Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction

Last updated

Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction
Olympia old cap aug 05.jpg
Old Capitol building; home to OSPI
Agency overview
Headquarters Olympia, Washington
47°2′34.51″N122°53′58.4″W / 47.0429194°N 122.899556°W / 47.0429194; -122.899556
Agency executive
Website ospi.k12.wa.us

The Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, or OSPI, is the state education agency for the State of Washington. The agency is bound by the Washington State Legislature to implement state laws regarding education, including the 1993 education reform act which mandated the controversial WASL standards based assessment. The Superintendent of Public Instruction is sixth (behind the Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Auditor, and Attorney General, respectively) in the line of succession to the office of Governor of Washington. [1] The current Superintendent of Public Instruction is Chris Reykdal.

Contents

Like all members of executive branch, the Superintendent of Public Instruction was established as a partisan position by the Washington State Constitution in 1889. [1] However, an initiative to the people in 1938 made the position nonpartisan. Initiative 126 passed 293,202 to 153,142 and is codified as Chapter 1 Laws of 1939. [2] [3] Pearl Wanamaker became the first nonpartisan superintendent when she was elected in November 1940.

The agency is headquartered in the Old Capitol Building in Olympia. [4]

Superintendents of Public Instruction [5]

NameYears
Rev. B.C. Lippincott1861
Dr. Nelson Rounds1872-1874
John P. Judson1874-1880
Jonathan S. Houghton1880-1882
Charles W. Wheeler1882-1884
R.C. Kerr1884-1886
J.C. Lawrence1886-1888
J.H. Morgan1888-1889
Robert Bruce Bryan1889-1893;

1901-1908

Charles W. Bean1893-1897
Frank J. Browne1897-1901
Henry B. Dewey1908-1913
Josephine Corliss Preston 1913–1929
Noah D. Showalter1929-1937
Stanley F. Atwood1937-1940
Pearl Anderson Wanamaker 1941–1956
Lloyd J. Andrews 1956–1960
Louis "Louie" Bruno1960–1972
Frank (Buster) Brouillet 1973–1989 [6]
Judith Billings1990–1996
Teresa "Terry" Bergeson 1997–2008
Randy Dorn 2009–2016
Chris Reykdal 2017 – present

References

  1. 1 2 "Washington State Constitution". Washington State Legislature . Retrieved August 23, 2019.
  2. ↑ "Initiatives to the People". Office of the Secretary of State. Retrieved October 26, 2020.
  3. ↑ "Chapter 1, Initiative Measure No. 126, Non-Partisan Ballots" (PDF). Laws of Washington. 1939: 3–4.
  4. ↑ "Contact Us." Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Retrieved on June 16, 2009.
  5. ↑ Lind, Carol J. (1976). Territorial/State Superintendents, 1861 to Present. Olympia, WA: Superintendent of Public Instruction.
  6. ↑ Brouillet, Frank B. "An Oral History" (PDF). Retrieved December 22, 2023.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.