Mercer Island School Board members pressed local legislators Sen. Steve Litzow and Rep. Tana Senn on a variety of education topics at a breakfast linkage session Tuesday, Nov. 17 at the Mercer Island School District admin building.

McCleary funding, the use of local levies, charter schools and pre-kindergarten early learning were among the issues presented by Mercer Island’s board of directors.

Regarding efforts on McCleary funding, Litzow said the going assumption among the Legislature is that state education is fully funded as it’s been defined, but there is still an over-reliance on local levies.

Senn acknowledged resolving the issue of what to do with local levies would take time. She said if the Legislature does nothing about levies this year, there have been talks of a potential one-year extension of the levy cliff to help schools with financial planning.

Both legislators expressed a desire not to take money away from districts and “raise all boats” for Washington school districts in fully funding education. Litzow touched on the senate bill 6130 that appeared to eliminate use of local levies. He said one of the big issues was how to account for, and separate, state and local spending among state school districts.

“The purpose of that bill was to draw as hard a line as possible between what was local and what was state,” Litzow said. “Obviously, it was too hard of a line, but there’s a huge concern of a lack of transparency in the 295 districts of what the money is being used for and how it’s being spent.”

When asked about regional pay adjustments for teachers in the state, Litzow said it’s been a big issue that the Legislature is looking into addressing.

The legislators discussed potentially adding technology to be included in basic education, though Litzow said the chances were slim of anything being added to basic education.

Though approved by voters, Litzow predicted Eyman Initiative 1366 would be thrown out by the court. Senn called the initiative “one of the ironies of Washington state,” noting voters approved both the 1 percent sales tax reduction from I-1366 and I-1351 calling for reduced class sizes, which would cost billions of dollars.

“You can’t reduce revenue and get more, and people want that,” she said.

One potential area for revenue could come from marijuana sales, though how much will actually be generated has yet to be determined.

“There’s anticipation of marijuana money coming in, and we’ll see if that materializes,” Senn said. “That is going to be one of the big issues in the next two to three years. If that money doesn’t materialize, we’ve made great strides in McCleary based on people smoking a lot of pot. If they don’t, then we’re going to have to really revisit that and what it’s going to be in the new revenue stream. We’re ironically counting on people to smoke a lot of marijuana in order to fund education and fund a lot of services that we didn’t cut because we were anticipating this.”

Senn added the state currently doesn’t tax e-cigarettes, which could also provide a potential revenue stream if they were equated with regular cigarettes. The legislators added there was talk in Olympia of potentially moving the smoking age to 19.

School Board members inquired why, in light of charter schools being deemed in violation of the state constitution, Litzow signed a letter to the Supreme Court calling for a review of its opinion. Board member Pat Braman said she was concerned that tax dollars were going to schools throughout the state without the oversight of an elected board, money that could otherwise be used for public schools.

Litzow said he is a big fan of charter schools as a part of an overall education system, calling them “part of the solution, not the solution.” He claimed charter schools had tighter financial controls than public schools, and said a bill was being drafted to meet court demands and address the charter schools initiative.

Superintendent Dr. Gary Plano asked the legislators where they were philosophically on pre-kindergarten early learning and the state’s responsibility of funding it for all children.

Litzow said he supported high-quality early learning, and Senn credited Litzow for his efforts toward ushering the passing of the Early Start Act. But with many school districts within the state lacking the space and financial resources for full-day kindergarten and the state staring at having to reduce K-3rd grade class sizes, the matter has yet to be addressed in Olympia.

“The Pre-K debate is so far off in terms of becoming a reality or a must have,” Senn said.

In response to an audience question asking if the legislators geared their funding and policies based on a basic mission for education, both Senn and Litzow expressed that the critical issues, such as reducing opportunity gaps within the state and seeing higher graduation rates, remained at the forefront of their minds.

“There is no silver bullet in education,” Litzow said. “Everybody has 1000 different ways to do it.”