By Bill Lucia | Editor
Parents are worried a Washington state program that provides support for families of children with autism and other developmental disabilities could be on the cusp of elimination. Advocates are worried the Department of Social and Health Services is letting contracts lapse, trying to get ahead of budget talks as a funding shortfall looms and cuts are on the table. The Parent to Parent contract only runs through August. An agency spokesperson said that “no funding decisions have been made for Parent to Parent or any other DSHS program.”
Also in today’s edition…
Student aid applications hit a new high mark among Washington high schoolers.
Measles cases in the U.S. reach levels not seen in more than three decades.
And, states join a lawsuit against the feds over halted wind power projects.
News tips, feedback, questions? Email us: [email protected]
(Photo by Bill Lucia/Washington State Standard)
By Jake Goldstein-Street
Parent to Parent pairs newer parents of children with developmental disabilities with more experienced ones. This is meant to help parents figure out the complicated system of available resources for their kids and provide support and community.
“They understand everything that you’re going through, the grief and the joy that exists in every day, and they walk through it with you,” said Jenna Vogel, whose son has Level 2 autism and complications from being born premature. “It’s everything to our family.”
The program also features supports for siblings of people with developmental disabilities. It serves families in all of Washington’s 39 counties, with tens of thousands of calls and emails for assistance every year. The cost is about $900,000 annually.
By Aspen Ford
A record number of Washington high school students applied for college financial aid this past school year, state officials said late last week. They said 46,168 seniors in the Class of 2026 completed either the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, also known as FAFSA, or the state-equivalent Washington Application for State Financial Aid, or WAFSA. Gov. Bob Ferguson has made increasing FAFSA and WAFSA completion rates a priority. With the latest total, Washington ranks 40th among states on this measure, up from 47th last year.
By Tim Henderson
Measles cases nationwide this year have surpassed all of 2025 to become the worst since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000, with cases now in 44 states and the District of Columbia, according to a federal report released Friday. There were 2,318 confirmed cases as of July 23, compared with 2,289 in all of 2025, with 93% of cases for both years being among unvaccinated people, mostly younger than 20.
The last time national cases were higher than in 2025 and 2026 was in the 1990s, as national vaccinations were still ramping up.
*Figures for 2025 and 2026 are preliminary and subject to change. (Chart courtesy of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
The largest number of current cases are in South Carolina (670), Utah (522), Texas (188), Virginia (176) and Pennsylvania (134). Except for Virginia, all those states have childhood vaccination rates below the 95% level considered necessary to prevent outbreaks among unvaccinated people as of the 2024-25 school year. Virginia’s outbreak was in two rural counties where measles vaccination rates are less than 75%.
By Alex Brown
A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general has joined a lawsuit seeking to end the Trump administration’s halt of wind power projects around the United States. Last week, 18 states, including Washington, moved to intervene in a lawsuit filed by wind industry companies against the Department of Defense. The companies and state leaders say that the feds have frozen all new wind projects by refusing to conduct routine national security reviews. This bottleneck has waylaid more than 155 onshore wind projects, according to the American Clean Power Association. Attorney General Nick Brown said five projects here in Washington are stuck. Trump has long been an opponent of wind power. “I’m proudly telling you that we’re going to try and have no windmills built in the United States,” he said earlier this year.
Corrections: Last Thursday’s newsletter incorrectly spelled the name of Billy Frank Jr. on one reference. It also should have said that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a rule barring states from issuing temporary commercial driver’s licenses in most cases. The newsletter omitted the word “temporary.”
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