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ADVOCACY ACTION REQUEST
WSASP will send this letter to members of the House Education Committee at NOON on 1/29/2026. We encourage you to click here to sign on as in agreement with this letter, and to share this with your colleagues who will be equally impacted by this legislation. We want to have a diverse group of educators representing all impacted professions if possible. Please do not send this via school district email addresses, as that is a gift of public funds, and is not allowable. Thank you for your advocacy efforts, your voice matters!
Dear Chair and Members of the Committee,
On behalf of the Washington State Association of School Psychologists (WSASP), thank you for the thoughtful discussion during the hearing on HB 2557. We sincerely appreciate the bill sponsor’s willingness to amend the language from requiring a final evaluation report to a draft evaluation report prior to the eligibility meeting. This change meaningfully reduces concerns related to predetermination and supports the collaborative intent of the special education process.
We share the Legislature’s commitment to strengthening meaningful parent participation, and we share that goal. At the same time, we would like to clearly outline why, even with this revision, HB 2557 is still viewed as effectively shortening Washington’s evaluation timelines.
Washington’s evaluation timelines are already fixed. Under current Washington Administrative Code:
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Initial special education evaluations must be completed within 35 school days (which translates to roughly about 49 calendar days) from receipt of parent consent. This is already among the shortest timelines in the nation, as many states operate under 45 school days or the federal baseline of 60 calendar days.
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Initial evaluations may be extended only if the parent agrees to the extension.
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Reevaluations cannot be extended under Washington law. They must be completed before the three-year due date and cannot be pushed or delayed, and districts are not permitted to delay them to accommodate additional advance-sharing requirements.
Why HB 2557 effectively reduces timelines
Although the bill does not formally change the 35-day requirement, the provision requiring a draft evaluation report five school days prior to the eligibility meeting functionally shortens the evaluation process.
In practice, this means:
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All testing, scoring, interpretation, team consultation, and report writing must be completed by the 30th day, earlier than currently required.
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Many teams are already scheduling evaluation meetings a week early, in case the meeting has to be rescheduled, in order to stay in compliance, so this is potentially shortening the actual time for gathering data and preparing for the meeting to 25 school days.
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For reevaluations, where timelines are legally immovable, this results in a compressed evaluation window of approximately 30 school days or fewer.
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This compression occurs without extending statutory timelines, creating compliance and quality concerns.
Additional implementation challenges
Special education evaluations are completed by multidisciplinary teams that may include school psychologists, speech-language pathologists, occupational and physical therapists, behavior analysts, school counselors, social workers, and others. Many of these professionals:
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serve multiple schools,
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carry heavy direct service caseloads,
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are evaluating 15-20 students at any given time,
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or work part-time with limited availability.
As a result, key components such as rating scales, observations, and related service reports are often completed close to the eligibility meeting date. E.g. If an OT only works 1 day/week in the district, she only has 5 school days to complete the evaluation and make eligibility decisions. And this is assuming the parent and teachers completed the needed rating scales on time for her.
These challenges are further compounded for multilingual families, where meaningful participation often requires interpretation services, translation of evaluation documents, and additional time for families to review complex information in their home language. While districts strive to provide language access, current staffing and funding limitations make consistent and timely quality interpretation support difficult statewide.
Requiring early draft sharing without addressing interpretation capacity risks creating inequitable participation rather than improving it.
When teams are required to send drafts five days in advance under these conditions, the likely outcome is:
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incomplete drafts being shared,
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addendums following meetings,
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confusion for families,
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increased documentation burden for staff, and
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delayed access to services for students.
Potential policy solutions/Suggested language
WSASP respectfully encourages consideration of amendments that preserve the bill’s intent without unintentionally reducing evaluation timelines:
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Extend the initial evaluation timeline when advance sharing is required (for example, from 35 to 40 school days).
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Explicitly exempt reevaluations from the five-day advance requirement.
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Include flexible language such as “when practicable” to account for case complexity and multidisciplinary timelines with the understanding that evaluation teams do prioritize parental participation and advocacy.
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Clarify that draft reports may reflect available data, including parent input, and that additional information may be incorporated following team review.
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Consider all consent forms to include the opportunity for parents to request a copy of the draft evaluation information up to 48 hours prior to meeting.
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Consider interpretation services being optional boxes on the consent form so they cannot be ignored and districts will be required to send drafts and eval reports in the requested language.
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Without parent request as outlined above, school evaluation teams will, when practicable given staffing allocated for the purpose of special education evaluations, provide a draft to parents 48 hours prior to the evaluation meeting.
WSASP appreciates the sponsor’s responsiveness and looks forward to continued collaboration to ensure HB 2557 strengthens family engagement while preserving ethical, legally sound, and equitable evaluation practices for students across Washington.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Respectfully,
Carrie Suchy, NCSP, Washington State Association of School Psychologists Government and Public Relations Committee Co-Chair
Kate Salveson, NCSP, Washington State Association of School Psychologists Government and Public Relations Committee Co-Chair
ABOUT ADVOCACY ACTION STEPS
Who: WSASP's Government and Public Relations (GPR) committee has been hard at work in Olympia, and now we need your vital contribution and active support!
What: Advocate for your self, your field, and kids! Contact your representatives TODAY about the below-mentioned important issues! Your representatives value your opinion as a constituent, and the more of us they hear from, the louder our collective voice!
When: The legislature is in session. As bills cycle through the process and move to a vote from the entire legislative body, we will alert you to action through our member email system. When the time is right for each bill, the Form Letter Link will be activated, and you will get an email reminder to take action!
Where: Thanks to NASP, you will only have to send the message once to get to all three representatives based on your home address, and we will be able to pull data about how many of us are taking action!
Why: With more letters of support and phone calls from all stakeholders and professionals in school psychology and allied fields, the legislators in the House and Senate will be informed and can realize the wide range of importance these issues represent. If we are not at the table, we are on the menu!
How: You can contact your legislators today. You can submit public comment via the legislative website (see directions below, via NASP, directly with an email address, or via Our Voice, through WEA (Click here for a step by step tutorial on how to use Our Voice to email your representatives). The GPR Committee will provide form letters as appropriate for each bill of interest to WSASP. When these letters are made available, you can use them exactly, add personal stories or comments, or write an original letter to submit to your legislators. Once your letter is ready, using NASP's Advocacy Action Center, you can send it to all your state representatives with one click. We ask that you send one letter for each bill, as this is how representatives prefer communication, and it keeps our message clear.
