(The Center Square) – Outside of budget negotiations, one of the bills that dominated Washington state lawmakers’ attention during the 2025 legislative session was a proposal to close a state-operated school for people with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities.
With just hours to spare on Sunday – the last day of the 105-day legislative session – lawmakers passed a version of Senate Bill 5393 that will prohibit new long-term admissions to Rainier School in Pierce County starting July 27 and stop short-term admissions starting June 30, 2027. The changes were the result of a Republican amendment accepted by both chambers.
Under the amended bill, the center would close when there are no longer any long-term residents. Former long-term residents could return within one year of transitioning out of the center.
House Republicans, who fought for weeks to convince majority-party Democrats not to shutter the school without first securing community placements like adult family homes and state-operated living alternatives, viewed the final bill as an improvement on the original.
Bill supporters argued closing the school would save money, contending that Rainier School, which has 58 long-term residents, operates under an old model that institutionalized adults with severe disabilities. They want residents placed in less restrictive community-based facilities.
Groups like Disability Rights Washington have argued evidence of abuse and safety lapses as reasons why the facility should be closed.
During an Apr. 22 House hearing, several Rainier School staff members urged lawmakers not to close the facility.
Following the final public hearing, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle worked together to craft a compromise.
“It’s better, as we’re not going to shut it down right away,” Rep. Dan Griffey, R-Allyn, told The Center Square on Sunday. “Residents will be able to stay there, and we think that’s important.”
Griffey reiterated that Republicans were sharply opposed to closing Rainier with no safe opportunities for residents elsewhere.
“It is important they have what fits them. There are many in the DD [developmentally disabled] population that would do very well in a group home, and it’s an enriching experience, but there are those who don’t, and that is why it was so important for us to protect Rainier School and Yakima Valley School as well,” he noted.
He added that while the bill won’t allow Rainier School to accept new admissions, it will not close until all residents are permanently placed in community settings.
Rep. Travis Couture, R-Allyn, told The Center Square he was, too, pleased with the bill as amended ahead of Sunday’s final vote.
“We were traumatized twice in committee in fighting for Rainier School, and I don’t really like to show emotion in a professional setting, and I tried not to, but this was one of those things that strikes really deep for a lot of members,” Couture said in referring to his tearful plea earlier this month not to close the school. “I said I would work with anybody to solve this and we did. We worked for three days straight, where basically this was all I did. [Representatives] Drew Stokesbary, Josh Penner, and a handful of Democrats as well, really showed what you can do when you work together, even with a big difference of opinion.”
The original bill called for shuttering Yakima Valley School, another residential rehabilitation center, but that provision was removed.
Lawmakers told The Center Square that the final bill is modeled after a bill from years ago to eventually close Yakima Valley School, with no firm timelines, making the bill more appealing to Republicans.
