Meet the Washington superintendents who want to make K-12 education funding more equitable

joelingraham
Nov 2
5 min read

Oct 14, 2025

Many Washington school districts, wealthy and low-income, are struggling financially. Trevor Greene and Kelly Aramaki are bringing superintendents from around the state together to advocate for more equitable funding.

"I'm in my third year as a superintendent. One of the first challenges that I faced was just public education funding," said Aramaki, who oversees Bellevue School District. "When I came in as superintendent my first year, we had just closed two schools because we couldn't afford to keep (them) open."

Districts have been resorting to cuts and staff reductions to balance budgets. For the 2025-26 school year, the Yakima School District (where Greene serves as superintendent) cut $5.6 million from its budget. That followed $22 million in cuts the year before. Over the past two years, the district has cut 240 positions.

The 20,000-student, property rich, Bellevue School District found itself in a $20 million budget deficit.

If districts cannot make ends meet, they're subject to binding conditions — financial oversight — by the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Bellevue and Mabton are currently under binding conditions, along with six other districts.

Aramaki, like many other superintendents, realized there was a problem with Washington's education funding model.

When he supported legislation in 2024 that would raised the levy lid, the issues with funding became even clearer as he realized the disparities between districts.

"There were a lot of people who supported the idea of increasing the local levy," Aramaki said. "But then there were a lot of superintendents who were like, 'This is not going to benefit us at all.'"

Greene was one of the superintendents opposed when Aramaki asked for support, because the bill didn't include raising Local Effort Assistance along with the levy increase.

"If I were to support him on that bill, Yakima gets nothing out of that," Greene said. "And the only thing it does is it creates more of a disparity between property-rich districts and property-poor districts."

One way districts can obtain funding is through local property tax levies. Districts with high property values have the benefit of generating more money with lower tax rates.

Without Local Effort Assistance, which works to equalize that disparity, levies don't benefit property-poor districts as much as their counterparts.

Collaboration

Aramaki came up with a plan to bring state superintendents together to cohesively fight for education funding more equitably, instead of fighting for his district's survival against colleagues.

He called on experts at University of Washington as a catalyst to bring superintendents together. He and Greene are both UW alumni.

"I called the dean, Mia Tuan of the College of Education, and I said I would love to start this group," Aramaki said. "And I would love to do it with someone like Trevor."

What started with Greene and Aramaki discussing educational funding inadequacies with the University of Washington College of Education grew to more than 20 superintendents joining a year later.

The next summit is scheduled for November, the fifth convening since the coalition's inception in July 2024.

"This grassroots initiative is seeking to engage superintendents, legislators, finance experts (and) community partners to have eventual financial reform for public education," Greene said.

Changing the model

Special education, transportation and maintenance, supplies and operating costs are driving up expenditures. Declining enrollment is lowering the amount of funding districts receive from states.

Districts loom over the fear of budget cuts while student need continues to increase.

Greene criticized the state's resource-based allocation model.

"That's problematic when you're looking at equity," he said

Under a resource-based funding model, districts receive funds based on the minimal cost of staff and resources to operate schools. This is dictated by student-to-staff ratios.

"What we see is that the way that we fund does not factor in the needs of the kids," Greene said.

For every certain number of students enrolled in an elementary, middle or high school, districts receive funding to staff necessary positions. Total staff for each district are then multiplied by salaries to determine total funding, according to research from UW.

Greene and others would like to see a student-based funding model where districts get funding per student enrolled, with the base funding being multiplied by student need.

Students with more special needs, such as low-income students or multi-language learners, would receive more funding, according to research published by UW.

"The core policy challenges we see with the state is there's an unequal educational opportunity," Greene said.

The superintendent coalition's goal is to create a five-year vision — what they call "policy possibilities" — and engage in advocacy and awareness to reform the state's education funding model.

"We wanted to do more than just increase overall funding," said David Knight, researcher for the UW College of Education, when discussing the five-year plan. "We wanted to also change the way the money is allocated across school districts."

Superintendent coalition

The five-year vision includes educational funding reforms that begin with what they call The Big 3: transportation, special education and maintenance, supplies, and operating costs. State lawmakers added funding for special education and operating costs earlier this year.

"A couple different Washington organizations were all behind this idea," Knight said. "That was the beginning of our conversation."

The group's five-year plan advocates for additional funding, including expanding Local Effort Assistance, the Learning Assistance Program and updating the current funding model to a student-weighted funding formula — student-based funding allocation.

Over the past four convenings, Knight said the group has spent a lot of time discussing the unique issues districts face, where the funding would come from and tackling issues that would support all districts.

State Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, chairwoman of the House Education Committee, and other legislators have attended cohort meetings to provide input, discuss policy and provide insight. State Sen. Lisa Wellman and Rep. Steve Bergquist also attended past meetings.

Their input is valuable, Knight said.

"What the legislators tend to do when they've come is share some of their what their process looks like, and why it's so hard to bring research to policy," he continued.

Challenges and next steps

Knight said the fundamental problem with Washington's education funding model is the lack of student weights, or taking student need into consideration when allocating funding.

Special education students receive more funding for their status, but not students living in poverty, for example.

"What I would recommend for Washington would be the use of student weights to allocate funding to support districts that serve higher poverty student populations," Knight said.

One thing standing the way is the state's financial situation. The Washington State Office of Financial Management reported that the projected state revenue through 2029 is down by $903 million.

"They've got to figure out what they need to cut," Aramaki said. "But my job, and Trevor's job and our coalition is to make sure that they do not touch education."

The goal of the coalition's next meeting is to prepare for the 2026 legislative session and establish communication with similar committees, such as the K12 Funding Equity Workgroup and OSPI's K12 funding equity workgroup.

Greene is also a part of an informal work group, started by Santos, called Creating a 21st Century System of Education or The Big Idea. The group wants to engage in conversations with education stakeholders about the need to change systems in Washington for the betterment of all students.

https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/education/meet-the-washington-superintendents-who-want-to-make-k-12-education-funding-more-equitable/article_92addb7c-ad16-4a0c-ac1a-2eea56271cd6.html