Advocacy Tips
What to do when contacting your representatives:
1. Introduce yourself and your profession first and foremost.
The NASP materials linked on this page and more materials available to NASP members are a great tool to provide a lasting impact. Your representatives will read these things!
2. Indicate which specific legislation you are interested, if there is any.
Provide the bill number and if you are in favor or against this bill, then discuss why. If you have suggested modifications you can offer this as well.
3. Provide all pertinent information in writing.
These people are busy and meet with a lot of constituents. Providing them with easy to read documents to support your point is critical.
4. Remember, you are an expert!
Your representative may be an expert in their field, but you are in an expert in yours as well! Have confidence that they will listen to you, it is their job!
5. If writing a letter, keep it brief.
When contacting your representative in writing, keep is to a page if possible, and bullets can be preferred if appropriate to content.
Legislative History
2016 Washington State Legislative Session Information
This session was a “short session” preceding an election for most representatives in the house and senate. As such, there was an expectation by those who are active in advocacy at the state level that there would not be a lot of bills introduced, and the focus would be on the budget. This has turned out to be an error in judgement. Several bills pertaining to education were introduced. There are some who suggest many of these were only to appease voters to ensure re-election later in the year. We have no opinion on that particular assumption, however, there are some bills that are of interest to us as school psychologists. Below is a list of these bills with a short summary as well as a link to the bill. With each bill is a note regarding the position of each bill as of 2/21/2016. Bills are listed in order of priority for WSASP members, however it is notable that each bill is in a different level of the process to becoming a law, and action may be requested on items out of order. Members may always submit a public comment of their own by following the link and clicking on "Comment on this Bill" at the top right side of the page the link takes you to. Bill history from 2015 is also provided.
Bills from 2016 session
Bills from 2015 session: Important Updates
Bills from 2015 session
