Federal Way Sch. Dist. No. 210 v. Washington (Wash. Super. Ct. Nov. 2, 2007)
A state trial court has ruled that the State of Washington’s system for providing salary funding to school districts violates the state constitution’s requirement to provide a general and uniform system of public schools. The court found that the system is "not based on the cost of providing educational opportunity in any district" but instead "are base[d] upon historic salary levels during the school year of 1976-77 when according to the Supreme Court of Washington the [funding system] was not uniform and general." The court determined that previous case law that had held the state could fund school districts at unequal levels was no longer good law. The plaintiffs had met their burden of proof that school districts are funded at disparate levels "based on a discredited and unconstitutional funding system from 30 years ago." The court also found that the current system violates the rights of students, teachers, and taxpayers to equal protection under the state because there is no rational basis for the disparate funding levels.
Federal Way Sch. Dist. No. 210 v. Washington (Wash. Super. Ct. Nov. 2, 2007)
[Editor’s Note: Reactions to the ruling are reported at the first link below. The story quotes Federal Way School Board member Dave Larson as saying, "Hopefully, this primes the pump for the Legislature to stop studying this, and start doing something," but notes that an appeal to the state supreme court is likely. The school district’s website page on the suit is at the second link, and background on the filing of the suit is at the third. The other Washington school finance lawsuit described at that third link, which alleged unconstitutionally inadequate funding of special education, was decided in March of 2007. In a ruling posted at the last link, a state trial court rejected most of the claims but found one aspect of the funding formula unconstitutional in that it capped payments to school districts for a special education population beyond a certain level without providing any redress to affected districts.]
Seattle Post-Intelligencer By Jessica Blanchard
Federal Way Public Schools site on lawsuit
NSBA School Law pages on filing of lawsuit
School Districts’ Alliance for Adequate Funding of Special Educ. v. Washington (Wash. Super. Ct. Mar. 1, 2007)