BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1029|
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CONSENT
Bill No: AB 1029
Author: Lara (D)
Amended: 4/6/11 in Assembly
Vote: 21
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE : 8-0, 6/15/11
AYES: Lowenthal, Alquist, Blakeslee, Hancock, Huff, Liu,
Price, Vargas
NO VOTE RECORDED: Runner, Simitian, Vacancy
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 70-0, 5/12/11 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Community colleges: course approval
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This bill extends by one year, the authority
(and related reporting requirements) of local community
college governing boards to approve stand-alone credit
courses that are not part of an educational program,
without the prior approval of the Board of Governors of the
California Community Colleges.
ANALYSIS : Until 2007, existing law required the Board of
Governors (BOG) to approve all educational programs offered
by community colleges and also required the BOG to approve
individual courses that are not part of an approved
program. State regulations delegated the responsibility for
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these approvals to the Chancellor of the California
Community Colleges (CCC).
AB 1943 (Nava), Chapter 817, Statutes of 2006, authorizes
local community college governing boards to approve
stand-alone credit courses that are not part of an
educational program, without the prior approval of the BOG
of the CCCs until January 1, 2013. It also requires the
Chancellor's Office to submit a report to the appropriate
fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature by January
1, 2012, describing the extent to which districts had
complied with BOG adopted regulations regarding stand-alone
course approval.
This bill:
1. Extends the authority of local community college
governing boards to approve stand-alone courses for one
additional year, from January 1, 2013, to January 1,
2014.
2. Extends the requirement that the Chancellor prepare and
submit a report (that includes, but is not limited to, a
description of the results of the monitoring and the
extent to which community college districts have
complied with BOG adopted regulations on stand-alone
courses) to the appropriate fiscal and policy committees
of the Legislature from January 1, 2012, to January 1,
2013.
3. Makes related technical and conforming changes.
Comments
Need for the bill . Current law, until January 1, 2013,
authorizes local community college districts to approve
"stand alone" courses and requires that they submit
specified information to the Chancellor's Office. The
Chancellor's Office is required to submit a report on the
implementation of this authority to the fiscal and policy
committees of the Legislature, ostensibly to consider the
elimination of the sunset. In 2009, the Chancellor's
Office discovered that stand-alone credit courses were
often approved by districts but enrollment data was never
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submitted because the courses were not offered or were
canceled due to low enrollment. Such courses were never
entered into the Chancellor's Office database and thus were
not tracked. The Chancellor's Office is requesting a
one-year extension of the authority granted by AB 1943 in
order to gather more accurate information.
More information on these courses . "Stand alone" courses
fall outside traditional groupings of classes and are not
part of an established educational program. These courses
are generally created to meet specific local educational
and workforce needs. Examples of such courses offered in
the past include Integrated Networking Essentials, Pest
Management, Soil Testing and Inspection, Strategies for
Career Success, Wine Vineyard Management, Academic Survival
Skills, Sexual Harassment Prevention, and others. When AB
1943 was passed, supporters argued that maintaining
authorization at the local level allows districts to be
more responsive to the needs of the communities that they
serve.
How does it work ? In 2007, the BOG adopted regulations
governing the adoption of stand-alone courses by local
districts. Among other things, the regulations require
that:
1. In order to be certified to approve these courses
locally, each college must annually certify that all
persons involved in curriculum approval at each college
have been trained in accordance with the regulations.
2. Courses previously denied by the Chancellor's Office
must be modified before they can be approved locally.
3. Locally approved courses must be reported to the
Chancellor's Office.
4. Linking of 18 or more semester units through
prerequisites or corequisites triggers a requirement
that the course be submitted to the Chancellor's Office
for approval as a program.
5. Local approval authority may be terminated if a district
fails to comply with any of the regulatory requirements.
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FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 6/28/11)
Chancellor's Office of the California Community Colleges
(source)
Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges
Cerritos College
College of the Desert
Community College League of California
Feather Ridge College
Kern Community College District
Los Angeles Community College District
Los Rios Community College District
Merced Community College District
Monterey Peninsula College
Palo Verde College
San Diego Community College District
West Kern Community College District
ASSEMBLY FLOOR :
AYES: Achadjian, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Beall, Bill
Berryhill, Block, Blumenfield, Bonilla, Bradford,
Brownley, Buchanan, Butler, Charles Calderon, Campos,
Carter, Chesbro, Cook, Davis, Dickinson, Donnelly, Eng,
Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Furutani, Beth Gaines,
Galgiani, Gatto, Gordon, Grove, Hagman, Halderman, Hall,
Harkey, Hayashi, Hill, Huber, Hueso, Huffman, Jeffries,
Jones, Knight, Lara, Logue, Ma, Mansoor, Mendoza, Miller,
Monning, Morrell, Nestande, Nielsen, Norby, Olsen, Pan,
Perea, V. Manuel Pérez, Silva, Skinner, Smyth, Solorio,
Swanson, Valadao, Wagner, Wieckowski, Williams, Yamada,
John A. Pérez
NO VOTE RECORDED: Alejo, Cedillo, Conway, Garrick, Gorell,
Roger Hernández, Bonnie Lowenthal, Mitchell, Portantino,
Torres
CPM:do 6/28/11 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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