Education Bills Advance, Start Time Bill Blasts Out of Committee
Friday marked the deadline for policy committees in both houses of the Legislature to meet and act on bills. Any bill that has not moved through its policy committee is now effectively dead for the year, barring extraordinary circumstances.
In addition to the Policy Committee deadline, Friday was the beginning of Summer Recess for the Legislature. With members now gone for four weeks, we wanted to highlight their recent actions in both houses. Almost all of the bills below will next be considered by the Appropriations Committees.
Upon returning from Recess on August 12, the Legislature will only have four weeks to conclude business for the year. Expect a flurry of activity from that point until they adjourn the 2019 Legislative Session on September 13.
Start-Time Bills Passes out of Committee
After weeks of speculation around whether or not the Chair of the Assembly Education Committee, Assembly Member Patrick O’Donnell (D-Long Beach), would set Senator Anthony Portantino’s (D – La Cañada Flintridge) school start-time bill, SB 328, for hearing, the bill was finally heard on the last day for fiscal bills to pass out of policy committees.
SB 328 would prohibit high schools from starting before 8:30 AM and middle schools from starting before 8:00 AM.
Assembly Member O’Donnell has been a vocal opponent of this effort, voting against a similar bill when it came before him in his committee and on the Assembly floor last session.
After substantive and friendly debate, SB 328 passed out the Assembly Education Committee on a 4-1-2 vote. Chair O’Donnell was the only no vote against the bill with Assembly Member Christy Smith (D – Santa Clarita) and newly appointed Committee member, Assembly Member Tyler Diep (R – Westminster), not voting. Assembly Member Diep was appointed to the committee just ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, filling the vacancy on the committee left by Assembly Member Brian Maienschein (D – San Diego), who was removed from the committee back in February after switching his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat.
In a somewhat surprising move, after voting against a similar bill in committee two years ago, Assembly Member Kevin Kiley (R – Rocklin) voted in support of SB 328. The vote switch was interesting, given the fact that Assembly Member Kiley has been a strong proponent of local control in the past and the current language of SB 328 is arguably stricter than the bill he previously voted against. That version exempted zero-period classes from the start-time prohibition while this year’s SB 328 only exempts zero-period classes where a school does not generate any average-daily-attendance for funding appropriation purposes.
School start-time was one of two high profile issues considered by the education committees just ahead of the deadline. The Senate Education Committee also heard and passed out a pair of charter school reform bills, including the controversial AB 1505 (O’Donnell), which seeks to make changes to the charter authorization and renewal processes. For detailed analysis of AB 1505, please see our update on charter school legislation sent our earlier today.
Below is a list of other recent actions taken by the Education Committees.
Please let me know if we can provide any additional information.
Thank you,
-Nick
Nick Romley
Legislative Analyst
Capitol Advisors Group
916.557.9745 – Office
Assessment and Accountability
AB 1097 (Holden) - Pupil instruction: credit recovery programs: report.
This bill requires the California Department of Education (CDE), by July 1, 2021, to provide a report to the Governor and Legislature on credit recovery programs.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
AB 1233 (Smith) - Advanced placement examinations: fees.
This bill establishes a grant program, administered by CDE, for purposes of awarding grants to cover the costs of advanced placement (AP) examination fees for eligible low-income high school pupils or foster youth high school pupils.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
ACR 64 (McCarty) - California State University and University of California: SAT and ACT.
This resolution requests the Trustees of the California State University (CSU) and the Regents of the University of California (UC) to conduct a study on the usefulness, effectiveness, and need for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the American College Test (ACT) to determine student admissions, including the evaluation of specified matters and recommendations, and a plan, if determined to be necessary, for phasing out the use of the SAT and ACT as a basis for admission.
Action: Adopted 7-0
Charter Schools
AB 1505 (O'Donnell) - Charter schools: petitions.
This bill makes various changes relating to charter school authorizations, appeals, and renewals, clarifies the teacher credentialing requirements of charter school teachers, and places a two-year moratorium on nonclassroom-based charter schools.
Action: Passed 4-3
AB 1507 (Smith) - Charter schools: location: resource center.
This bill eliminates the authorization for a charter school to be located outside the boundaries of their authorizer and allows a nonclassroom-based charter school to establish one resource center within the jurisdiction of the school district where the charter school is located.
Action: Passed 4-3
Curriculum and Instruction
AB 331 (Medina) - Pupil instruction: high school graduation requirements: ethnic studies.
Adds, commencing with the 2024-25 school year, a semester-long course in ethnic studies, based on the ethnic studies model curriculum, to the list of statewide graduation requirements; and (2) expressly applies all of the statewide graduation requirements to charter schools.
Action: Passed as amended 4-0-3
AB 1172 (Frazier) - Special education: nonpublic, nonsectarian schools or agencies.
This bill places new documentation requirements on nonpublic schools (NPS) related to their administrators and staff trainings, places new monitoring requirements on local educational agencies (LEAs) that enter into a contract with a NPS, and places a notification requirement on a NPS for any pupil-involved incident involving law enforcement.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
AB 1393 (Weber) - Pupil instruction: model curriculum: Laotian history and cultural studies.
This bill adds Laotian history and cultural studies to the forthcoming model curriculum in Hmong history and cultural studies that the Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) is required to develop and submit to the State Board of Education (SBE) by December 31, 2022, and that the SBE is required to adopt, modify, or reject by March 31, 2023.
Action: Passed 7-0
Authorizes a community college district to allow an adult student pursuing a high school diploma or a high school equivalency certificate to attend a California Community College (CCC) as a special part-time or full-time student.
Action: Passed 7-0
SB 695 (Portantino) - Special education: individualized education programs: translation services.
Requires LEAs to provide most students’ parents with a translation, upon parental request, of the student’s individualized education program (IEP) and other related documents in the native language of the parent within 30 days of the IEP team meeting, and requires translations to be conducted by a qualified translator.
Action: Passed 5-1-1
SJR 8 (Wilk) - Special education funding.
Memorializes the Congress and the President of the United States to enact S. 866, pending before Congress, that would fully fund the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Action: Adopted 7-0; Consent
Early Childhood
AB 125 (McCarty) - Early childhood education: reimbursement rates.
This bill modifies the state’s system and rates for reimbursing subsidized childcare and development programs by creating a more uniform reimbursement system reflecting regional costs of care adjusted for certain factors and subjects the provisions of this bill to the contingent enactment of Senate Bill 174 of the 2019-20 Regular Session.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
This bill expands access to and adopts revised standards for stipends designed to facilitate the professional development of providers of high-quality subsidized childcare.
Action: Passed 7-0
AB 776 (Kalra) - Education data: pupil identifiers: early childhood education programs.
This bill requires CDE to establish a process by which LEAs may opt to assign unique statewide student identifiers (SSIDs) to children enrolled in subsidized early childhood education (ECE) programs under their purview.
Action: Passed as amended 7-0
AB 1001 (Ting) - Child care: strategic planning councils.
This bill updates the composition and duties of local planning councils, renames them, strategic planning councils (SPCs) and requires SPCs to collect stakeholder input to conduct childcare needs assessments, facilitate local decision-making for ECE services, and guide local and statewide ECE investments.
Action: Passed as amended 7-0
SB 174 (Leyva) - Early childhood education: reimbursement rates.
Requires, subject to an appropriation, that specified providers of subsidized childcare be reimbursed based upon an updated regional market rate (RMR) as of January 1, 2021, establishes the “Quality Counts California Pilot Reimbursement Program,” to provide higher reimbursement rates to alternative payment program (APP) providers for meeting certain quality standards, and makes the enactment of this bill contingent upon the enactment of AB 125 of this Session.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
Facilities
AB 1303 (O'Donnell) - School facilities: Civic Center Act: direct costs.
This bill extends the sunset date, by five years, on the authority for school districts to charge an entity a fee for the use of the school’s facilities or grounds that includes the costs for a proportion of the operating and maintenance costs.
Action: Passed 7-0
AB 1578 (Rivas, Luz) - School Pavement to Parks Grant Program.
This bill would establish the School Pavement to Parks Grant Program to assist schools located in disadvantaged communities to convert existing pavement to green space.
Action: Passed 7-0
SB 743 (Hertzberg) - School facilities: design-build projects.
Requires a specified school district to meet certain requirements and include those requirements as terms and conditions in a design-build contract for the purpose of meeting the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requirements.
Action: Passed 7-0
Governance/Operations
This bill limits the authority of a probation department to supervise and provide services to minors who are within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court and eliminates truancy as an offense subject to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court.
Action: Passed as amended 6-0-1
AB 1036 (Aguiar-Curry) - Elections: civic outreach and voter engagement.
This bill authorizes the High School Voter Education Pilot Program, wherein the Yolo County Elections Office may partner with the Yolo County Board of Education to (1) conduct mock elections for high school student government at participating campuses and (2) offer eligible students the opportunity to register and preregister to vote. This bill makes other requirements of the Secretary of State (SOS) in relation to improving county-level voter registration and voter outreach programs.
Action: Passed as amended 7-0
AB 1214 (Melendez) - School employees: training: cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
This bill requires an LEA to offer a course in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for purposes of allowing school staff and teachers to participate in CRP training. This bill also requires an LEA that elects to offer any interscholastic athletic program to have personnel with a valid certification of CPR training to be present at the athletic program’s on-campus activities or events at all times.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
AB 1666 (Reyes) - The California Complete Count: local educational agencies.
This bill requires the California Complete Count – Census 2020 to partner with LEAs to make information about the 2020 federal census available to students and parents.
Action: Passed 7-0
ACR 87 (Quirk-Silva) - Upholding democracy through civic education in public schools.
Encourages California schools to pursue recognized designations that reflect the ethos and values described in this resolution, such as California Democracy School Civic Learning Initiatives, the California State Seal of Civic Engagement, and the California Civic Learning Awards.
Action: Adopted as amended 7-0; Consent
SB 328 (Portantino) - Pupil attendance: school start time.
Prohibits high schools, including those operated as charter schools, from beginning their schoolday before 8:30 a.m. Prohibits middle schools, including those operated as charter schools, from beginning their schoolday before 8:00 a.m.
Action: Passed 4-1-2
SB 419 (Skinner) - Pupil discipline: suspensions: willful defiance.
Prohibits the suspension of any pupil in kindergarten or grades 1 to 5, inclusive, and the expulsion of any pupil in kindergarten through grade 12, inclusive, who disrupts school activities or otherwise willfully defies the valid authority of supervisors, teachers, administrators, or school officials, beginning on July 1, 2020 and prohibits, from July 1, 2020, until July 1, 2024, the suspension of any pupil or grades 6 to 8, inclusive, for that same act; and applies these provisions to charter schools.
Action: Passed as amended 5-2
Human Resources
This bill requires all public schools to provide online training at least once every two years to teachers for the support of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) students.
Action: Passed 6-0-1
AB 1219 (Jones-Sawyer) - Teacher credentialing: certificated employee assignment monitoring.
This bill requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) to implement the State Assignment Accountability System (CalSAAS) for annual monitoring of teacher misassignments in all public schools.
Action: Passed 5-0-2
SB 478 (Rubio) - Commission on Teacher Credentialing: membership.
This bill changes the composition of representatives on the CTC. Specifically, the bill reduces the number of representatives of the public, from four to three, and adds one certificated human resources administrator in a public elementary or secondary school. The bills also eliminates a reference to the now-defunct California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC).
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
School Safety
SB 223 (Hill) - Pupil health: administration of medicinal cannabis: schoolsites.
Authorizes the governing board of a school district, a county board of education, and the governing body of a charter school maintaining kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12 to adopt a policy that allows a parent or guardian to possess and administer non-smokeable and non-vapeable medicinal cannabis to an authorized pupil at a schoolsite.
Action: Passed 5-2
SB 390 (Umberg) - School safety: school security officers and security guards.
Requires all security guards working on the property of a K-12 school district to complete the latest training developed by the Department of Consumer Affairs and requires school districts to provide the training to all security guards during their regular work hours.
Action: Passed 7-0
SB 541 (Bates) - School safety: lockdown drills and multioption response drills.
Requires every public school, including charter schools, and every private school that has an enrollment of 50 or more pupils or more than one classroom, and serves students in grades kindergarten to 12, to conduct an age-appropriate lockdown drill or multi-option response drill at least once per school year.
Action: Passed 7-0
Student Services
AB 16 (Rivas, Luz) - Homeless children and youths: reporting.
This bill adds three positions within CDE to fulfill duties required of the Coordinator for Education of Homeless Children, and requires CDE to allocate funds to three county offices of education (COEs) to establish technical assistance centers relative to the education of homeless children.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
AB 258 (Jones-Sawyer) - Pupil health: School-Based Pupil Support Services Program Act.
This bill establishes the School-Based Pupil Support Services Program to increase inschool support services to pupils by appropriating funding from the Youth Education, Prevention, Early Intervention and Treatment Account.
Action: Passed 6-0-1
This bill establishes the California School Plant-Based Food and Beverage Program within CDE in order to: (1) authorize LEAs to apply for partial reimbursement for meals that include a plant-based food or milk options, and (2) require CDE to provide competitive grants of up to $100,000 for specified plant-based food and milk related uses.
Action: Passed 7-0
This bill requires public and private schools that serve grades 7-12, and public and private institutions of higher education, that issue student identification cards to print on either side of the cards the telephone numbers for the National Sexual Assault Hotline and the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Action: Passed 5-1-1
AB 842 (Limón) - Child nutrition: school, childcare, and preschool meals.
This bill: (1) requires each part-day California state preschool program (CSPP) to provide at least one nutritious meal per program day, (2) requires each full-day CSPP provide to at least two nutritious meals or two snacks and one nutritious meal per program day, and (3) requires each school district, COE, and charter school that maintains a childcare and development program, to provide at least one nutritionally adequate free or reduced-price meal to each needy child.
Action: Passed as amended 7-0
AB 1085 (McCarty) - After school programs: substance use prevention: funding: cannabis revenue.
This bill: (1) encourages After School Education and Safety (ASES) programs, 21st Century Community Learning Centers programs, and 21st Century High School After School Safety and Enrichment for Teens (ASSETs) programs to establish programs that are designed to educate about and prevent substance use disorders or to prevent harm from substance abuse; (2) requires the State Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to enter into interagency agreements with CDE to administer those programs and allocate their funding; and (3) specifically authorizes DHCS to consider selecting those programs for funding from the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act (Prop 64).
Action: Passed 7-0
AB 1098 (O'Donnell) - Substance use disorders: youth programs.
This bill, an urgency measure, requires DHCS, in collaboration with CDE and State Department of Public Health (DPH), to convene a technical advisory committee to assist in establishing procedures for the implementation and administration of programs funded by cannabis tax funds aimed at providing substance abuse education and prevention programs targeted toward youth.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
AB 1229 (Wicks) - End Foster Youth Student Hunger in California Act of 2019.
This bill requires the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) to determine how much funding and authority is needed for CSAC to establish a Transition Age Foster Youth Meal Plan Program, and to report this information to the Legislature. This bill also requires the Department of Social Services (DSS) to establish an official approval process to ensure that foster youth who participate in an internship may apply those work hours towards meeting eligibility standards as a student in the CalFresh program. This bill imposes other requirements on DSS related to food assistance.
Action: Passed as amended 7-0; Consent
AB 1319 (Arambula) - Migrant education: pupil residency.
This bill requires LEAs to allow migrant students to continue their education in the school of origin, regardless of any change of residence during that school year, and requires that a migrant student be immediately enrolled in a new school.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
This bill would require COEs to ensure that a student enrolled in a juvenile court school for more than 20 school days has an individualized transition plan and access to specified educational records upon release.
Action: Passed 7-0
AB 1595 (Committee on Education) - Elementary and secondary education: omnibus bill.
This bill is the annual K-12 education policy omnibus bill, which makes technical, clarifying, conforming, and other non-controversial revisions to a number of provisions in the Education Code.
Action: Passed as amended 7-0; Consent
AB 1729 (Smith) - Pupils: attendance at community college.
This bill, until January 2027, authorizes additional high school students who meet certain conditions to enroll in summer community college courses by exempting those students from counting toward the 5 percent enrollment cap imposed by current law.
Action: Passed 7-0
AB 1767 (Ramos) - Pupil suicide prevention policies.
This bill requires the governing board or body of an LEA that serves kindergarten and grades 1-6 to adopt a policy on student suicide prevention.
Action: Passed 7-0
SB 138 (Roth) - Pupil health: type 1 diabetes information: parent notification.
Requires CDE to develop type 1 diabetes informational materials, and requires school districts and charter schools to make the informational materials accessible to parents and guardians of pupils by January 1, 2021.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
SB 265 (Hertzberg) - Pupil meals: Child Hunger Prevention and Fair Treatment Act of 2017.
Requires, until July 1, 2026, a school district, COE or a charter school, in which there is a school that is required to serve a free or reduced-price meal during the schoolday, to ensure that a pupil whose parent or guardian has unpaid school meal fees is not shamed, treated differently or denied a meal of the pupil’s choice because of unpaid meal fees.
Action: Passed 7-0
Requires public schools, including charter schools, and private schools that serve pupils in any of grades 7 to 12, and public and private institutions of higher education, that issue pupil or student identification cards, to print the telephone number for the National Domestic Violence Hotline on the back of those identification cards.
Action: Passed 7-0
SB 346 (Jackson) - After school programs: Distinguished After School Health Recognition Program.
Re-establishes the Distinguished After School Health (DASH) Recognition Program, which was repealed on January 1, 2018, to be administered by the CDE.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
SB 428 (Pan) - Pupil health: school employee training: youth mental and behavioral health.
Requires CDE to identify an evidence-based training program in youth mental health first aid for an LEA to use to train classified and certificated school employees having direct contact with pupils.
Action: Passed as amended 7-0
SB 582 (Beall) - Youth mental health and substance use disorder services.
Requires the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) to allocate at least one-half of the Investment in Mental Health Wellness Act (IMHWA) of 2013 triage grant program funds to LEA and mental health partnerships, to support prevention, early intervention, and direct services to children and youth.
Action: Passed 7-0; Consent
SB 586 (Roth) - College and Career Access Pathways partnerships.
Requires the governing board of a school district and community college district to consult and seek specified input prior to voting on a College and Career Access Pathways (CCAP) partnership agreement.
Action: Passed as amended 7-0
SB 686 (Allen) - California Promise Neighborhoods Act of 2019.
Establishes the California Promise Neighborhood Grant Program, to be administered by CDE, for the purpose of awarding grants to implement a comprehensive, integrated continuum of cradle-to-college-to-career solutions, including academic, health, social programs, and family and community supports.
Action: Passed 5-0-2