BILL ANALYSIS Ó ------------------------------------------------------------ |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1029| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ------------------------------------------------------------ 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 CONTINUED AB 1029 Page 2 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 CONTINUED AB 1029 Page 3 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. CONTINUED AB 1029 Page 4 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 CONTINUED AB 1029 Page 5 **** END **** CONTINUED