House Bill 1663 (2025) amends and reenacts multiple existing statutes and adds a new section to chapter 28A.310 RCW to expand and support the school-based mental health workforce and adjust the basic education funding distribution. The bill modifies RCW 28A.410.044, 28A.320.280, and 28A.310.235, reenacts and amends RCW 28A.150.260, and creates a new coordination duty for educational service districts (ESDs) in chapter 28A.310. These are changes to existing law and the creation of a new statutory coordination provision rather than only policy guidance. Substantive legal changes include new or clarified definitions and roles for school psychologists, school social workers, and other educators; an expanded scope of services school social workers may provide (counseling, crisis intervention, behavioral consultation, trauma-informed care, case management, special education and 504 plan work, leadership on discipline and social-emotional learning); and explicit inclusion of counselors, social workers, and psychologists in multitiered systems of support. The bill sets out a prototypical-school-based distribution model for basic education funding with specified prototypical school sizes, class size targets, staffing allocations (including nurses, social workers, psychologists, counselors, paraeducators and other classified staff), and per-student amounts for materials, supplies, and operations. It ties some funding to demonstrated actual class sizes, directs OSPI rulemaking on implementation, and requires OSPI to publish per-pupil allocations on its website with districts linking to that report. Procedurally, the new section allows ESDs, subject to appropriated funding, to coordinate in-school placements and clinical supervision for social worker associates and to support MSW and post-MSW professionals obtaining in-school placements in partnership with districts, local mental health and behavioral health agencies, and accredited university programs; approved supervisors must meet Department of Health rules. The bill requires biennial review of the basic education distribution formula by the superintendent and governor, monthly OFM review of reported FTE counts, and legislative committee approval for changes to the FTE definition. Some implementation details are missing from the extracted text, including specific appropriation amounts, full statutory text for certain definitions (for example the full “qualifying school” definition), and portions of the amended RCW 28A.150.260 that were cut off.

If enacted, schools and regional educational service districts (ESDs) will see more organized efforts to place and supervise social work trainees and newly credentialed school social workers inside schools, and ESDs may hire local recruitment liaisons to support that work. School staffing formulas used to allocate state basic education money already include small FTE amounts for social workers, psychologists, and counselors and add extra social-worker FTE for high-poverty schools, so districts that receive these allocations are more likely to have state-funded positions or funding to expand mental health staff; OSPI will also post per-pupil allocation reports and districts must link to them, increasing funding transparency and prompting districts to show how funds are used for staffing and support. The groups most affected are ESDs (new coordination and possible hiring responsibilities), local school districts (potentially more funded mental-health staff but also new reporting and distribution duties), MSW students and social worker associates (more in-school placement opportunities), local mental health and behavioral health agencies and universities (new coordination partners), the Department of Health (must set supervisor rules), and OSPI (rulemaking and reporting). The practical reach of these changes depends on future appropriations and rulemaking—funding levels, timelines, and detailed implementation are not specified in the provided text, so whether districts and ESDs can actually expand staff or must cover additional costs locally remains uncertain.