Being a parent is nonstop hard work, which makes following all the news happening in the city, state, and U.S. decision-making circles challenging. Here are highlights of Washington state political news for families from last week (Sept.8-14) and a hint at what’s up this week. I hope you will consider taking action – reaching out to those who represent you and your family in Congress and state offices – on the issues that impact families in our state.
New initiatives target parental rights changes & trans sports
Let’s Go Washington, the conservative political group that pushed codifying the rights of parents to access school information about their kids, is going again with two new initiatives to the Washington Legislature. At the same time, they are gathering names for an initiative to block transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports.
The group announced this week that it has begun gathering initiative signatures to reverse changes made by the legislature last year to the Washington “parental rights law.” The group was the engine behind Initiative 2081, which gathered the signatures needed to put parental rights legislation before lawmakers, where it was turned into law in 2024. During this year’s 2025 session, which ran from January to March, lawmakers approved an overhaul of the law, upsetting supporters of the original measure.
In a nutshell, the 2025 parental rights update resulted in:
- Less automatic sharing of health information: Schools don’t have to tell parents about every medical or counseling service as they used to, and they don’t have to hand over all health or mental-health records right away.
- More time to get school records: Parents can still ask for their child’s school records, but schools now have more time (up to 45 days) to give them copies.
- New student rights and anti-bias rules: The law adds a list of students’ rights — such as being treated fairly no matter who they are — and makes schools update their policies to prevent discrimination.
- State enforcement instead of private lawsuits: The state’s education office (OSPI) will handle complaints and can punish schools that break the rules. Parents can’t automatically sue when a right is violated.
To present measures to lawmakers, Let’s Go Washington will need to collect 308,911 signatures by Jan. 2. The 2026 legislative session starts Jan. 12. Read the whole story.
Take action: Contact members of the Washington House and Senate to let your state lawmakers know how you feel about these issues.
Make shooter drills optional? Gluesenkamp Perez says yes
U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is worried about the emotional impact active shooter drills have on kids, especially young ones. This week, the congresswoman from eastern Washington presented the U.S. House of Representatives with a proposal allowing parents to opt their kids out of the drills. Currently, active shooting drills are mandatory in Washington and some other states.
She spoke from experience, telling the story of her own 3-year-old son. Following a drill at his day care, the boy began talking about “shooting bad guys.”
Under Gluesenkamp Perez’s proposal, schools would not receive federal funding for mandatory school shooting drills unless students under 16 could opt out with their parents ‘ permission. The proposal was an amendment to the 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act and passed out of the House Appropriations Committee.
“There is broad consensus affirming what parents already know — mandatory active school shooter drills are deeply traumatizing for children and have no evidence of decreasing fatalities,” Gluesenkamp Perez posted on X. “We should not use taxpayer dollars to mandate kids’ participation in ineffective strategies from the 1990s. Parents deserve the right to opt their kids out.”
Take action: Contact your members of Congress and tell them how you feel about the proposal.
State Board of Education: Protect, restore, prioritize
While State Schools Superintendent Chris Reykdal plans to make that big financial ask in 2026, the Washington State Board of Education has a different approach.
“We’re looking at a framework that responds to the budget realities while also keeping student needs at the forefront,” said Yazmin Carretero, the board’s government relations and policy analyst.
Carretero said the BOE’s aim for the next state legislative session is to protect existing programs and restore funding cuts that were made to help balance the state budget last year. It will advocate for the restoration of funding for alternative and nontraditional learning models and additional student supports like the High School and Beyond Plan.
“We’re moving away from really just asking for a lot of new things and instead focusing on protecting the gains that we’ve made and the progress that we’ve made … and just restoring a few things that we’ve lost,” Carretero told the board in August.
She said the board’s legislative team is “taking a thoughtful approach in investing in what works” to meet the most urgent needs. Read Washington State Standard’s article on the Board of Education’s priorities.
Take action: Contact the Washington State Board of Education and let them know your thoughts and what their focus should be during the 2026 legislative session.
New Mexico Goes First: Free child care for all
The program, which will start in November and is expected to save families $12,000 per child annually, is available to all residents regardless of income. Can you imagine? Getting something like that passed here feels a bit like a fantasy given Washington’s current fiscal picture, but let’s dare to dream like this for our families.
Let’s all hope our state lawmakers are watching New Mexico closely. Read the whole story in the Washington State Standard.
Seattle adds 65 more street surveillance cameras
This week the Seattle City Council voted to add 65 more video surveillance cameras to Seattle streets. The 7-2 approval vote came despite concerns raised by more than 100 people at the council meeting. They urged a “no” vote, concerned that the Trump administration could use camera footage in its campaign against immigrants, unhoused people, and other city residents and communities.
Cameras are already in the Chinatown-International District, along North Aurora Avenue, and in the bus corridors around Pioneer Square, all considered high-crime areas. Now cameras will be installed near Garfield High School, Capitol Hill, and the Stadium District.
Tell us: We’d like to hear what you think, as parents, about surveillance cameras in Seattle. Do you think they add protection for your family? Do you have concerns? Email Cheryl@seattleschild.com to share your thoughts.
OSPI to seek $10M for math gains in 2026
This week State Superintendent Chris Reykdal shared the results of the spring 2025 state assessments in math and English language arts and announced that the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) will seek $10 million from Washington lawmakers during the upcoming 2026 session to improve math education.
The request will come despite the sizable budget deficit and financial challenges lawmakers faced last session and the expectation of more to come, including a potential state income shortage due to import tariffs laid down by President Donald Trump.
“This is basic education. This is the future of our kids,” Reykdal said during a press conference. “This is the future of our economy, and our inability in the past to focus on core academic content, particularly math and science, has to end — and end rapidly.”
Reykdal said the data shows that Washington students “continue to perform on par with or better than their peers across the nation.”
The tests are administered on a single day in spring to students in grades 3 to 8 and grade 10, as required by the federal government. They don’t provide a complete picture of a student’s knowledge and skills but instead help schools determine whether a student is on track for college-level learning or whether they need remedial classes to reach that goal.
Reykdal stressed that other information is used to create a complete understanding of how a student is learning and at what level. He criticized “a movement to privatize the public sector, and the deliberate misrepresentation and subsequent weaponization of test scores.”
“If you’ve ever heard that ‘half of our students can’t read or do basic math,’ you were lied to,” Reykdal said. “Among the 11 other states using the same state test vendor as we do, our students have the second-highest performance in ELA and the fourth-highest performance in math.”
The 2025 data show that students are continuing their post-pandemic recovery, with improvement in scores across all grade levels in math and across most grade levels in English language arts.
“At the same time, we have gaps to close,” Reykdal said.
Take action: Do you have an opinion about Reykdal’s $10 million math support request? Contact members of the Washington House and Senate.
The Good Read: ‘Parents, your job has changed in the AI era’
This week in the New York Times, I ran across a column by Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop, authors of “The Disengaged Teen: Helping Kids Learn Better, Feel Better, and Live Better.” They had an important message every parent needs to heed, which is perfectly said in the column headline: ‘Parents, Your Job Has Changed in the AI Era.’
“Parents should be very wary about children having unfettered access to a new digital technology. We saw social media wreak havoc on young people’s emotional states soon after they debuted more than 20 years ago,” the two wrote in the Times. “With A.I., it isn’t just children’s emotional well-being that’s at risk — it’s also their cognitive development. Parents can’t afford to wait for someone else to protect their children. They are, like it or not, the first line of defense and oversight.”
The authors want to see parental energy aimed at AI companies, pushing them to enforce age-verification systems (using Nebraska’s and Britain’s requirements on social media companies and other websites as a model).
“OpenAI’s own policies require parental consent for children 13 to 18 to use ChatGPT, which, if enforced, would increase parents’ awareness of their children’s A.I. use.” they wrote. It’s an essential piece on an increasingly important issue: Read the full Op-Ed in The New York Times.
