House Bill 3026: Civil Rights Compliance Legislation
House Bill 3026 was introduced by Representative Santos to strengthen Washington State's Civil Rights protections for students with disabilities and those from diverse communities. This bill is designed to give the state power and authority to enforce local district compliance with existing state and federal civil rights laws for those individuals in protected classes and covers original and amended Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1975, Age Discrimination. A school district who remains out of compliance may be subject to sanctions, corrective actions and/or probation. Currently, OSPI has not been granted this legislated power.

Link to Bill: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=3026& year=2009

OSPI will adopt rules and guidelines to eliminate discrimination, will monitor district compliance and establish rules and guidelines for enforcement. OSPI will be granted the power to enforce and obtain compliance. This supplements current state and federal laws on the books.

This legislation will give OSPI the ability to correct on-going civil rights violations that are not being corrected by the local districts themselves. Current remedies for civil rights violations are through the individual complaints process with the Office of Civil Rights and do not address wide-spread, systemic or repeated violations that are seen across a school district.

Students, families, individuals and organizations involved with disabilities and/or diverse communities of color, bilingual, other national origin and other protected classes are strongly encouraged to participate in the public hearing.

Please take a few minutes today to call your Representatives and educate their staff on the Every Child Deserves a Family Act (H.R. 3827).

The "Every Child Deserves a Family Act (H.R. 3827)" would prohibit any entity that receive child welfare funds from denying or delaying a placement of a child into an adoptive or foster care home, based solely on the sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status of the prospective parent.

What you can do:

Use the attached House of Representatives phone list to find the number of your Representative. All numbers begin with a 202 area code.

Well, national adoption month has come to a close but it was a packed month filled with adoption finalizations, family educational programs and adoption fairs. For us here Families Like Ours it was also a celebration of FLO^? starting our 10th year! Yes I know, it was just as much a surprise to us too.

I would like to personally thank everyone that attend, donated, volunteers and sponsored our birthday bash at the Crowne Plaza in Seattle. We were able to share the evening with 92 friends and family, a very funny evening with Unexpected Productions, enjoy the musical sounds of Diverse Harmony and Evelyn Kalafus-Mastenbrook, and share in a bit of cake too!

For me personally, walking into the room and seeing everyone laughing, sharing and have a fun evening was wonderful. Below you'll see some photo blocks from our evenings photographers Daniel Stockman and Kelly Davis, simply click on the images or here to see the slide show.