Challenge

The legislature considers hundreds of bills with potential impact on early learning each session and the process to get from the introduction of a bill to its passage is often confusing. Moreover, the process typically happens slowly and somewhat predictably at first with increasing speed and complexity in the process as the session moves forward. Creating useful updates that people can act on is challenging in these circumstances.

Approach

Kristin draws on her historical knowledge of the early learning field, her political acumen and her relationships with legislators and stakeholders to conduct effective political analysis. During legislative session she tracks legislative and political processes on a weekly basis in order to identify trends, competing interests and opportunities for stakeholder input. The weekly legislative updates provide an overview of current status of key bills, and highlight the "single best investment” of effort for the week for those who want to speak up for key issues. The weekly updates also provide links to background information and other advocacy actions.

Results

More than 1,000 diverse subscribers across the state, including legislative and agency staff, business leaders, parents, and leaders in early learning and K-12 education, rely on the legislative updates to connect their work to the deliberations of the Washington State Legislature.