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.

Public Hearing Tentatively scheduled for Friday, Jan. 29th, 2010 at 8 a.m. (Please check the bill link the day before to re- confirm the hearing date.) In the House Committee on Education

Interest in Providing Public Testimony or Questions If you are interested in attending the public testimony or have any questions, please contact Lynne Tucker at lynnetucker@ mac.com or call 206-708-6343. For those who are interested in testifying, we will try to coordinate ride-share and/or overnight accommodations in Olympia.

David
Executive Director
Families Like Ours,Inc.
GSBA Nonprofit of the year