OLYMPIA -- Two issues that forced the Legislature into an extra week of overtime became law today. Gov. Jay Inslee signed bills that delay class-size reductions from fourth grade through high school for four years, and give high school seniors a two-year reprieve on the biology assessment test.

Washington will move forward on shrinking the number of students in kindergarten through third grade, and a third bill signed provides some state money to help districts build some of those classrooms. Shrinking the number of students in the remaining grades will wait until the 2021-23 biennium, at the earliest, under House Bill 2266.

Seniors who were kept from graduating this year because they failed the biology assessment test and the back-up options offered will receive their diplomas in the coming weeks thanks to Senate Bill 6145. Next year's seniors also will be able to graduate if the inability to pass the biology assessment test is the only thing between them and a diploma. After that, the state is expected to change the tests required for graduation, and offer a "bridge to college" course to helps students who fail the tests as sophomores.

Senate Democrats negotiated the change on the biology assessment tests before agreeing to vote for the partial suspension of class-size reductions required by Initiative 1351.

Jim Kowalkowski, superintendent of the Davenport School District, was present for the signing of the bills both were good changes. Although the district has only about 600 students in its K-12 system, it had one student with good grades, who never missed a day of school and struggled with the biology assessment test.

She eventually passed it by two points the second time, "but we could see the stress she went through," he said, adding he believed there were hundreds of similar stories across the state. "I'm all for high standards, but we also have to help students."

Delaying parts of I-1351 made sense because the state has to build the foundation for smaller classes in the upper grades, he added.

The bill that spelled out those delays was one of the last compromises reached in the Legislative session, and almost foundered when minority Democrats in the Senate said they hadn't been consulted about the details of how it would be left out of a budget the Legislature had already passed. If failed to get the needed two-thirds super-majority in its first Senate vote, and the delay in the assessment test was part of the agreement to pass it on a second try.

But while it passed with super-majorities in both chambers, no legislators were on hand for the signing.

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