partners at WASBO (Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials) and WSPRA (Wisconsin School Public Relations Association) have provided districts with the following message as the spring and fall election dates draw closer.
 
“With so many districts facing fiscal challenges including going or considering going to referendum in the next year, we created a short, animated video for general audiences that we hope will effectively communicate the way schools in Wisconsin are funded and the challenges they face. There’s a general video that is free for anyone to download and use to educate their stakeholders. For a relatively small cost, Captivate can customize the video for districts to communicate specific information about their funding situation, referendum, district branding, etc.

You can find information about both options at this link.

Please feel free to share this widely with anyone you think might benefit from it. We will be disseminating it to WASBO members and other partners and will make it available on our website.”

Senate meets today for last legislative action of 2023-24 session

The Wisconsin State Senate meets today (3/12) at 11am in floor session to take up a large calendar full of appointments, legislation and constitutional amendments. This is expected to be the last legislative action of the 2023-24 state legislative session. After today, any bills that have not passed through both houses of the legislature (in identical form) are not becoming law this session. This includes the following legislation related to K-12 education the WASB has been tracking (SB=Senate Bill/AB=Assembly Bill): read more…

JFC approves the 4 early literacy curricula recommended by council

The state Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance (JFC) has voted along party lines to select the early literacy curricula that will comprise the recommended list of curricula under 2023 Wisconsin Act 20, the law that revamped early reading requirements. See our previous blog post for more background. Democrats on the committee moved to approve the 11 curricula proposed by the DPI but were voted down. The GOP-supported motion approves only the four curricula selected by the Council on Early Literacy Curricula: Core Knowledge Language Arts K-3, Our EL Education Language Arts, Wit and Wisdom with Pk-3 Reading Curriculum, and Bookworms Reading and Writing K-3. As we stated previously, schools are not required to use one of these four recommendations, but there is an opportunity to have some of the cost reimbursed by the state if a school decides to choose one from the list. read more…

Action needed: DPI proposes changes to school start date to allow schools more flexibility

The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) recently proposed changes (Clearinghouse Rule CR 24-026) to the school start date rule that governs the issuance of start date waivers. The goal behind this is to provide clearer guidance and additional flexibility for school districts when applying for a waiver. The proposed rule provides more flexibility for school boards when seeking to adjust their school calendars to better meet the academic and local needs of their respective districts. Currently, school boards are significantly limited in requesting an exemption to the school start date.

The WASB strongly supports this proposed rule based on our WASB Resolution supporting local control of the school start date. While this does not get us all of the way back to school boards having the authority to set their own start date locally, boards would be granted greater flexibility in determining the start date for their district. PLEASE SUBMIT COMMENTS IN SUPPORT OF THIS RULE (information on how to do this is below). read more…

Senate Committee votes against passage of SB 378, relating to transgender athletes in school athletics.

From WisPolitics: “A Senate committee (The Senate Committee on Mental Health, Substance Abuse Prevention, Children and Families) today voted against recommending legislation that would bar transgender athletes from playing girls sports after GOP Sen. Joan Ballweg joined two Dems in opposing it.

AB 377/SB 378 can still advance to the Senate floor next week despite the 3-2 vote, via paper ballot, against the bill. GOP committee members Jesse James, R-Altoona, and Rachel Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, both voted for it.

The legislation, which passed the Assembly along party lines in October, would require public, choice and charter schools to designate their sports teams as either male, female or co-ed. Those who were identified as male on their birth certificates would be barred from playing on a team designated for females. read more…

Joint Finance Committee schedules meeting for Monday on reading curricula

The state Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance (JFC) has scheduled a meeting for Monday, March 11, 11:01am on what early literacy curricula will be approved under 2023 Wisconsin Act 20, the law that revamped early reading requirements. The DPI had recommended 11 curricula that it says meet Act 20 requirements after a council on early reading curricula (set up at the DPI by Act 20) recommended four. A member of the JFC objected to DPI’s recommendations triggering the committee meeting. See the background paper from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB), including the list of curricula, for the meeting here.

The DPI recommended three out of the four curricula recommended by the literacy council. The LFB paper included potential alternatives the committee could choose from including approving the 11 submitted by the DPI, the four approved by the council, the three that were approved by both, or outright deny the request. The JFC is not bound to select one of those alternatives, however. Whatever the outcome, schools are not required to use curricula from the finalized list of recommendations, but there is an opportunity to have some of the cost reimbursed by the state if a school decides to choose one from the list.

91 school district referendums on the April 2 ballot

When voters go to the polls for the April 2 Spring Election, in addition to the federal election primaries, and school board races, they will find 91 local school district referendums on the ballot in 85 districts.

Overall, 42 of those referendums will ask for temporary (or non-recurring) authority to increase the district’s revenue limit, while 19 will ask for permanent (or recurring) authority to increase the district’s revenue limit. In addition, there will 30 borrowing referendums on the ballot across the state. Borrowing referendums ask voters for approval to issue bonds for major construction, remodeling or maintenance projects for school facilities. read more…

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