This January marks the 20th annual observance of School Board Recognition Month, a declaration first made by the National School Boards Association in 1995.

Washington has 1,477 elected school board members from 295 school districts.

“Washington’s school board members put in hundreds of thousands of hours of service each year to guide public education in their communities,” said Washington State School Directors’ Association President Chris Nieuwenhuis. “This recognition is well deserved.”

Overall, school directors in Washington State govern districts with more than one million students, a combined annual budget of nearly $12 billion, and employ well over 100,000 employees, according to the association.

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