@snowfairy137, Spokane’s tax levy income must go farther than Seattle’s if they can afford to offer nine classes. We have friends in Walla Walla and I know their HS is able to offer seven periods. For people from normal parts of the country: it isn’t really that some areas are richer so can tax themselves more. In WA there are restrictions on how much areas are allowed to tax themselves for education. Basic education is supposed to be funded by the state (the WA constitution says it is the state’s “Paramount Duty.” ) The view is that rich areas shouldn’t be able to buy more than poor areas. In practice that means that urban areas, which tend to have students who are more expensive to educate, higher costs of living for teachers and more run down infrastructure are at a disadvantage compared to suburban areas. The most rural areas vary widely (there are some mitigating pots of money for the most rural and some urban areas.)
My understanding of Running Start is that the community college classes take the place of a HS class, so if a student takes CC English through Running Start, they can’t get credit for HS English in the same grading period. (Obviously, they could pay to take as many extra classes as they want.) East side (including East side of Lake Washington!) legislators in general are much more conservative than Seattle area ones. I don’t know how the Spokane reps, in particular, vote.