BILL ANALYSIS �
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Carol Liu, Chair
2013-2014 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 1261
AUTHOR: Gorell
AMENDED: May 6, 2013
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: July 3, 2013
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Kathleen Chavira
SUBJECT : School facilities for expelled pupils.
SUMMARY
This bill authorizes a school district governing board to
request, and the State Allocation Board to grant, an
exemption from the requirement that a building or portion
of a building owned by the district and used to operate a
program for expelled students meet the requirements of the
Field Act, if the governing board can demonstrate specified
conditions.
BACKGROUND
Current law establishes the Field Act (Article 3 beginning
with 17280, Article 6, beginning with 17365 and Article 7,
beginning with 81130) under which the Department of General
Services (DGS) under the police power of the state is
required to supervise the design and construction of any
school building or the reconstruction or alteration of, or
addition to, any school building.
(Education Code �17280)
Current law defines a "school building" as any building
used, or designed to be used, for elementary or secondary
school purposes and constructed, reconstructed, altered, or
added to, by the state, city, city and county, any
political subdivision, any school district, any regional
occupational center or program established through a joint
agreement, or by the United States government or any of its
agencies. (EC �17283)
Current law provides for several exceptions to the Field
Act requirements and, more specifically, provides a school
district governing board that operates a program for
AB 1261
Page 2
expelled pupils with the following facility alternatives:
1) Utilize available school facilities that meet
specified building, electrical, mechanical and
plumbing Code requirements as outlined in Title 24 of
the California Code of Regulations.
2) Apply for emergency portable classrooms.
3) Enter into a lease agreement for facilities,
provided that the facilities are limited to a
structure where a structural engineer has submitted a
report certifying that there are no substantial
structural hazards.
4) Before entering into a lease agreement, the
governing board must certify to the State Allocation
Board (SAB) that all reasonable efforts have been made
to locate the program in facilities that meet Title 24
regulations.
(EC � 17292.5)
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Authorizes the State Allocation Board to grant an
exemption for up to two years to the current
requirement that a school district governing board
that operates a program for expelled pupils utilize
facilities or emergency portable classrooms that are
compliant with the Field Act.
2) Provides that the exemption can only be granted if the
governing board demonstrates all of the following:
a) The facilities are not located at
a regular schoolsite.
b) The facilities comply with all
applicable local building standards and all
relevant local health and safety standards in the
community in which it is located.
AB 1261
Page 3
c) The facilities will be used to
operate a program for expelled pupils.
d) Prohibits more than 124 K-12
pupils, at any one time, from being at the
facilities and from using the remainder of the
facilities for instructional purposes.
e) The use of the facilities is
critical to providing an effective
community-based program.
f) The use of other facilities that
would meet seismic safety standards for school
facilities is not practical.
g) A structural engineer has
submitted a report certifying that the facilities
possess no substantial structural hazards.
3) Provides that the exemption granted by the SAB is
renewable.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author, expelled
students from Oxnard Union High School District are
currently being served by the county office in a
community school. The district would like to take
these students back but does not have facilities that
meet Field Act or the requirements specified in the
provisions regarding facilities for expelled students.
The district would like to use a facility owned by the
school district located in a commercial property
containing six classrooms and a computer lab that is
currently used in the evening for adult education
programs but is vacant during the day. This would keep
AB 1261
Page 4
the district from having to purchase portables or
construct new facilities.
2) Field Act . Current law requires that K-12 school
facilities and community college facilities be built
in compliance with specified earthquake safety
standards, commonly known as the "Field Act." The
Field Act was enacted following a severe earthquake in
Long Beach in 1933. Among other provisions, the Field
Act requires the Division of the State Architect to
review the construction plans for school buildings and
requires school districts to hire onsite construction
inspectors to ensure compliance with the structural
safety standards. The Field Act requires a
comprehensive design specification and construction
inspection process for "public school" educational
facilities. Field Act requirements, along with fire,
life and safety requirements, and access requirements
under the Americans with Disability Act, are all
specified under Title 24 regulations.
3) Seismic Safety Commission . In 2007, the Seismic
Safety Commission produced a report evaluating the
effectiveness of the Field Act. The report included a
finding, and recommendation, that no public school
building, including court schools and some charter
schools, should be exempt from the Field Act. The
report noted that, since 1940, no Field Act building
had either partially or completely collapsed, and no
school children had been killed or injured in Field
Act-compliant buildings. The report also found that
compliance related costs are miniscule compared to
lower building lifecycle costs, safer buildings, fewer
fatalities and injuries, and vastly lower repair and
reconstruction costs.
4) Other "exceptions. " Current law establishes exceptions
to the Field Act for specified K-12 programs,
including ROC/Ps, community schools, pregnant and
parenting teen, independent study, and expelled
pupils. The alternatives authorized for these programs
are summarized on page 4:
AB 1261
Page 5
-------------------------------------------------------------
| Authorization of facilities which can be used for program |
| delivery |
| |
| Program |
| Details |
| Statute |
-------------------------------------------------------------
|------------+-------------------------------------+----------|
|County |Utilize school facilities that |EC 1986 |
|Community |conform to Title 24 regulations, | |
|Schools |apply for emergency portable | |
| |classrooms, use a leased facility if | |
| |it is a single engineer safety | |
| |verification, and county | |
| |superintendent certifies reasonable | |
| |effort exerted to use facilities | |
| |that meet Field Act requirements. | |
| | | |
|------------+-------------------------------------+----------|
|ROCP's |Authorized to use a leased building |EC 17285 |
| |if it is single story wood-framed or | |
| |light steel frame structure, | |
| |structural engineer inspection | |
| |complies with local building, health | |
| |and safety standards, board | |
| |certifies reasonable effort exerted | |
| |to use facilities that meet Field | |
| |Act requirements. | |
| | | |
|------------+-------------------------------------+----------|
|Independent |Request exemption from SAB from any |EC 17289 |
|Study |building, structure, or portion | |
| |thereof, (leased or owned) if its | |
| |not located on a regular schoolsite | |
| |complies with local building, health | |
| |and safety standards, used only for | |
| |independent study, serves fewer than | |
| |25 pupils at any one time in the | |
| |structure, critical to providing the | |
AB 1261
Page 6
| |program, use of structures meeting | |
| |seismic safety standards is not | |
| |practical. | |
| | | |
|------------+-------------------------------------+----------|
|Pregnant/Par|Lease agreement for school |EC |
|enting |facilities is allowed if all |17293 |
|Teens |available Field Act compliant | |
| |buildings have been utilized, and | |
| |application to lease or purchase | |
| |emergency portables has been denied | |
| |or will not meet the needs of the | |
| |district, the lease is limited to up | |
| |to 5 years, structural engineer | |
| |safety verification, county | |
| |superintendent or district certifies | |
| |reasonable effort exerted to use | |
| |facilities that meet Field Act | |
| |requirements. | |
| | | |
|------------+-------------------------------------+----------|
|District |Utilize school facilities that |EC |
|Community |conform to Title 24 regulations, |17292.5 |
|Schools |apply for emergency portable | |
| |classrooms, use a lease facility if | |
| |a structural engineer provides | |
| |safety verification, governing board | |
| |certifies to SAB reasonable effort | |
| |exerted to use facilities that meet | |
| |Field Act requirements. | |
| | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------
5) Why difference on owning vs. leasing ? The exemptions
reference in staff comment #4 authorize a district to
lease facilities that do not meet the Field Act or
Title 24 regulations but do not allow the use of
facilities owned by a district if they do not meet
these same requirements. Except for independent study
programs, these statutes do not generally allow the
use of district owned facilities that do not meet the
Field Act or Title 24 regulations.
AB 1261
Page 7
This bill proposes an exemption for expelled pupil
programs to allow these programs to operate at a
district-owned, non-Field Act compliant facility.
Arguably the intent of authorizing the use of leased
properties is to ensure a short-term solution to a
district facility problem. However, the underlying
intent of these statutes could be presumed to be to
ensure that a school district should only construct,
modernize and own seismically safe buildings which can
safely house all students. Should the state support a
policy that could encourage districts to own and use
non-Field Act compliant buildings for housing
students?
6) Apples to oranges? The provisions of this bill
providing facilities related exemptions for district
operated community day school programs parallel those
extended to independent study programs. However, the
facility requirements for independent study programs
may be very different from those of community day
schools. The minimum school day in a district
operated community day school is 360 minutes of
classroom instruction and must be provided by a
certificated employee of the school district. Current
law specifically prohibits the use of independent
study as a means of providing any part of that minimum
instructional day. (EC � 48663).
To claim apportionment for independent study, schools
must offer at least a "minimum day," which is based on
the teacher's determination of the time value of that
work i.e. students are not necessarily required to be
in a classroom for that period of time. Schools are to
offer up to 240 minutes of instructional time for
independent study students in grade levels 4 through
high school. (EC � 46113, � 46141)
In essence, community day school students are expected
to be in an instructional classroom setting for a much
more extended time period than independent study
students.
7) Different standards for expelled youth ? In July 2012,
AB 1261
Page 8
the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a
complaint, Palmer v. West Contra Costa County Unified
School District, in the Superior Court of the State of
California, County of Contra Costa. The complaint
alleges that the District failed to provide
educational instruction, facilities, funding and
materials, as well as other support services, to its
most marginalized and high-risk students, those
assigned to attend the District's Community Day School
Program. The complaint alleges that these students are
housed in portables that have no electricity, no heat,
leaky ceilings, insufficient desks and chairs, animal
feces, and mushrooms growing out of the floors.
While this bill does not create these problems, should
the requirements in place for housing expelled youth
be further eroded? Would authorizing the housing of
these students in seismically unsafe buildings signal
that certain groups of students are less worthy of
protection than others?
8) Other options ? Aside from the alternatives currently
provided for a school district to house a program for
serving expelled youth, existing law
(EC �172850) required the Seismic Safety Commission to
convene an advisory committee in 2002 to study whether
a regulatory process could be developed that would
allow the State Architect to determine whether a
building not originally constructed in compliance with
the Field Act, could be retrofitted to meet the
equivalent pupil safety performance standards as
outlined in Title 24 regulations.
As a result of that work, Department of General
Services has produced at least two documents to assist
school districts in this process. The first,
Rehabilitation Nonconforming Building For Public Use
outlines the regulations under which a district can
hire an engineer to evaluate and determine what is
necessary to meet the performance objectives of the
Field Act, identify the items not in compliance, draw
up construction plans and specifications to correct
the items. These plans must be submitted to Division
AB 1261
Page 9
of the State Architect (DSA) for review and approval.
Upon approval by DSA, the district must correct the
non-compliant items and upon completion, can obtain
certification from DSA. The second, Navigating the
Building Code Requirements for the Seismic
Rehabilitation of Schools in California provides a
discussion of building code requirements and describes
the process for the seismic rehabilitation of schools
in California.
These documents outline the process and options for
districts to ensure that a leased or purchased
building has the equivalent pupil safety performance
standards as a building constructed according to the
Field Act.
SUPPORT
Oxnard Union High School District
OPPOSITION
American Civil Liberties Union