In mid-May, as Washington school districts were deep into developing their budgets for the next academic year, around 130 received notices that their rates for the Washington Schools Risk Management Pool were going up. And not just by a little bit: by an average of 45%.
School districts contribute funds to the risk pool instead of paying for traditional liability insurance. Those dollars are pooled to pay for settlements or costly claims against individual districts, keeping rates more manageable for all.
The main driver of the jump in rates? A sudden increase in the cost of sexual abuse claims brought against districts.
In the last few years, the legal landscape has shifted in Washington for victims of sexual abuse in schools. Changes to statute of limitation laws in recent years have resulted in districts seeing claims from 20 or 30 years ago. A 2020 Supreme Court case also affirmed that school districts are strictly liable for the actions of their employees, even if they were not aware of the harm.
Deborah Callahan, CEO of WSRMP, a not-for-profit public-entity risk pool that provides liability coverage to more than a third of school districts in the state, said the result has been a significant increase in the amount of money they’re having to spend to settle claims. Some examples include Seattle Schools paying a former student $16 million in 2024 for sex abuse by a coach, and Federal Way Public Schools paying $15 million just last month to two victims sexually assaulted by a student (both are part of WSRMP).
When an individual member of the pool faces a claim, that district’s rate goes up, Callahan said. But so do the rates for every other district. Most of their members have never seen a sex abuse claim, Callahan said, and the claims they are seeing now are mainly historical.
The risk pool had originally told members in February that rates would increase 18%. But a large increase in the cost of claims in the second quarter of this year meant a last-minute message to districts telling them to expect around a 45% increase instead. For at least one local school district — Anacortes — this meant unexpectedly eliminating some teaching staff.
All who spoke with Cascadia Daily News agreed that sexual violence in schools is unacceptable, and survivors deserve justice. But the challenge for districts, especially smaller ones, is ever-increasing costs in liability coverage without a corresponding state funding increase. That means cutting into educational budgets that are already strained.
A changed legal landscape
Districts and the risk pool point to a 2020 Supreme Court decision,W.H. v. Olympia School District, as significantly altering the legal landscape for schools in Washington.
Lara Hruska, a founder and managing partner at Cedar Law LLP who represents plaintiffs in these kinds of cases, said the case built off another in 2019 that determined employers were strictly liable for the discriminatory actions of their employees.
W.H. v. Olympia found school districts, specifically, are also subject to liability for discrimination by employees, and physical abuse and assault are considered discrimination.
Intentional childhood sexual abuse occurring on or after June 4, 2024, has no statute of limitations for civil lawsuits, Hruska said.
For abuse that occurred before June 2024, “a survivor has three years from the date they discovered or reasonably should have discovered the injury and its link to the abuse. So, for PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), that can be decades later,” she said.
Hruska said even before the 2020 decision, school districts had a heightened duty of care to keep students safe, given mandatory schooling in Washington.
Joel Levin, founder of Stop Sexual Assault in Schools, a Seattle-based nonprofit, wrote in an email that “before this decision, a district could potentially avoid liability by showing it lacked notice of the abuse. Yet the harm experienced by a student at the hands of an employee is no less severe simply because administrators were unaware of what occurred.”
Levin said legal changes could create “stronger incentives for prevention.”
James Everett, superintendent of Meridian School District and the board chair for WSRMP, said the risk pool wants districts to properly train staff to recognize grooming behaviors and understand mandatory reporting policies — to the benefit of students, districts and the risk pool.
Local impacts on districts
Member contributions to a risk pool are only a small part of a district’s budget. But in tough financial times, changes to these costs can impact education, districts say.
The timing for the unexpected additional increase in rates for school districts this year was “awful” and “unforeseen,” Everett said. For Meridian, this meant a $275,000 unexpected increase to their rates.
Anacortes School District saw an unexpected additional $257,000 hike to its rate. Brian Fraser, the district’s director of finance, said the last-minute change forced “quite a scramble” for the district.
Anacortes wasn’t anticipating major reductions this year, thanks to an increased levy approved by voters in February. But due to the rate increase, the district had to issue non-renewals to some staff on provisional contracts. Other staff will be transferred and reassigned within the district because of those reductions.
Fraser said the district has considered self-insurance and other carriers, but “if we were on the private market, we would be paying more.”
Mount Vernon School District is expecting a $621,000 increase in its rates from 2025-26 to 2026-27.
David Knight, a professor at UW’s school of education, said with the way schools are funded now, even small increases to a district’s expenses can have serious impacts.
“In practice, the pain comes on students and educators when you have a situation like this,” he said.
Advocacy to the state
WSRMP and some superintendents are readying to continue advocating for change at the state level regarding these costs.
Part of that advocacy is for better education funding more generally. Callahan said it is “not sustainable” to continue expanding school liability “without a corresponding increase in education funding.”
But the risk pool is also looking for direct changes to laws around these cases.
Callahan said WSRMP wants to see the end of “joint liability” for districts, which can sometimes result in a district paying 100% of the damages even if it’s found to be only 1% responsible for the harm. WSRMP is also calling to reverse the 2020 decision that established strict liability for districts. Senate Bill 5875, last session, attempted to require the claimant to prove that district negligence contributed to the abuse, but it only saw a first reading.
WSRMP is also proposing the creation of a state compensation fund for historical childhood sexual abuse claims against public schools. If created, it would become the “sole compensation mechanism for claims of sexual abuse of a minor” filed for claimants 26 or older; they would still need to file a notice of claim, but they would not need to file a lawsuit.
Callahan said this would make compensation “more accessible and equitable for survivors,” and “ensure that limited education dollars remain focused on educating students.”
This article has been reposted with permission from the Washington State Standard, part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization and committed to shining “a light on policy and politics in all 50 states.” Click here to support nonprofit, freely distributed, independent local journalism. Read this article and others online at Washington State Standard.
