This bill amends RCW 28A.230.094 to require each school district that operates a high school to provide every high school student a mandatory one-half credit stand-alone civics course that counts toward required social studies graduation credit. Civics content embedded inside other social studies courses will not satisfy the stand-alone requirement except when the embedded content is part of a course offering both high school and postsecondary credit. Required course topics include structures of federal, state, tribal, and local government; rights and responsibilities under the Washington and U.S. Constitutions; current issues; electoral processes; the civics component of the naturalization test; and values listed in RCW 28A.150.211. Beginning in the 2026-27 school year, the course must also cover the voter registration process, media literacy related to elections and civic engagement and combating digital misinformation, tools and methods for initiating public policy change and their impacts, and factors influencing political participation such as redistricting, gerrymandering, and reapportionment. The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) is required to identify and post civics and media literacy materials and resources on its website, and to identify and post nonpartisan materials covering the new 2026-27 topics by September 1, 2025, with a required review of those materials at least every five years. The bill defines "media literacy" as the ability to decode media messages; assess their influence on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; and to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication. The OSPI is directed to collaborate with specified partners, including county auditors, certain 501(c)(3) nonprofits, and to use preexisting resources such as those on the Washington open educational resources hub. Affected parties named in the text include OSPI, school districts that operate high schools and their high school students, county auditors, 501(c)(3) nonprofits engaged in voter outreach or media literacy, the Washington open educational resources hub, and persons studying the citizenship civics component. The extracted text does not include an effective date for the act, any funding or enforcement provisions, implementation staffing or training details, whether OSPI complied with the prior September 1, 2020 posting requirement, or whether there are additional sections or amendments elsewhere in the bill.

If enacted, every Washington student in a high school will have to take a separate half‑credit civics class that counts toward graduation instead of counting civics only when it is tucked into other social studies courses; the new course must cover government structures, constitutional rights, current issues, the naturalization civics component, and — starting in 2026‑27 — voter registration, media literacy about elections and misinformation, how to push for public policy change, and how things like redistricting affect political participation. School districts will need to schedule and offer that standalone course to all high school students, which is likely to change course offerings, teacher duties, and local curriculum planning and could create new costs for developing curriculum or training staff. The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction must collect and publish nonpartisan civics and media literacy materials on its website, working with county auditors, nonprofits, and the state open educational resources hub, and it must post the materials for the new 2026‑27 topics by September 1, 2025 and review them at least every five years. The bill defines media literacy and explicitly includes collaboration with nonprofit education and voter outreach groups, but the text does not say how much funding, staffing, or enforcement will be provided to districts or OSPI, so the scope of the burden and who pays for any new curriculum or training is unclear.