I had a wonderful time this week meeting with 4th graders from Arlington Elementary School and was really impressed with all of their questions.
They spent the day on a tour of our beautiful capitol building and campus and learning about the legislative process and how what we do here impacts them in both their classroom and community.
They asked me a lot of questions, and I had one question for them, which was “what would you like us in the legislature to do for you?”
They had some fantastic requests.
One student asked for more funding for musical instruments. Another hoped for more playground equipment. One request was to give more money to charities and another was for us to help people experiencing homelessness.
A request that received a lot of applause was for us to change the law so that there is no school on Mondays.
Well, I have good news for all of these requests – with the exception of canceling school on Monday. There are no immediate plans to do that.
But in those other areas, I’m proud to support budgets that will invest heavily in education. The operating budget plan we just sent to the House invests $2.9 billion in education over the next two years. Not specifically in musical instruments and playground equipment, but in special education, more access to food, college readiness programs, better teacher pay and more.
Our capital budget plan invests $625 million into affordable housing programs – a record investment – to help Washingtonians facing homelessness and those already struggling.
Perhaps one day we’ll take a look at the “no school on Mondays” request but in the meantime I think we’re doing good work to fulfill those other requests.
Thank you again Arlington Elementary for coming down from Tacoma to visit with us!
