wa-law.org > bill > 2023-24 > HB 2398 > Original Bill
The legislature finds that parents are the primary stakeholders in the upbringing of their children. In order to support and encourage that good upbringing, parental involvement is essential. The legislature intends to make it easier for parents and immediate family members to be involved directly and actively in what their children learn and read at school.
Every board of directors, unless otherwise specifically provided by law, shall:
Prepare, negotiate, set forth in writing and adopt, policy relative to the selection or deletion of instructional materials. Such policy shall:
State the school district's goals and principles relative to instructional materials;
Delegate responsibility for the preparation and recommendation of teachers' reading lists and specify the procedures to be followed in the selection of all instructional materials including text books;
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Establish an instructional materials committee to be appointed, with the approval of the school board, by the school district's chief administrative officer. This committee shall consist of : (A) Representative members of the district's professional staff, including representation from the district's curriculum development committees; (B) parents of students in a number equaling less than one-half of the total membership of the committee; and (C) in the case of districts which operate elementary school(s) only, the educational service district superintendent, one of whose responsibilities shall be to assure the correlation of those elementary district adoptions with those of the high school district(s) which serve their children.
School districts with fewer than 2,000 enrolled students that are unable to recruit parents to serve on an instructional materials committee are exempt from (c)(i)(B) of this subsection;
Provide for reasonable notice to parents of the opportunity to serve on the committee and for terms of office for members of the instructional materials committee;
Provide a system for receiving, considering and acting upon written complaints regarding instructional materials used by the school district;
Provide free text books, supplies and other instructional materials to be loaned to the pupils of the school, when, in its judgment, the best interests of the district will be subserved thereby and prescribe rules and regulations to preserve such books, supplies and other instructional materials from unnecessary damage.
Recommendation of instructional materials shall be by the district's instructional materials committee in accordance with district policy. Approval or disapproval shall be by the local school district's board of directors.
Districts may pay the necessary travel and subsistence expenses for expert counsel from outside the district. In addition, the committee's expenses incidental to visits to observe other districts' selection procedures may be reimbursed by the school district.
Districts may, within limitations stated in board policy, use and experiment with instructional materials for a period of time before general adoption is formalized.
Within the limitations of board policy, a school district's chief administrator may purchase instructional materials to meet deviant needs or rapidly changing circumstances.