State lawmakers discuss bill that could shift instructional hours in public schools

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Debate continued Thursday on Senate Bill 5054 that has the potential to impact more than one million students in public schools across Washington. 

The bill proposes modifying the definition of instructional hours. The idea is to use up to four hours per week of instructional hours to engage kids in educational activities separate from standard curriculum. This would be under the supervision of non-certificated staff, while teachers participate in Professional Learning Communities.

"This is a group of teachers who get together during the course of the school day to talk about the programs, the children, what is going on and how they can be of better use to their students," said State Senator Lisa Wellman, representing the 41st Legislative District. "Children need to have that experience with various things. That’s why we really like encouraging mastery based—so it’s auditory, visual and experiential."

Wellman is sponsoring the bill. She said the goal of this proposal is to give teachers more time to learn about their students on a personal level and find solutions to improve their academic experience.

"The teacher has to know each and every child and as that child moves around from class to class they only see one aspect of that child. And by getting together they may find out, ‘So-and-so has been having a little bit of a problem here, how do you handle it? How can we help make things better for this child support them better, teach them better,'" said Wellman. 

The state senator said the hours spent on educational activities would be up for the schools and districts to decide. She said it should be used as an opportunity to tap into experiential learning.

"Maybe they decide that they go outside for nature learning, and they go and they collect plants and they collect stones, and they have to identify them. They could be doing any kind of a project," said Wellman. "A teacher could be off in a corner with a small group of children in the same classroom, not part of a process learning community, but with a group of students while other students are working on projects."

Not everyone thinks the change to instructional time is a good use of time.

"It's a reduction in quality of the education that children would be receiving by changing the definition of instruction time," said Liv Finne, director of Washington Policy Center. "To see a bill like this come out of Washington State Legislature is just a disservice to the people of Washington state and to their children."

Finne said instructional hours should be used for just that, instruction.

"It’s ironic the fact that the state tests show that 62 percent of students are failing the state math test, 49 percent are failing the state English test and on the heels of COVID when students were hurt so badly. To see bills like this reducing instruction time when clearly what’s needed is students need more instruction time to catch up from the pandemic learning loss," said Finne.

Finne said research from institutions including Harvard, Stanford and Georgetown indicate the learning loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic is more severe than people may realize.

"Losing out on nearly two years of instruction has taken away the groundwork that students need to succeed ahead," said Finne. "And economists are projecting that students will lose significant lifetime earnings, that there will be a drop to our gross national product, gross domestic product. And so this is a real emergency."

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Senate Bill 5054 does not require any money. The proposal will go back to the Floor next week to determine if it moves forward.