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| Olympia PO Box 40100 Olympia, WA 98504-0100 |
Seattle |
Overview
The Education Division is comprised of 11 attorneys and four professional staff. In addition, there are 12 Regional Services attorneys and three Spokane attorneys who perform education work under the supervision and coordination of the Education Division. The division provides a full range of legal services to more than 50 education-related clients. In higher education, these include three regional universities; The Evergreen State College; 34 community and technical colleges; the Washington Student Achievement Council; the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges; and the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board. In pre-K and the K-12 education system, the division serves the Department of Early Learning, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the State Board of Education, the Professional Educator Standards Board, the Charter School Commission and nine area regional educational service districts.
The workload of the division is extremely diverse. Division attorneys act as general counsel for the institutions and agencies. They advise on matters as varied as constitutional rights, statutory interpretation, federal and state regulatory compliance and enforcement, labor/management disputes, employee rights and responsibilities, student rights and responsibilities, discrimination and sexual harassment, public contracting, intellectual property, real property finance and acquisition, and general public sector business issues. Attorneys also represent the education clients at administrative hearings on a variety of matters, including prosecution of teacher misconduct, consumer complaints against private vocational schools, labor arbitrations, and employee and student disciplinary proceedings. In serving the state education supervisory agencies, the division handles a wide variety of systemic legal implementation issues, taking into account many federal as well as state laws.