BILL ANALYSIS Ó ------------------------------------------------------------ |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 2171| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ------------------------------------------------------------ THIRD READING Bill No: AB 2171 Author: Fong (D) Amended: 7/2/12 in Senate Vote: 21 SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE : 8-0, 6/13/12 AYES: Lowenthal, Alquist, Hancock, Huff, Liu, Price, Simitian, Vargas NO VOTE RECORDED: Runner, Blakeslee, Vacancy SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE : Senate Rule 28.8 ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 74-0, 4/26/12 (Consent) - See last page for vote SUBJECT : Community colleges: expulsion and enrollment SOURCE : Peralta Community College District DIGEST : This bill authorizes a community college district to require a student seeking admission to disclose his/her prior expulsion from another community college district and authorizes the governing board of a community college district to deny enrollment, permit enrollment, or permit conditional enrollment to a student who has been expelled, or is being considered for expulsion, from another district for specified offenses within the preceding five years. ANALYSIS : Existing law requires a California Community CONTINUED AB 2171 Page 2 College (CCC) district to admit any California resident and may admit any nonresident, possessing a high school diploma or the equivalent thereof. CCC district governing boards may admit persons who are over the age of 18 who do not possess a high school diploma or its equivalent that are capable of profiting from the instruction offered and are also authorized to admit high school students if their high school governing boards determine the student would benefit from advanced scholastic or vocational work. Under existing law, the governing board of a CCC district may only exclude "students of filthy or vicious habits, or students suffering from contagious or infectious diseases" and "may exclude from attendance in regular classes students whose physical or mental disability is such as to cause his or her attendance to be inimical to the welfare of other students." Existing law authorizes a CCC to expel a student for good cause when other means of correction fail to bring about proper conduct, or when the presence of the student causes a continuing danger to the physical safety of the student or others. The expulsion is required to be accompanied by a hearing. Existing federal law specifies that student disciplinary records are protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and are subject to the general requirement that records regarding identifiable students cannot be shared without the student's consent or a court order. Current state law also provides these protections. Existing law, the California Tort Claims Act, gives public entities, including state and local governments, general immunity from liability for injuries that may arise from an act or an omission and extends that immunity to public employees as specified. This bill: 1.Authorizes a governing board of a community college district to deny enrollment, permit enrollment, or permit conditional enrollment to a student who has been expelled or is being considered for expulsion from another AB 2171 Page 3 district within the preceding five years for specified offenses. Specifically, it: A. Requires the governing board, prior to taking action to deny or permit conditional enrollment, to hold a hearing, as specified, to determine whether the individual poses a continuing danger to the physical safety of the students and employees in the district. B. Authorizes a California Community College (CCC) district to request information from another community college district to determine whether an applicant continues to pose a danger to the physical safety of others. C. Requires the governing board to take into consideration evidence of subsequent offenses and rehabilitative efforts since the offense. D. Authorizes a governing board to delegate authority granted by this act to a district superintendent, president or other designee, or a threat assessment crisis response team, as specified. E. Requires the governing board to establish a formal appeals process for students denied enrollment to appeal the decision and grants a student who is denied enrollment the right to appeal the decision to the district governing board. 1.Defines "offense," for the bill's purposes, to mean: A. Committed or attempted to commit murder; B. Caused, attempted to cause, or threatened to cause physical injury to another person, including assault or battery, as defined, except in self-defense; C. Committed or attempted to commit a sexual assault, as defined, or committed sexual battery, as defined; D. Committed or attempted to commit kidnapping, or seized, confined, inveigled, enticed, decoyed, abducted, concealed, kidnapped, or carried away AB 2171 Page 4 another person by any means with the intent to hold or detain that person for ransom or reward; E. Committed or attempted to commit robbery; F. Committed stalking, as defined; and G. Possessed, sold, or otherwise furnished a firearm, knife, explosive, or other dangerous objects. 1.Authorizes a community college to requires a student seeking admission and who was expelled from a community college in the state for any of the specified actions to inform the receiving district of his or her prior expulsion and authorizes the receiving district to maintain written record of a student's failure to make such disclosure and consider such failure in determining whether to grant admission. 2.Specifies that the measure does not impose a duty to review applicants for admission or review previously enrolled students, whether returning or continuing, or to conduct a hearing in response to the receipt of any information regarding a potential, former, or existing student. 3.Specifies that a community college district, its governing board members, district officers or employees, including the superintendent, a college president, or designees of those individuals, shall not be liable for an injury as a result of exercising discretion pursuant to this act, including the discretion not to conduct a hearing. 4.Prohibits the application of the bill's provisions to students that the district has the discretion to admit, such as the nonresident and other transfer applicants, as specified. Comments With very few exceptions, community colleges are required by law to admit any California resident and do not have the authority to restrict a student's admission based on past AB 2171 Page 5 conduct, even if that conduct was for serious or violent offenses while attending another community college district. The General Counsel for the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office has opined that "even if the receiving college becomes aware of the expulsion, there is no current authority to restrict a student admission based on past conduct, even if that conduct occurred at another community college district." The sponsors of this bill contend that the inability to deny admission to students who have previously been expelled from other community colleges for committing violent or dangerous acts poses a threat to students, faculty, and staff. This bill provides local community college districts with another tool to improve safety on their campuses. According to the Senate Education Committee analysis, this bill does not pertain to students expelled for academic related offenses such as plagiarism or transcript forgery. The bill only addresses students expelled from another community college for specified violent or serious offenses. Under the provisions of this bill, a student expelled from the California State University (CSU) or the University of California (UC) for committing these same offenses would still be eligible (as they are today) to enroll in a community college. Discipline and expulsion from a CCC . Existing law requires the CCCs to adopt rules for student conduct standards and related penalties for violating those standards. A CCC district is authorized to expel a student for good cause, which may include assault, battery, or any threat of force or violence upon a student or college personnel, willful misconduct that results in injury or death to a student or college personnel, or defacing district property, or the use, sale, or possession on campus of controlled substance or specified poisons. According to the author's office, there are relatively few students expelled each year for violent and criminal offenses; data from a survey of 55 CCC campuses indicated that 29 students were expelled in the 2007-08 academic year for violent or serious offenses and 17 students were expelled in 2008-09. Practices of other systems . Unlike California's other postsecondary education systems, community colleges do not AB 2171 Page 6 have an established authority or process for denying admission to individuals who have been expelled from another college within the system. UC: According to the UC, a student who is expelled from a campus within the UC system may be considered for readmission only under exceptional circumstances. The student may not be admitted to a different UC campus without the express approval of the Chancellor of the campus to which the expelled student has applied. CSU: A student who is expelled from a CSU campus is expelled from the entire system. Admission or readmission to the CSU may be qualified, revoked, or denied to any person found to have violated the Student Conduct Code. The Student Conduct Procedures for the CSU afford students due process in discipline proceedings and provide guidance to campuses to address student misconduct. In the state's K-12 system, a pupil who is expelled from a school district may be enrolled in another district during or after the period of expulsion only after the second school district holds a hearing to determine whether the individual poses a continuing danger either to the pupils or employees of the district. This bill establishes a process that is similar to that used in the K-12 system. According to Legislative Counsel Opinion #1207924, prior versions of this bill which would have required districts to hold a hearing before taking action to deny or permit conditional enrollment of any student (including nonresident students who are already admitted at the discretion of the district), would have created a state mandate, since the CCC already have the ability to deny admission for any reason to these "discretionary" students without a hearing. This bill has been amended to clarify that its provisions do not apply to these "discretionary admit" students, thereby eliminating the mandate. Prior Legislation AB 288 (Fong, 2011) was almost identical to this bill and was ultimately vetoed by Governor Brown whose veto message AB 2171 Page 7 read in part: Requiring every community college to follow a uniform process for evaluating a student expulsion taken by another district adds unnecessary burdens and costs that the state will have to reimburse. I invite Chancellor Scott and the California Community Colleges Board of Governors to work with local districts to craft a more flexible and cost-effective approach to enable districts to share critical information about student expulsions. AB 1400 (Fong, 2010) was substantially similar to this bill and was vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger who also requested that the Board of Governors work with the Chancellor develop a policy to most effectively address this issue for the campuses. FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes Local: Yes According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee analysis, there would be minor nonreimbursable costs for legal services to districts who conduct the specified hearings. Assuming up to $5,000 per hearing, costs statewide would probably not exceed $50,000 to $100,000. In addition, this bill will have mandated and probably minor costs associated with districts responding to requests for information. SUPPORT : (Verified 7/2/12) Peralta Community College District (source) California Communities United Institute California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office Community College League of California Kern Community College District Rio Hondo Community College District San Diego Community College District San Jose-Evergreen Community College District West Kern Community College District ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT : Supporters argue, "AB 2171 AB 2171 Page 8 requires the governing board of a community college, or its designee to hold a hearing prior to taking action to deny, permit, or place conditions on the enrollment of an individual who pose a risk to the safety of others. This includes students who have been expelled from a community college within the preceding five years or are undergoing expulsion for violent acts specified in the bill. AB 2171 would also grant community colleges additional tools to ensure the safety of students and employees. A community college may request information from another district to determine if the student continues to pose a threat to the safety of others. AB 2171 contains meaningful oversight of this sensitive process by requiring the governing board of a district to hold a hearing to decide such matters." ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 74-0, 4/26/12 AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Beall, Bill Berryhill, Block, Blumenfield, Bonilla, Bradford, Brownley, Buchanan, Butler, Charles Calderon, Campos, Carter, Chesbro, Conway, Cook, Davis, Dickinson, Donnelly, Eng, Feuer, Fletcher, Fong, Fuentes, Beth Gaines, Galgiani, Garrick, Gatto, Gordon, Gorell, Grove, Hagman, Hall, Hayashi, Roger Hernández, Hill, Huber, Hueso, Huffman, Jeffries, Knight, Lara, Logue, Bonnie Lowenthal, Ma, Mansoor, Mendoza, Miller, Mitchell, Monning, Morrell, Nestande, Nielsen, Norby, Olsen, Pan, Perea, V. Manuel Pérez, Portantino, Silva, Skinner, Solorio, Swanson, Torres, Valadao, Wagner, Wieckowski, Williams, Yamada, John A. Pérez NO VOTE RECORDED: Cedillo, Furutani, Halderman, Harkey, Jones, Smyth PQ:n 7/3/12 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE **** END ****