BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Carol Liu, Chair
2013-2014 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 388
AUTHOR: Chesbro
AMENDED: April 29, 2013
FISCAL COMM: No HEARING DATE: June 12, 2013
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Daniel Alvarez
SUBJECT : Community Colleges: Seymour-Campbell Student
Success
Act of 2012.
SUMMARY
This bill specifies that nothing within the student
matriculation statutes is intended to preclude a community
college from providing courses and programs, as specified,
to the extent resources are available for those purposes.
BACKGROUND
Current law, Chapter 624, Statutes of 2013 (SB 1456,
Lowenthal) revised and recast the Seymour-Campbell
Matriculation Act of 1986 as the Seymour-Campbell Student
Success Act of 2012 in order to target funding to services
such as orientation, assessment, and counseling and
advising to assist students with the development of
education plans. It also required that students define
goals; declare a course of study and mandated assessment,
orientation and education planning. (Education Code � 78210
et. seq.)
ANALYSIS
This bill specifies that nothing within the
Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act is intended to
preclude a community college from providing courses and
programs including, but not limited to (a) professional
development, (b) development of language skills, and (c)
job services for individuals with developmental
disabilities, to the extent resources are available for
those purposes.
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STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author, current
law is being interpreted strictly and therefore
disallowing students with specific "career
advancement" plans from enrolling in the community
colleges.
2) Bill appears to be unnecessary and could create
greater confusion . Under current law, community
colleges may offer a wide range of courses and
programs as determined by the local governing body,
unless current law prohibits or provides alternative
guidance. In this instance, this bill speaks to
permitting community colleges to offer courses of
professional development, development of job skills,
and job services for individuals with developmental
disabilities to the extent resources are available -
at present, staff could find no prohibition on the
community colleges to offer such courses or programs.
In addition, this bill by inserting a qualifying
paragraph as envisioned in this measure, within the
construct of the Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act,
could have the effect of creating confusion as to the
types of services matriculation funds can be used for.
The purposes for which matriculation funds can be
used are typically for student orientation, assessment
and placement, counseling, and other education
planning services and academic interventions. The
funding available for the Student Success Act is not
intended for the type of course offerings as described
in this measure.
3) Is this premature ? SB 1456 has been in effect for
less than two academic semesters, and this Committee
has not been provided with evidence of a problem. It
is unclear how the Seymour-Campbell Student Success
Act is the impetus for community colleges to
"disallow" students from enrolling in courses or
programs. Should the Student Success Act be
implemented and its effectiveness evaluated before
altering its provisions?
4) Student Success Task Force . Pursuant to Chapter 409,
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Statutes of 2010 (SB 1143, Liu), the Board of
Governors of the California Community Colleges created
the Student Success Task Force (SSTF); 20 individuals
(community college chief executive officers, faculty,
students, researchers, staff and external stake
holders) who spent a year researching, studying and
debating the best methods to improve student outcomes
at the community colleges.
According to the SSTF report, which was unanimously
adopted by the Board of Governors in January 2012, it
was their goal to identify best practices for
promoting student success and to develop statewide
strategies to take these approaches to scale while
ensuring that educational opportunity for historically
underrepresented students would not just be
maintained, but bolstered. The report noted that while
a number of disturbing statistics around student
completion reflect the challenges faced by the
students they serve, they also clearly demonstrate the
need for the system to recommit to finding new and
better ways to serve its students.
The SSTF efforts resulted in 22 specific
recommendations focused on the following eight areas:
a) Increasing college and career readiness.
b) Strengthening support for entering students.
c) Incentivizing successful student behaviors.
d) Aligning course offerings to meet student
needs.
e) Improving education of basic skills students.
f) Revitalizing and re-envisioning professional
development.
g) Enabling efficient statewide leadership and
increase coordination among colleges.
h) Aligning resources with student success
recommendations.
1) Student Success Initiative (SSI) . Implementation of
the Student Success Task Force (SSTF) recommendations
is being accomplished by the Chancellor's Office of
the California Community Colleges via the "Student
Success Initiative" through regulatory changes,
system-wide administrative policies, local best
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practices and legislation.
SB 1456 (Lowenthal, Chapter 624, Statutes of 2013) was
enacted to implement some of the SSTF recommendations.
Among other things, SB 1456 revised and recast the
Seymour-Campbell Matriculation Act of 1986 as the
Seymour-Campbell Success Act of 2012 in order to
target funding to services such as orientation,
assessment, and counseling and advising to assist
students with the development of education plans. It
also required that students define goals, required
that students declare a course of study and mandated
assessment, orientation and education planning.
At a regulatory level, the Board of Governors has
approved regulations that provide enrollment priority
to students who have participated in assessment,
orientation and developed an education plan and a
revision of Title 5 regulations is in progress to
implement provisions of SB 1456 to require students to
complete core services as well as to declare a course
of study. In addition, in 2012 the Board of Governors
adopted enrollment priorities and, by Spring 2013
districts are required to notify students that
accumulating 100 degree applicable units or being on
academic or progress probation for two consecutive
terms will result in the loss of enrollment priority.
Finally, in Fall 2014, students who complete
orientation, assessment, and have a student education
plan, will receive a higher enrollment priority.
SUPPORT
None on file.
OPPOSITION
None on file.