Big 3 Final Briefing - Paramount Duty Deferred

Rainy Day Recess, Episode 36

May 6, 2025

See our Show Notes

Christie Robertson: Welcome to Rainy Day Recess, a podcast about Seattle public schools and the forces that impact the district out in the world. I'm Christie Robertson.

Megan Larkin: And I am Megan Larkin. This is our last episode of the session for the “Big 3 Briefing” series, tracking the Washington State Legislature through the 2025 legislative session. 

Christie Robertson: Let's lay out the throughline for this episode.

Megan Larkin: Yes. First of all, we hope to come back later to talk to you about where we go from here, but we decided to focus this episode on giving you all the low down on where things landed at the end of the legislative session.

Christie Robertson: Yeah. So the 2025 Washington State legislative session is officially over. Sunday, April 27th was what they call “Sine Die”. And I looked it up, and it literally means “without a day”. Which I think means that there's no other days in the legislative session?

Megan Larkin: Yeah, they are out of session indefinitely, because they may get called back at any moment. Which I suppose, given how chaotic the general landscape is out in the world right now, that's always on the table.

Christie Robertson: Yep. But for now, everybody has gone home and is taking a break before they start all of their interim planning.

Megan Larkin: Yes. Oh gosh. This was painful, intense, and just incredibly tough session. I spoke with a legislator who was like, this is maybe like the toughest in history that he's ever seen. So yeah, this was a very challenging environment.

Christie Robertson: So Megan, I've been hearing from listeners saying, “okay, we've been following and just, so what happened? What happened in the end?” So that's what we are hoping to cover in this episode.

Megan Larkin: Yes, and I suppose the good caveat to add to that is: there's still, as we're recording this, a pile of bills that are sitting on the governor's desk awaiting signature. And those bills include the budget. So until the governor has signed it and this stuff has been implemented, the session could still have some twists and turns. 

Christie Robertson: And our special ed and our MSOC bills are still unsigned.

Megan Larkin: They are, but from everything that I've been hearing, they're going to be signed. Like 5263, our beloved Senate special education bills sponsored by Jamie Pedersen and John Braun – we're all expecting that to be signed and to become law.

Christie Robertson: And 5192 is also on the governor's desk. And the governor also has line-item veto, and we're not expecting anything unexpected there. Right? 

Megan Larkin: No. Though this session has been wild – new legislators, new governor, crazy environment, so I hesitate to say anything for sure.

Overview

Christie Robertson: Okay, so our plan today is to start with an overview of education funding and then dig into the details. And the overview is that our legislature failed to meet its constitutional duty.

Megan Larkin: Yes. In the specific language of our state constitution, “it is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing within its borders without distinction or preference on account of race, color, caste, or sex.”

Christie Robertson: And according to various online dictionaries, I looked at, paramount means "more important than anything else; supreme."

Megan Larkin: Yes. The legislature failed to meet its constitutional duty to fund special education.

Christie Robertson: Yep. Special education comprises the services that disabled kids require to access their basic education. And school districts are required by law to provide these services.

All put together, districts were underwater on special education by $559 million for the year. Seattle itself is behind by more than $113 million versus its state allocation. And those numbers come from the Association of Educational Service Districts tool that we have mentioned various times before, and we will link to in the show notes.

Megan Larkin: Backing all of this up with data is a big part of our advocacy, so that's why we are using numbers and we're linking you to these tools, because it's really important to be able to show just how underwater a lot of our districts are.

Christie Robertson: Yeah. So, in total, for the state, $559 million underwater for special education. And what did they fund, Megan?

Megan Larkin: The state provided $309.6 million in new money for special education for the next biennium, or approximately $155 million a year. It's closer than in any of the other Big 3 areas and a little more than we expected when 5263 got voted out of the house. But it's still not a whole lot. As we mentioned, it is the paramount duty of the state to amply fund basic education. This includes special education. And instead they have provided funding for roughly a quarter of the funding gap that exists. It's the state's job to fill that entire gap.

Christie Robertson: Yep. And they failed to do that for special education. 

The legislature also failed to meet their constitutional duty to fund MSOC – what we call “keep the lights on” money – materials, supplies, and operating costs. That includes things like insurance and utilities, that there's very little, if any, wiggle room for districts to spend on.

Megan Larkin: Yes. Statewide, districts are short around $614 million on MSOC, just for last year. Seattle is short about $13 million for MSOC. That's just for last year.

Christie Robertson: Altogether, the state increase to MSOC spending ended up at $78.9 million, again over the biennium. So half of that for this coming year... So the state has pledged to cover about 6.5% of the gap that districts are facing in MSOC. And, for a lot of districts, that money won't even cover the increases to their insurance premiums, which have skyrocketed in recent years.

Megan Larkin: Yes.

Christie Robertson: And what about transportation, Megan? What percent of the $89.6 million statewide transportation gap was filled by the legislature?

Megan Larkin: That is 0%. 

Christie Robertson: Oh yeah. Zero. 

Megan Larkin: 0% of that gap was filled either by a new bill with policy or by budget provisos. Nothing new for transportation, unfortunately.

Christie Robertson: Oftentimes legislators will try to get advocates off their backs by saying, “oh, we'll do a budget proviso”. And that was teased throughout the session for transportation. It did not come to fruition.

Megan Larkin: It did not. And that's notable because in previous years where that transportation gap still existed, we at least got a budget proviso for special passengers. But I don't believe that's the case this year. 

Christie Robertson: Okay, so let's sum it all up.

Megan Larkin: So about a quarter of the special ed funding gap is met, maybe 6 or 7% of the MSOC gap is covered, and then 0% of the transportation gap. 

Christie Robertson: So all told the state has allocated about $388.5 million towards the Big 3 funding gap for the biennium. 

Megan Larkin: And that gap itself is conservatively estimated at $2.26 billion. 

Christie Robertson: So we're like throwing $300 million at a $2 billion problem is maybe a good high level way to think about it.

And you might say, "Oh, well, but this is a budget deficit year." But the truth is that the legislature actually increased their total spending this year. And the increase to K-12 was less than the increase in other areas. And so the percentage of the operating budget spent on education actually went down by 0.2 percentage points. It was 43.4%, and now it's 43.2%.

Megan Larkin: Yes. So because the size of the budget itself went up, it looks like K-12 spending went up a lot, but it didn't. A lot of that is maintenance spending; very little of that is new money. 

Posturing

Megan Larkin: That leads us into a conversation about posturing. It's very important that we do not let our legislators take a victory lap. Which is a tricky line to walk, right? Because we don't want to say that nothing was accomplished or invalidate anybody's hard work. And also, we can't let legislators say things like, "We made a significant investment in education". Because A, that's not true, but B, if people start believing that, it becomes even more difficult to get that money next session. So – no victory laps.

Christie Robertson: Yep. And no victory laps for Governor Ferguson. Starting with his inaugural address, he's emphasized that we have to increase the percentage of our budget devoted to K-12 education. But then between his inaugural address and the end of session, Ferguson did not jump into the K-12 discussion at all. He kind of ignored K-12. And then he stated on April 27th that the budgets adopted by the legislature “accomplish those goals.” No. 43.4% to 43.2% is not an increase.

Megan Larkin: Yeah. He also stated that K-12 should be 50% of the budget at one point. And I feel confident that it's not that.

Here's what the Big 3 Coalition has to say about what happened in the 2025 Washington legislative session. In a letter, which was actually penned by Washington State PTA's lobbyist Marie Sullivan and dated April 23rd (we’ll link it in the show notes), they had some really powerful thoughts to share. and I will read some of them:

"On behalf of our membership organizations and members from across the state, we are expressing our disappointment and frustration with what looks like the legislature's lack of significant investments in your public schools and the state's 1.1 million students this session. ...

This year, the education community came together, united behind the Big 3 – MSOC, special education and transportation. These are not new investments, but are the foundational costs to running schools and supporting our students with disabilities. The session began with strong bills and historic investments in both chambers on the Big 3, and as the months ticked by, we saw those efforts narrowed and the dollars invested become less and less. ...

We know you are exhausted. This has been one of the hardest sessions in history, but this will not be the year to declare victory. It is not the year to promote historic investments in K-12 education funding in your newsletters back home while your districts are determining which additional cuts they will make without the basic education dollars they were counting on. ...

As you close the books on this painful legislative session, know that we will be back with the expectation that the legislature will embrace and fulfill its paramount duty to amply and adequately fund public schools. We stand ready to work with you to ensure that every student has the tools, services, and support to thrive and that our school districts achieve financial stability."

And, for clarity, the "we" in this letter is the Big 3 coalition.

Christie Robertson: And the Big 3 coalition is really kind of an historic advocacy achievement. And you said it's taken a couple years to pull together, right?

Megan Larkin: Yeah. The education advocacy community tends to be kind of disparate because we're big. We've got a lot of busy people. So, there's WSSDA, which is the school board directors, WASA, the administrators, Washington State PTA, which is largely parents and school communities, the Association of Washington Principals, the Association of the Educational Service Districts, and even more folks. Everybody has their own priorities, and it's very easy to pick people off and pit them against each other. And traditionally, that's what's happened a lot with education advocacy. 

So I was so excited to hear that all of the various legislative consultants got together and hatched this plan to form this Big 3 coalition. And they're serious about it. I think they even have bracelets. So, yeah, this was a big deal. Because message discipline is a huge factor in making progress advocacy-wise.

Christie Robertson: Yeah, so Megan and I have been discussing this a lot, and we have some thinking to do, as does everybody. This coalition was a historic achievement. The grassroots organizing this year was monumental. We did achieve message unity. We had legislators who knew what MSOC was. They all knew what the Big 3 was. So what gives?

Megan Larkin: Yeah. I mean, that is an excellent question and we are going to save that for another episode, after we all take long naps and get some emotional distance from this. But we would love to hear your thoughts as we ponder. 

Christie Robertson: ...at big3@rainydayrecess.org.

The Nitty Gritty

Christie Robertson: So now we're going to dive into the details for those who have been following all along and want to know about specifically what happened with special education, MSOC, and Transportation, and some of the other bills we've talked about. If you don't want to hear the nitty gritty, you can tune out now.

Megan Larkin: It's about to get nitty gritty in here.

Christie Robertson: It's about to get nitty gritty. 

Special Ed - The Cap

Christie Robertson: Okay. What happened in special education? 

The cap. So probably among the best news of this session was the removal of the special education cap. That is the limit on the number of disabled kids that the state will fund to get their basic education. That cap started out around like 12.5%, and it's inched up over the years. This year it is 16%. And more and more energy has built around the effort to remove the cap, and more and more messaging about how completely offensive and ridiculous it is to have that cap.

Megan Larkin: Yeah. Because it is; it's ridiculously offensive

Christie Robertson: It went back and forth for a while, but we finally got everybody to agree. And it's there! The cap removal is in the budget.

Megan Larkin: Yes. I think this is something that everybody in the education advocacy community should take a minute to feel really good about. It's more of a moral victory than a financial one. I think scrapping the cap generates about $81 million statewide in new funding over the biennium. But it's still a really important victory, and I really don't think that this would've happened without all of our advocacy efforts. It took a lot of people working together for a lot of years to do this, and that work has finally paid off, and, you know, congratulations. Everyone should be feeling good about the cap getting removed.

Christie Robertson: Also a huge thanks to representative Gerry Pollet from the 46th LD, who has championed this concept for years.

Megan Larkin: Yes, and a huge thank you to Jamie Pedersen from the 43rd and John Braun, who is the Senate minority leader out of Centralia. They were the prime sponsors of 5263 and have been pushing this and K-12 in general being a priority in the Senate. So a big shout out to Pollet, Pedersen, and Braun. We see you. Please keep being strong education advocates. We appreciate it.

Christie Robertson: So the cap removal is a great civil rights win. And it will increase funding to some districts depending on how many kids getting special ed services they have. 

But the biggest issue with funding in our state is not actually the cap. I actually looked up the Seattle numbers, and as of the last monthly budget report attached to the school board meeting for April, there were 568 students out of 8,479 that were above the 16% cap. 

Megan Larkin: Which is amazing. It is mind boggling to me that we had this piece of policy in place that we're like, "cool, there's 8,479 disabled students that need funding, but we're just not going to fund 568 of them because there's too many disabled students." That is wild that that was something that we did. So super happy that's gone. 

Christie Robertson: Yep. So 568 additional Seattle Public Schools students will be funded next year, to the same inadequate level as the rest of the students getting services.

Special Ed - Multiplier

Monetarily speaking, what we want to look at is the underfunding per student, and that's called the multiplier.

Megan Larkin: The multiplier did go up. So that's good.

Christie Robertson: Right now the multiplier is 1.12x if you're more than 80% in the gen ed classroom and 1.06 if you're less than 80% in the gen ed classroom.

Megan Larkin: Yep. The original Senate bill had raised the multiplier all the way up to 1.5289x. That's the original Pedersen/Braun bill. But it just kept getting chipped away and chipped away and chipped away. And in the end, the multiplier landed at 1.16x across the board. There's not that bifurcation anymore.

Christie Robertson: Yes, it's also static across, I think, preschool and pre-K. There had been so many different numbers, and I think they're trying to bring them all into one multiplier.

Megan Larkin: All right.

Christie Robertson: So now we have 1.16x as opposed to the 1.12x or 1.06x. So it's better. And that marginal increase is the main source of the funding increase.

Special Ed - Safety Net

Megan Larkin: Yes. The third area that provides a significant funding increase is the safety net – funding provided for students whose costs are significantly above average.

Christie Robertson: So the safety net currently kicks in if costs are 2.0x for small districts and 2.2x for large districts. This threshold is being lowered to 1.8x and 2.0x.

Megan Larkin: All right. Additionally, it was agreed that in certain circumstances, the payments will be made quarterly, which will be a big help for some districts because the payments are reimbursements for funds already spent.

Special ed - $$

Christie Robertson: Okay. So those are the three areas of this budget that bring in the most additional money to districts – the multiplier, the removal of the cap, and the lowering of the threshold for the safety net funds.

Megan Larkin: Yes.

Christie Robertson: And let's break down how much came from each of these three pieces. So 

* $309.6 million in new funds allocated by the state legislature towards special education over the biennium. 

* $193 million of that money came from the increase of the multiplier. 

* Eliminating the cap is sending the district's $81.7 million over the biennium and 

* lowering the threshold for safety net results in an additional $35 million over the biennium. 

* And another thing we didn't mention yet that came from a separate bill is that $12.4 million is being appropriated to provide special education services to students through the end of the year when they turn 22.

Megan Larkin: Yes, and just as a friendly reminder, so this is the new money. This isn't, like, all of what is spent. So it's, like, the maintenance level of what we have now, and then this is added to the top for the next biennium.

Christie Robertson: Yeah. We've been talking, all these numbers are about filling-the-gap money. 

Special Ed - other

Christie Robertson: So now we'll just talk about some of the other features that did end up in the final special ed bill. 

One is this big new concept that gives the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, OSPI, a “set-aside” from special ed funds. So first of all, OSPI is kind of like the statewide central office. They distribute money to schools, they collect data, they manage projects. This set aside that the legislature has invented is a way for the legislature to give OSPI money without having to spend more money themselves. What this does is it takes 0.6% of funding that would go to districts for special education and sends it to OSPI. And that's actually a good thing because it gives OSPI money to do things like reducing restraint and eliminating isolation or helping schools do inclusion. But just to be clear, it is coming out of districts' special education allocations. 

Megan Larkin: All right. What is the “carve out”? What has happened with that?

Christie Robertson: The carve out has been there a long time and I think very few people understand it. It's just another trick for the legislature to send less money to districts, as far as I can tell. It basically means that the first 25% of the money going to districts for special ed is just shifted from their general ed allocation. 

There was a really important fix though. Because of the way that it had been structured, there was actually an incentive to districts to do less inclusion. They fixed that.

Megan Larkin: All right. In addition, the legislature is providing direct funds for grants to a handful of schools to get a higher special ed multiplier to do inclusionary practices. So they would get 1.5x instead of 1.16x if they're doing these inclusionary practices. Just for a handful of schools with these... or districts with these pilot programs.

Christie Robertson: Nope, schools.

Megan Larkin: Oh, 20 schools.

Christie Robertson: Yeah.

Megan Larkin: Wow.

Christie Robertson: It's very small.

Megan Larkin: Yeah.

Christie Robertson: Also really importantly, something that I was definitely keeping my eye on is the statewide IEP. OSPI is told to (from those funds that were set aside) to develop a statewide IEP system. And I think this is going to make it much easier to track what's going on in special education, to standardize, and to make improvements.

Megan Larkin: Yes. 

MSOC

Megan Larkin: What about MSOC? So, the headline here is that our MSOC bill 5192 did pass. It was another one that got eroded every time it got over a hoop or got to a new committee. And in the end, the MSOC bill would add just $78.9 million for districts in the upcoming biennium. That is a paltry $39.96 cents per student. 

That is on top of adjustments for inflation and the maintenance level that's already in there. So legislators are probably going to try to pull some tricks. Do not be misled when legislators claim that they provided $81 for K 12 students, because that's what they're already obligated to provide. 

Transportation

Christie Robertson: And then transportation. 

Megan Larkin: We, we got, we got nothing. Nothing for transportation.

2049 & 2050

Christie Robertson: Okay. So those are the Big 3. We want to talk about a couple of other bills that impact education funding that came up very late in the session, so they have high numbers. Remember they started at 1000, right? So these are 2049 and 2050.

Megan Larkin: Yes. So HB 2049 came in when the governor, I think, said he would not support some of the taxes that the legislature initially wanted to propose for new revenue to fill this budget hole. 

Christie Robertson: And initially there were three components. 

1) There was an increase in the statewide property tax, which goes into the state and gets redistributed out to the districts. That state property tax increase has been limited to grow by only 1% a year, and 2049 would have increased it to 3% per year. Still well below inflation.

2) The second part was lifting the local levee lid by quite a lot, and eventually equalizing the levee lid between large districts and small districts.

3) And then the third component of 2049 was an increase in local effort assistance or LEA. Which is there because even if you have the same levee lid for all districts, that doesn't mean that they can all raise the same amount of money. It costs a lot more per house if you are in a property poor district. Local Effort Assistance is supposed to equalize out that. Initially that was the idea. But in reality, it's provided way less money than property wealthy districts can raise from their local levies.

And then what happened is the legislators completely nixed the state property tax part, and they nixed the local effort assistance part from the bill, leaving only the lift of the levee lid, which mostly impacts property wealthy districts like Seattle.

We probably don't need to go into all the details, but we have heard that this will bring approximately $25 million into Seattle this year. So it is by far the biggest chunk of money that will be coming into Seattle Public School district is from this local levy lid lift.

Megan Larkin: Yes. 

Christie Robertson: They did put a small local effort assistance increase in a budget proviso.

Megan Larkin: Yes. And while the local levy lid increase is almost 60%, almost 30% for districts with more than 40,000 students over the next six years, LEA increases by about 25% over the next two years. 

And very confusingly, it is tied to a different inflationary factor. The inflationary adjustment for just the levies is tied to the CPI or Consumer Price Index. But for LEA, they are tying it to the IPD, which is another inflationary factor – Implicit Price Deflator. The upshot here is that IPD is not as good to measure as CPI for this type of thing. And it just doesn't make any sense to use two different inflationary factors. But I was given to understand that they ended up going with IPD because they needed to have a fiscal note on this bill that, like, they could do, right? Like they didn't want to have to kill the bill. So this was like their workaround for that.

Christie Robertson: Bottom line though the inequities between property rich and property poor districts will continue to widen. And I was pleased to see that in testimony when the removal of LEA was in Ways & Means, there was a lot of strong testimony. 

Christie Robertson: I am Charlie Brown. I'm here today on behalf of the South Sound Superintendents. I sent to you today a letter in opposition to this bill. We're opposed to it just because it does eliminate the LEA funding in the bill. I would ask that, members, you at least match the original LEA funding in your budget, if that's the way you're going to do it, to what 2049 originally had. It was about $193 million in levy equalization. That would help those districts that simply cannot afford to ask their voters for more dollars. 

Melissa Gomboski: I'm Melissa Gomboski on behalf of Evergreen Public Schools in the 49th legislative district. We do oppose this bill because of the lack of LEA. It was in the bill; it was removed. There were amendments offered; they were rejected.

Devin Gomboski: Devin Gomboski on behalf of ESD 105 Schools Coalition. Please do not advance this bill without restoring equitable LEA funding. Any proposal the legislature moves forward should serve all of our 1.1 million students across our 295 school districts. 

Christie Robertson: I feel like people are really banding together behind the idea that the state should be funding basic education, and we are not just going to fight for our own district to raise more money because it's easy for us. We're going to all fight together to educate the kids of our state.

Megan Larkin: Yes. I love that too. Coalitions – it's what it's all about.

Christie Robertson: Another thing in that Ways & Means committee that really amused me, and is also educational, I think, was that there was an amendment at the last minute to add in a work group to do a study on K 12 funding equity. And multiple testifiers said "get that study out of there.”

Julie Salvi: I'm Julie Salvi with Washington Education Association. Just to flag the study that's in the budget – we've had a lot of studies in the state. We have a lot of solutions that we know we need to implement. And we would call on action rather than further studies. 

Melissa Gomboski: I'm Melissa Gomboski. I do agree with my colleague at the Washington Education Association and ask for an amendment that removes the study in this bill. We have studied this to death. OSPI has not been resourced appropriately; they've been underfunded. We don't need another study. We do respectfully ask for that. 

Devin Gomboski: Devin Gomboski. We also urge you to remove the study provision in this bill. We've had lots of studies and our students no longer have time to wait. They need action now. 

Christie Robertson: So, note to all of the younger advocates – studies can be good, but they can also be a way to kick the can down the road.

Megan Larkin: Yeah, especially for this one. Like, I don't think you need to do a study to figure out why allowing a 60% increase for the levy lid but only 25% for LEA, and then tying it to a different, lesser, inflationary factor. Like, we don't need a lot of studying to know that this is going to exacerbate inequities.

Christie Robertson: Yep. 

There was one last minute win. 2050 was a bill that was going to shift apportionment to basically save the state money temporarily (it wouldn't save the state any money in the long run) but make things harder for districts, by shifting payments from some months to other months. 

Megan Larkin: Yes, and so apportionment is enrollment numbers, staffing formulas, salaries, MSOC. After you run all of these formulas for your district, you're apportioned a certain amount of money. And that's what we are talking about when we talk about apportionments. 

But what the legislature was going to do was just be like, “okay, we're not going to give you your apportionments for this school year now. We're going to wait until the next fiscal year. So on paper, it looks like we're spending less here and more there, but you're really getting the same amount.”

But this doesn't work. Because this is the money you need for, like, salaries and paying your bills. So what would've happened is districts would have to borrow money to get this paid. And that involves paying interest. So it would make the legislature’s balance their budget on paper. In reality, you're generating more financial hardship for school districts, which is not what they need right now.

Christie Robertson: You're basically just using the school districts as kind of like quick cash. And offensively that bill was titled, "Implementing K-12 Savings and Efficiencies", and did not append "for the state".

Megan Larkin: Yes but three cheers – the apportionment shift, as Christie mentioned, that got axed. So thank you June Robinson, chair of Ways & Means.

Christie Robertson: Yeah. One piece still remains which is going to be very difficult for a handful of districts. It's kind of difficult to explain this.

Megan Larkin: Yeah, alphabet soup.

Christie Robertson: Basically, less funding will go to some districts that have “alternative learning environments”, especially small districts. And this is one of the few areas where there's still some advocacy around it. I think you said that there's a letter to ask the governor to veto this, right?

Megan Larkin: Yep. So in the spirit of coalitions, members of the Big 3 Coalition sent a letter to Governor Ferguson asking him to veto this because it would only provide, I think, $8 or $9 million in “savings” for a $70-something billion operating budget. It wouldn't affect SPS, but it would really decimate about... I think there's 8 school districts that would just get hit really hard by this. So we can attach it in the show notes. 

Christie Robertson: Mm-hmm. So that kind of leads into... 

What right now immediately?

Christie Robertson: We have this great coalition. We've learned that our legislature is not too keen on funding education despite our best efforts. And so what do we do right immediately now?

Megan Larkin: Right immediately now, and I'm not even kidding, take a nap. Rest up. Recharge. Because burnout is so real. And I think particularly doing this kind of advocacy work, it's really easy to get burnt out. 

And without our advocacy work this session, I don't think we would've gotten any new money. So everybody who's listening, like, what you do matters. Your advocacy matters. Like, rest up, recharge. And I know that's what, like, all the lobbyists and legislators are doing. They are exhausted. So, we too – rest, recharge, let the dust settle. That's, that's immediately now what we do.

Christie Robertson: Mm-hmm. 

Megan Larkin: The next thing we do, I think, is kind of also in that “strategic self-care” area, which is – make friends. So take a nap, rest up, get up and go make some friends, or renew some friendships and acquaintances. 

Advocacy is a numbers game, and it's really important to build this strong community and build a strong coalition, because you need that to do really tough multi-year projects like this one especially. So, you could think of it like, oh, you know, I am getting pizza and a pint with the friends I've made at my PTA for advocacy, and we're just like letting off steam and it's just a fun thing, And also that is a very good strategic advocacy decision because you're forming bonds with your fellow advocates and you're building up your capacity and your network for next year. 

So 1) take a nap, 2) make some friends. Those are my two initial recommendations.

Christie Robertson: All right, so we'll take a nap, we'll make some friends, then we'll start talking with our friends. And then we will come back together to do an autopsy of the session and what we've learned and how we can change our advocacy to be more effective, and take the alliances that we've built and be more impactful next year. So, that's the game plan.

Megan Larkin: Yeah. The Big 3 coalition lives on. I know legislators and folks in leadership, after they get up from their nap, they're going to start strategizing, and we will too. We all just need a little bit of distance and rest. So the game isn't over. It's not going to be over until we get all the money we need. And I think this is largely going to boil down to a question of political will. But we'll come back. We'll tackle this problem. We will develop the political will we need to get this done.

Christie Robertson: And that's a wrap for the 2025 legislative session. Thanks for joining us for these 14 episodes of the Big 3 Briefing. And I want to give a really huge shout out to Megan Larkin, who was truly the power and inspiration for this series. We've heard from so many listeners that this series has made a big impact on their ability to follow the legislative process, to understand, and to make advocacy more accessible.

Megan Larkin: Yes, I've heard this as well. And thank you for everybody who has listened, and thank you to Christie for doing this session. I know she puts in a lot of work. Like all of those beautiful show notes and the amazing audio clips, like this is Christie's blood, sweat, and tears. So thank you so much Christie. I know this series has really made a huge difference for a lot of people. 

Christie Robertson: Yay. 

Megan Larkin: So we're going to rest up a bit. but we've heard some ideas from our listeners for follow on episodes such as how federal changes are impacting Washington schools.

Christie Robertson: Yes, or what interim work looks like. Like, how do you go from a problem statement to getting a bill passed? Those are for another day. 

Let us know what you think at big3@rainydayrecess.org.

Megan Larkin: You could find show notes and transcripts at rainydayrecess.org.

Christie Robertson: Stay curious, stay cozy, and thanks for listening to Rainy Day Recess.