2021 Summer Institute

August 24

This year's Summer Institute will be held in a hybrid format. Join us in-person at SeaTac Marriott or remotely!

2021 Fall Conference

Oct. 21-23

The Historic Devenport Hotel + Online

Join us in-person or virtually. Check out here. Registration is available now.

Register

Advocacy Action Center

State Advocacy

Federal Advocacy

2021 Legislative Session Summary

Click here for a review of all legislation WSASP tracked this session as well as actions taken and the outcomes of each bill.

OSPI proposing changes to the Washington Administrative Code - Update 5/10/2021

In addition to legislation, GPR has been advocating for OSPI’s proposed changes to the WACs on the provision of special education. While many of the changes involved moving toward person-first language and aligning vocabulary used throughout, there were some substantial changes being proposed. GPR highlighted several positive additions and identified three changes that raised concerns. These were in reference to reducing the referral timeline to 15 school days, adding behavior services as related services without a definition, and requiring parents to use a district form to request an evaluation. To assist members, we drafted language school psychologists could choose to use in public comment, as well as recommended replacement language for the WACs.

These public comments were provided via NASP’s advocacy engine allowing members to send their comments to the appropriate staff at OSPI in less than 1 minute.

These comments can be reviewed here.

113 school psychologists engaged in this advocacy action.

Additionally, Carrie Suchy, NCSP, Co-Chair of GPR attended a live public comment session and provided testimony on these changes as well.

OSPI has recently opened public comment on a revision of the proposed changes and have addressed each point of concern raised by WSASP members, including keeping the referral timeline at 25 school days. It is expected that these rules will go into effect over the summer months, but that is not an official determination as of yet.

Information about this action can be found here.

2020 Fall "Postcard" Campaign

Thank you so much for participating in our virtual version of our annual postcard writing campaign where we send 500 handwritten postcards to our elected officials during the fall conference. You can click on the Postcard Campaign 2020 button below for all the information for this advocacy opportunity.

We count these contacts for our annual tracking of how many school psychologists contacted their elected representatives and officials (almost 5,000 last year including the postcard campaign!), so please complete this form when you send your letters this year!

Postcard Campaign 2020

Self-Advocacy Toolkit

Your Government and Public Relations (GPR) Committee has compiled our favorite and most effective tools to promote the role of school psychologist in our day-to-day work. The information will provide reminders for communication essentials, develop an advocacy message, and provide a framework for implementing change, no matter how big or small. Click here to access the Self-Advocacy Toolkit, and be sure to share your experiences with us at gpr@wsasp.org, or on social media using the hashtag #WSASPadvocatestoo!

Self-Advocacy

NASP Advocacy Action Week

NASP hosted an Advocacy Action Week from July 20-24th, focusing school psychologists across the country on federal advocacy for our students and our profession. Click here to learn more about it.

NASP Advocacy Action Week 2020

How are schools funded?

Information about the Washington Prototypical School Funding Model for School Psychologists

The OSPI Staffing Enrichment Workgroup is tasked with making recommendations for reducing educational opportunity gaps in Washington State. The group’s first directive was to make recommendations for the Prototypical School Funding Model. A report with recommendations was released during the fall, and was of concern to many WSASP members. Click here to access an article providing clarification and understanding about what the Prototypical School Funding Model is, how school psychologist roles are typically funded, and the advocacy work that WSASP is engaged in on this topic.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

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! Below are 8 bills we are tracking now. A brief summary is provided and each bill is linked, allowing you to review the contents of the actual bill.

When: The legislature is in session, but this will end in early March. 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.

Tips and Tricks

Click here for a description of how a bill becomes a law (it is not so direct of a process as we were taught in middle school...)
See the State Advocacy page for instructions on how to submit a public comment on these bills or any others of interest.
Click here for more resources on Advocacy.

Did you contact your representative(s)? Let us know!

We want to know how BIG our impact is!

Click here to tell us about the action you took.