Reportedly the Senate will vote today on delays of both Initiative 1351 and the biology graduation requirement. The 2015-17 operating budget does not fund I-1351. (For more on I-1351, see this policy brief.) Last week the House passed HB 2266 to delay implementation of the initiative until the 2019-2021 biennium, but the Senate failed to do so. As Rep. Ross Hunter wrote on July 2,

Senate Democrats would like to force the Republicans to pass HB 2214, a bill that is described as removing biology as a graduation requirement. In addition, it essentially removes any objective measure of knowledge in English Language Arts and Mathematics from graduation requirements.

HB 2214 has passed the House by wide margins three times this year. But it appears that the deal reached in the Senate yesterday is for passage of SB 6145, which is less expansive than HB 2214. SB 6145 states,

The legislature finds that the graduating class of 2015 is the first class required to meet the state standard on the state science assessment. The legislature recognizes that the educational system needs more time before this graduation requirement is implemented. Therefore, the sole purpose of the legislature with this legislation is to delay for no more than two years, but not eliminate, the requirement that students must meet the state standard on the science assessment.

It applies retroactively to the graduating class of 2015. According to Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) staff, 1,948 students in the class of 2015 failed the biology exam but passed the other three (math, reading, and writing). OSPI staff does not know at this point (they will have more data from school districts later this year) whether the biology exam is the only thing keeping these 1,948 students from graduating. It’s possible some of them are ineligible for graduation for other reasons.

Austin Jenkins calls the deal a “get-out-of-school-free card” for affected students and a “get-out-of-the-Capitol-free card” for legislators. But the AP report on the deal notes that

Several other loose ends remain before the Legislature. Those issues include a spending bill that lists projects tied to a transportation-revenue package passed last week that raises the gas tax over the next two years and a bonding bill tied to the transportation package that both need to be passed by the House, and a bonding measure tied to a $3.9 billion construction budget signed by Inslee last week that still must be passed by the Senate.