Washington’s prototypical school funding model

Washington does not fund districts by reimbursing their actual payroll. It runs one statewide recipe - the prototypical school model - that converts a district's enrollment into a number of funded staff positions and operating dollars. Salaries and benefits generated this way are 51% of the entire state allocation.

How the model works, in three steps

1. Count students in FTE

The state counts students in FTE - full-time equivalent - which measures enrollment by how much school a student actually attends, not just how many bodies are counted. A student enrolled half-time counts as 0.5 FTE, not 1. The state uses this funding FTE by grade span, then converts it into shares of model elementary, middle and high schools.

2. Generate a staffing allocation

Each model school is assigned teacher ratios and fractional positions for principals, counselors, librarians, office staff, custodians and nurses. A district with 1.5 elementary schools' worth of students generates 1.5 times the elementary staffing.

3. Turn positions into dollars

The state applies salary and benefit assumptions, regionalization, materials and operating costs, then adds funding for students with additional needs.

These are funding allocations, not a required staffing plan. Districts can organize schools differently, but must cover anything beyond the formula with other available revenue.

The three prototypical schools

The model defines three school sizes. They are accounting constructs - no district is required to build a school of exactly this size.

Prototypical school sizes under RCW 28A.150.260
Prototype	Model size	Funded class size
Elementary	400 students	K-3 ≈ 17, grades 4-6 ≈ 27
Middle	432 students	Grades 7-8 ≈ 28.53
High	600 students	Grades 9-12 ≈ 28.74, CTE ≈ 23

Funded class sizes

These are the class sizes the state pays for. They are not a legal cap on real classes - a district can run larger or smaller classes, and many do.

Funded class sizes by grade band
Grade band	Students per teacher	Note
K-3	17	The smallest funded class sizes, phased in after McCleary.
Grades 4-6	27	A single step up from the K-3 band.
Grades 7-8	28.53	Middle school staffing is generated at this ratio.
Grades 9-12	28.74	The largest funded general-education class size.
Career & technical education	23	Lower because labs and shops need space.

What the model generates statewide

Rolled up across every district, the formula components the model drives look like this.

Salaries

$6.0B

37% of the allocation

Benefits

$2.3B

14% of the allocation

MSOC

$1.4B

9% of the allocation

See MSOC funding for how the non-staff portion is set, and your own district's numbers in the District Explorer.

What the model leaves out

The prototypical model generates a state allocation. It is not the whole budget: local enrichment levies and federal programs fund positions and services on top of it, and the model does not attempt to describe those.

The statutory parameters have moved several times - EHB 2242 (2017) restructured the salary allocations after McCleary, and 2SHB 1664 (2022) increased the counselor, nurse and office-support allocations, finishing its phase-in for 2024-25. Figures here reflect the statute as currently in effect.

Statutory parameters: RCW 28A.150.260. Every source is listed on Sources & Methodology.