BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



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          ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
          AB 203 (Brownley)
          As Amended  May 11, 2011
          Majority vote 

           EDUCATION           7-3         APPROPRIATIONS      12-5        
           
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          |Ayes:|Brownley, Ammiano,        |Ayes:|Fuentes, Blumenfield,     |
          |     |Buchanan,                 |     |Bradford, Charles         |
          |     |Butler, Carter, Eng,      |     |Calderon, Campos, Davis,  |
          |     |Williams                  |     |Gatto, Hall, Hill, Lara,  |
          |     |                          |     |Mitchell, Solorio         |
          |     |                          |     |                          |
          |-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
          |Nays:|Norby, Halderman, Wagner  |Nays:|Harkey, Donnelly,         |
          |     |                          |     |Nielsen, Norby, Wagner    |
          |     |                          |     |                          |
           ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
           SUMMARY  :   Makes various changes to the Parent Empowerment 
          Program (PEP).  Specifically,  this bill  :  

          1)Specifies that a school not identified as persistently lowest 
            achieving, or is identified as a persistently lowest-achieving 
            school but does not receive funding under the federal School 
            Improvement Grant (SIG) program, instead of the federal Race 
            to the Top (RTTT) program, shall be a school subject to the 
            PEP.  

          2)Specifies that the following shall apply to the PEP:

             a)   No more than one parent or legal guardian per pupil may 
               sign a petition; and, 

             b)   Any written information provided to parents or legal 
               guardians, including a petition, shall meet the requirement 
               under existing law that if 15% or more of the pupils 
               enrolled in a public school speak a single primary language 
               other than English, all notices, reports, statements, or 
               records sent to the parent or guardian of any such pupil by 
               the school or school district shall, in addition to being 
               written in English, be written in the primary language.

          3)Requires a local governing board to, at the public meeting 








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            where a local education agency (LEA) designates in writing why 
            it cannot implement the option requested in the petition, 
            allow parents and legal guardians the opportunity to provide 
            testimony regarding the petition or the written findings. 

          4)Requires the California Department of Education (CDE) to 
            provide, on its Internet Web site, information regarding the 
            petition process, the five intervention options that parents 
            and legal guardians may request, and a sample petition that 
            can be used by interested petitioners. Specifies that the 
            petition shall be available in other languages pursuant to 
            existing law that requires translation of materials in 
            alternative languages if 15% or more of the pupils in a public 
            school speak a single primary language other than English.  
            Specifies that petitioners shall not be required to use the 
            sample petitions, but alternate petitions shall contain all 
            components required by law.

          5)Establishes the following definitions for the purpose of the 
            PEP:

             a)   "Parents or legal guardians" mean the natural or 
               adoptive parents, legal guardians, or other persons holding 
               the right to make educational decisions for the pupil, 
               including but not limited to, foster parents who hold 
               rights to make educational decisions on the date the 
               petition is submitted; and, 

             b)   "A combination of at least one-half of the parents or 
               legal guardians of pupils attending the school and the 
               elementary or middle schools that normally matriculate into 
               a middle or high school, as applicable" means one-half of 
               the total number of parents and legal guardians of pupils 
               who attend any of the following:

               i)     The school for which the petition is submitted; or,

               ii)    An elementary or middle school that normally 
                 matriculates into a middle or high school for which a 
                 petition is submitted, as applicable.

           FISCAL EFFECT  :  According to the Assembly Appropriations 
          Committee, one time General Fund (GF) administrative costs to 
          the CDE, likely less than $125,000, to provide specified 








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          information on its Internet Web site.  Potential, unknown, 
          GF/Proposition 98 state reimbursable mandated cost pressure, 
          likely less than $150,000 annually, to school districts to 
          conduct a verification process.  While this bill does not 
          establish a verification process, it does specify who can sign 
          the petition and how many times he or she may sign it.  The 
          original legislation,          SB 4 X5 (Romero), Chapter 3, 
          Statutes of 2009-10 Fifth Extraordinary Session, established 
          state reimbursable mandated costs, which will not be known until 
          a LEA files a state mandate claim.  

           COMMENTS  :  In February 2009, the President signed into law the 
          American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which, among 
          others, established $4 billion for one-time State Incentive 
          Grants known as the RTTT.  One of the eligibility requirements 
          for RTTT is identifying, including establishing a definition 
          for, persistently lowest-achieving schools in the state and 
          requiring these schools to implement one of four intervention 
          models that include replacing a principal and 50% of the staff; 
          converting a school to a charter school, or closing and 
          reopening a school under a charter school operator, a charter 
          management organization, or an education management 
          organization; closing a school and enrolling the students in 
          other higher achieving schools in the LEA; and replacing the 
          principal and developing strategies for school improvement.

          The PEP authorizes parents and legal guardians at a school not 
          identified as a persistently lowest-achieving school under the 
          RTTT, has an Academic Performance Index (API) score of under 800 
          and is in program improvement, to require a governing board to 
          implement any of the RTTT interventions or an alternative 
          intervention authorized by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) 
          if at least one-half of the parents or legal guardians of pupils 
          attending the school, or a combination of at least one-half of 
          the parents or legal guardians of the pupils attending the 
          school and its elementary or middle feeder schools, sign a 
          petition making the request.  

          The bill authorizes a governing board to choose another RTTT or 
          NCLB intervention only if it makes written findings in a 
          regularly scheduled public hearing of the reason it cannot 
          implement the option requested by parents and guardians, and 
          inform the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State 
          Board of Education (SBE) how the alternative intervention it has 








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          selected has substantial promise of enabling the school to meet 
          adequate yearly progress.         SB 4 X5 (Romero) limits the 
          number of affected schools to the first 75 statewide; excludes 
          schools with an API of 800 or higher; and specifies that a LEA 
          is not required to comply with the petition request if the 
          reason for the request is not related to academic achievement or 
          pupil safety.      

          At the legislative hearings on SB 4 X5 last year, concerns were 
          expressed that some of the bill's provisions were unclear and 
          that more specific parameters were needed.  In September 2010 
          and again in March 9, 2011, the SBE adopted temporary, emergency 
          regulations that provide minimal guidelines.  The SBE has been 
          deliberating proposed permanent regulations for several months 
          and at the April 21, 2011 meeting, the SBE voted to send revised 
          draft regulations for public comments.  During several 
          deliberations on this issue, questions were raised as to whether 
          statutory changes are needed to implement some of the proposed 
          regulations.  

          Thus far, only one petition has been submitted to a local 
          governing board.  On December 7, 2010, a petition was submitted 
          to the Compton Unified School District, which was rejected by 
          the Compton governing board on February 22, 2011 after much 
          confusion and conflict over what petitioners and LEAs may or may 
          not, or are required or not required, to do.  For example, 
          confusion over verification of signatures resulted in a lawsuit 
          as the law is silent on this issue.  That lawsuit is still 
          pending, while the Los Angeles Superior Court recently found the 
          petition noncompliant with one component of the emergency 
          regulations.

          The author states, "I have been monitoring the SBE and its 
          process of developing regulations.   This bill is a vehicle to 
          make necessary clarifications that should be in statute and 
          address any unresolvable issues or any issues deemed to require 
          statutory authority or clarifications in order to implement one 
          or more of the proposals in draft regulations."  This bill 
          proposes the following:

          Delink eligible schools from persistently lowest achieving 
          schools under the RTTT and link, instead, to LEAs that do not 
          receive SIG funds:  SB 4 X5 ties eligibility for the PEP to 
          schools not identified as persistently lowest achieving under 








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          the RTTT.  RTTT schools considered persistently lowest achieving 
          are required to implement one of the four intervention options.  
          The PEP is intended to provide the same opportunity to specified 
          schools not on the RTTT list.  California, however, did not 
          receive a RTTT grant.  A persistently lowest achieving schools 
          list was developed for the SIG, another federal Elementary and 
          Secondary Education Act grant program targeting low achieving 
          schools.  The SIG provides approximately $68 million to LEAs 
          with persistently lowest-achieving schools as specified by the 
          U.S. Department of Education.  Because there are more schools on 
          the list than funding available, this bill specifies that any 
          school not receiving funds under the SIG and meet all other 
          specified requirements of SB 4 X5 are eligible for the PEP.    

          Information by the CDE:  The bill requires the CDE to provide 
          information regarding the PEP on its Internet Web site, 
          including the petition process, the intervention options 
          available to parents, and a model petition that is available in 
          languages most frequently spoken by pupils.  According to the 
          author, this is to make it easier for parents interested in the 
          PEP to circulate a petition.  The bill does not require parents 
          to use the model petition as long as a petition meets 
          requirements specified in law and regulations.     

          Definition:  The bill establishes a definition for "parents or 
          legal guardians" as natural or adoptive parents, and a person 
          who has rights to make educational decisions for a student.  
          This is to give individuals making educational decisions for 
          foster kids an opportunity to sign a petition.    

          Signatures:  This bill specifies that there shall be one 
          signature per student.  This bill specifies that for petitions 
          that include feeder schools, the calculation of the number of 
          required signatures for what constitutes 50% is based on 50% 
          from the school for which a petition is being submitted and 50% 
          from all feeder schools.  The bill does not specify where 
          signatures are required to be collected.  

          Translation of materials:  This bill reinforces existing law 
          requiring materials to be translated if at least 15% of the 
          pupils at a school speak a primary language other than English.  
          It is important for parents who speak another language to be 
          able to understand what is being proposed in a petition and 
          other options that are available.     








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          Public Comments:  This bill requires a local governing board to, 
          at the public meeting where it provides written findings on why 
          it cannot implement the option requested in the petition, allow 
          parents and legal guardians to provide testimony regarding the 
          petition process and the written findings.
           

          Analysis Prepared by  :    Sophia Kwong Kim / ED. / (916) 319-2087 



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