AWSP Blog

Student leaders are key players in a school's mission to create a culture, close the gap, ensure safety and engage the community. Guided by Washington principals for more than 60 years, the Association of Washington Student Leaders (AWSL) has provided the opportunity for student leadership training through summer camps. AWSL camps are held in three locations. Leadership camps for high school and middle level students are held at both of the two learning centers sponsored by the Association of Washington School Principals: Chewelah Peak and Cispus. CheerLeadership Camps are held at Central Washington University.

The introduction of bills has slowed markedly as committees now focus on having public hearings. Then bills are moved out of their respective committees through action in Executive Session. February 22 (policy bills) and March 1 (fiscal bills) are the cutoff dates. Bills that have not advanced by then, ‘die’.

What an amazing show of advocacy this week as 40 principals from across our state met with their legislators on Monday, January 28 for our annual “Day on the Hill”. We wore brightly colored plaid scarves in our AWSP colors which were noticed by many (that’s a good thing!) Rep. Mike Chapman from the 24th district even requested one for his scarf collection!

After a recent talk from Richard Louv, Marty revisits an old magazine article talking about Louv's book, The Nature Principle, which outlines a course of action for human restoration by way of the natural world.

The legislative river is running as close to 1,500 bills have been introduced since December’s prefiling. Included among those are a number of bills affecting pensions, health, and job benefits. Hearings and any resulting action moving bills out of committees have begun as both houses move toward the first cut-off date. This is a brief summary of bills of interest: Retirement Related Proposals

The School Employees’ Benefit Board met for an all-day meeting and covered, as usual a wide range of topics. (Read the full post for the whole summary)

Welcome to another episode of AWSP News, where we discuss the new legislative session and the Tobacco 21 initiative, Vicki Puckett as the NASSP Quarterly Advocate, two amazing students who won $10,000 US SSSPenate Youth Scholarships, Evergreen Public School's "starting small" video featuring AWSL's James Layman, Central Valley High School's powerful Mental Health Awareness Day, our Future School Leaders Day and Future Educators Month, Rich Knuth Distinguished Mentor Award winner Heather Renner, the latest issue of Washington Principal and success of the Lopez Island Farm Education program video, the nomination window for the Robert J. Handy Most Effective Administrator Award, and Summer Conference registration.

Considering a school yard garden? Here are some tips.

Here's an exciting opportunity to learn about plans for a new Environmental Education and Research facility in King county.

The United States Senate Youth Program (USSYP) announces that high school students Ms. Zaira Bardos and Ms. Lexi J. Rodriguez-Padilla will join Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell in representing Washington in the nation’s capital during the 57th annual USSYP Washington Week, to be held March 2 — 9, 2019. Zaira Bardos of Orting and Lexi Rodriguez-Padilla of Sedro Woolley were selected from among the state’s top student leaders to be part of the 104 national student delegation who will also each receive a $10,000 college scholarship for undergraduate study.