BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2382
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 2382 (Bradford)
As Amended August 19, 2014
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |66-2 |(May 27, 2014) |SENATE: |24-9 |(August 21, |
| | | | | |2014) |
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Original Committee Reference: HUM. S.
SUMMARY : Eliminates the overlapping penalty for truancy
assessed against California Work Opportunity and Responsibility
to Kids (CalWORKs) recipient families. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires school attendance for any child in a CalWORKs
assistance unit who is 16 years of age or older and subject to
compulsory school attendance requirement, unless he or she is
eligible for Cal-Learn, and eliminates the school attendance
requirement, solely for the purpose of determining CalWORKs
eligibility, for children in the assistance unit under 16
years of age.
2)Requires counties to inform CalWORKs applicants and recipients
of the school attendance requirement for children in the
assistance unit who are 16 years of age or older.
3)Requires a CalWORKs recipient to provide the county with
documentation containing school attendance information for all
children in the assistance unit when the county determines it
is necessary to determine CalWORKs eligibility, unless there
is good cause for the inability to secure such documentation.
4)Requires the county, upon determining that any child in the
assistance unit who is age 16 or older is not attending school
as required, to inform a recipient family of how to enroll the
child in a continuation school and to screen the family to
determine eligibility for family stabilization services.
Requires the county to document that the family has been
provided such information and has been screened for such
services.
5)Deletes the requirement that any adults in an assistance unit
lose aid due to a child in the assistance unit under age 16
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not meeting the school attendance requirement within CalWORKs
eligibility criteria.
6)Excludes a child who is age 16 or older from being considered
in the family's grant calculation for any month in which the
county is informed by a school district or a county school
attendance review board that the child did not meet school
attendance requirements, as specified.
7)Requires that a child whose needs are not considered in the
family's grant computation due to not meeting school
attendance requirements remain eligible for services that may
lead to attendance in school.
8)Provides that a child shall be presumed to be attending school
unless he or she has been deemed a chronic truant pursuant to
Education Code (EC) Section 48263.6.
The Senate amendments :
1)Require all children in a CalWORKs assistance unit to be
enrolled in school.
2)Remove the requirement for counties to carry out specific
duties to promote family stabilization and school enrollment
of any unenrolled children in a CalWORKs assistance unit and
instead authorize counties to provide families certain
information to encourage school enrollment of their children.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Establishes under federal law the Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families (TANF) program to provide aid and
welfare-to-work services to eligible families and, in
California, provides that TANF funds for welfare-to-work
services are administered through the CalWORKs program. (42
United States Code (U.S.C.) Section 601 et seq., Welfare and
Institutions Code (WIC) Section 11200 et seq.)
2)Establishes income, asset and real property limits used to
determine eligibility for the program, including net income
below the Maximum Aid Payment (MAP), based on family size and
county of residence, which is approximately 40% of the federal
poverty level. (WIC Sections 11450 and 11150 et seq.)
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3)Establishes a 48-month lifetime limit of CalWORKs benefits for
eligible adults, including 24 months during which a recipient
must meet federal work requirements in order to retain
eligibility. (WIC Sections 11454 and 11322.85)
4)Requires all individuals over 16 years of age, unless they are
otherwise exempt, to participate in welfare-to-work activities
as a condition of eligibility for CalWORKs. (WIC Sections
11320.3 and 11322.6)
5)Requires all children in a CalWORKs assistance unit to attend
school, provided they are subject to the state compulsory
education requirement and are not eligible for Cal-Learn.
(WIC Section 11253.5(a))
6)Exempts children under 16 years of age and any children
attending an elementary, secondary, vocational or technical
school on a full-time basis from participation in CalWORKs
welfare-to-work activities. (WIC Section 11320.3(b))
7)Requires counties to inform CalWORKs applicants and recipients
of the school attendance requirement for eligibility purposes,
and requires the information to be included in a recipient's
welfare-to-work plan. Requires a CalWORKs recipient to
cooperate in providing a county with documentation of regular
school attendance of all applicable children in the assistance
unit when the county determines it is appropriate. (WIC
Sections 11253.5(b) and (c))
8)Prohibits an aid payment for any adult in the assistance unit
if it is determined by the county that any eligible child in
the family under age 16 is not regularly attending school, as
required, unless the county determines that good cause exists.
(WIC Section 11235.5(d))
9)Prohibits an aid payment for any child in the assistance unit
who is 16 years of age or older and not meeting the school
attendance requirement, unless the county determines that good
cause exists. (WIC Section 11253.5(e))
10)Requires each person between the ages of six and 18 years,
not otherwise exempted, to be subject to compulsory full-time
education and attend a public full-time day school or
continuation school or classes, and that each parent, guardian
or other person having control or charge of the pupil ensure
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that pupil's enrollment and attendance. (EC Section 48200)
11)Defines a "truant" as any pupil subject to compulsory
full-time education or to compulsory continuation education
who is absent from school without a valid excuse three full
days in one school year or tardy or absent for more than a
30-minute period during the school day without a valid excuse,
as specified, on three occasions in one school year, or any
combination thereof. (EC Section 48260)
12)Defines "chronic truant" as any pupil subject to compulsory
full-time education or to compulsory continuation education
who is absent from school without a valid excuse for 10
percent or more of the schooldays in one school year, as
specified. (EC Section 48263.6)
13)Establishes a process for notifying a pupil's parent of the
pupil's truancy and provides that, upon the fourth truancy
report, a pupil shall be within the jurisdiction of the
juvenile court, which may adjudge the pupil to be a ward of
the court. (EC Sections 48260.5 and 48264.5)
14)Provides that a parent or guardian of a pupil of six years of
age or older and in Kindergarten or any of grades 1 through 8,
whose child is a chronic truant, and who has failed to
reasonably supervise and encourage the pupil's school
attendance, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine
not exceeding $2,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail
not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment.
(Penal Code (PC) Section 270.1)
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee:
1)Major ongoing costs of approximately $4 million (General Fund)
annually in additional CalWORKs grant costs that otherwise
would have been withheld for cases with a child reported
truant from school.
2)One-time costs (General Fund) for automation changes to the
Statewide Automated Welfare Systems for reprogramming based on
revised sanction criteria.
3)Minor impact to average daily attendance costs (General Fund
[Proposition 98 of 1988]) to the extent the removal of the
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penalty for truancy of children ages six to 15 years results
in fewer children attending school.
COMMENTS : Under current law, children receiving CalWORKs aid
must comply with both state compulsory education laws and
CalWORKs eligibility requirements related to school attendance.
This bill seeks to align the county- and state-level definitions
of truancy and reduce the double penalty for poor school
attendance among children in needy families.
The CalWORKs program provides monthly income assistance and
employment-related services aimed at moving children out of
poverty and helping families meet basic needs. Federal funding
for CalWORKs comes from the TANF block grant. The average
monthly cash grant for a family of three on CalWORKs (one parent
and two children) is $463. According to recent data from the
California Department of Social Services, 554,292 families rely
on CalWORKs, including over one million children. Just over 21%
of children in CalWORKs families are age 13 or older.
Average grants of $463 per month for a family of three means
$15.43 per day, per family, or $5.14 per family member, per day
to meet basic needs, including rent, clothing, utility bills,
food, and anything else a family needs to ensure children can be
cared for at home and safely remain with their families. This
grant amount puts the annual household income at $5,556 per
year. Federal poverty guidelines show that 100% of poverty for
a family of three is over three and a half times that at $19,790
per year.
According to the California Center for Research on Women and
Families (CCRWF), 92% of heads of households in CalWORKs
recipient families are women. Two-thirds of the heads of
household are single parents and have never married. While
nearly one-third of CalWORKs heads of household have a high
school diploma or equivalent, half have 11th grade or less
education. Educational achievement for many parents receiving
CalWORKs benefits has been stifled by learning disabilities
(estimated to affect 10 to 28%), mental or emotional health
problems (estimated to affect 19 to 33%), domestic abuse they've
experienced during their lifetimes (reported by 80%), and other
detrimental life experiences.
Cal-Learn: The Cal-Learn program helps pregnant and parenting
teens who are under age 19 and receiving CalWORKs attend and
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graduate high school, or its equivalent, through coordinated
services. Through the program, teens receive intensive case
management services, payments necessary for child care,
transportation, and educational expenses that enable teens in
the program to attend school. Cal-Learn also includes bonuses
and sanctions (financial incentives and disincentives) to
encourage school attendance and good grades. School attendance
requirements for the purpose of establishing CalWORKs
eligibility does not directly apply to teens in a recipient
household who are eligible for Cal-Learn because of the more
rigorous school attendance, participation, and grade reporting
requirements they are already subject to in the Cal-Learn
program.
School attendance barriers and impacts for low-income students:
California Department of Education data for 2012-13 reported a
truancy rate of 29.28%; 1.9 million students out of a total
enrollment of just over 6.2 million (not including non-public
schools) were considered truants. In 2012, the Los Angeles
County School Attendance Task Force released a report that links
school attendance to long-term outcomes for students. The
report cites the following facts for younger low-income
students:
1)The negative impact of absences on literacy is 75% larger for
low-income children, whose families often lack the resources
to make up for lost time on task; and
2)Poor children are four times more likely to be chronically
absent in kindergarten than their highest-income peers.
Chronic absence in kindergarten predicts unsatisfactory
fifth-grade outcomes for poor children.
The report also outlined the barriers to school attendance that
many poor students face, as well as the disproportionate
application of punitive measures to mitigate truancy in
low-income neighborhoods. According to the report, children in
poverty are more likely to have poor school attendance due to
the lack of basic health and safety supports. They often
experience unstable housing, limited access to health care,
limited and poor transportation options, inadequate food and
clothing, neighborhood violence that obstructs safe paths to
school, and chaotic school environments that fuel poor-quality
educational programs. The Task Force found that the daytime
curfew ordinance in the City of Los Angeles (which often results
in tickets and fines for students that are not in the classroom
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during the school day) disproportionately impacts low-income
communities and families who are least able to pay the fines.
Disproportionate impact of the double penalty: SB 1317 (Leno),
Chapter 647, Statutes of 2010, defined a chronic truant as a
pupil subject to compulsory full-time education who is absent
from school without a valid excuse for 10% or more days within
the school year. Additionally, the bill established that a
parent who fails to reasonably supervise and encourage a pupil's
required school attendance, after being offered
language-accessible services to address the pupil's truancy, is
guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not exceeding
$2,000, or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one
year, or by both that fine and imprisonment. While the primary
objective of this legislation was to reduce truancy through
penalizing parents, there was no consideration of how the new
penalty would affect parents and children in CalWORKs recipient
households.
Families receiving CalWORKs aid must meet state compulsory
education requirements and CalWORKs school attendance
requirements; both of which result in penalties for
noncompliance. Children under age 16 receiving CalWORKs
benefits are not required to participate in welfare-to-work
activities; however they are still required to attend school,
whereas education is the welfare-to-work activity emphasized for
children who are age 16 and older. Data from the Urban
Institute reveals that, as of 2012, 36 states require school
attendance for children in a TANF assistance unit when
determining a family's eligibility for aid.
In addition to the fines, misdemeanor charges, and potential
imprisonment a truant child's parent might face, there are
monetary penalties for families with truant children receiving
CalWORKs assistance. If a child in a CalWORKs family under age
16 does not meet school attendance requirements, the grant of
any aided adult in the household is eliminated unless the county
determines good cause exists. If a child age 16 or older
doesn't meet school attendance requirements, his or her grant
amount is eliminated. In both cases, the family's minimal
CalWORKs grant amount is reduced in addition to the imposition
of civil penalties against the parent. This double penalty for
truancy doesn't exist for any other group of children.
Need for this bill: In states like California, in which an
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aided family faces a double penalty for children in the
household who are deemed to be truant, application of truancy
laws treat families in poverty worse than families who don't
receive assistance, and the compounding consequences, including
elevated stress levels in the home and a thrust into deeper
poverty, can be far greater. A family that does not receive
public assistance, and therefore doesn't necessarily have their
monthly income tied to school attendance, won't face a double
penalty for truancy and will often have a greater ability to
actively participate in improving their child's school
attendance, and will be more likely to have the resources needed
to pay any fines associated with the truancy penalty. However,
aided families with already limited resources, and often
inflexible work schedules that don't allow them to ensure their
children attend school, face fines they cannot afford to pay, in
addition to the loss of some or all of their minimal monthly
assistance.
Furthermore, current school attendance policies for CalWORKs
eligibility purposes vary throughout the state, creating even
more inequity for some CalWORKs families. In elaborating on the
need for this bill to balance practices across counties, the
Western Center on Law and Poverty states, "The current CalWORKs
attendance policy allows each county to determine what is
considered to be 'regular attendance.' Some counties even allow
each school district to set the regular attendance level,
thereby creating even more discrepancies in the level of
attendance allowed. After surveying the largest counties in
California, we found great variation in the number of absences
allowed before a penalty is imposed. For example, in Sacramento
County, a student may only have six or fewer unexcused absences
or tardies before their family faces a possible sanction in
basic needs, whereas in Oakland Unified School District a
student may have 17 absences. In San Francisco, though it isn't
clear where they get the authority to do so, the county has
established a policy which allows for a child's grade point
average to be considered, in addition to his or her attendance.
These differences in policies have a great effect on the number
of penalties imposed? A family should not be penalized more or
less, simply based on the county or school district in which
they reside. By removing the double penalty for children 16 and
younger and setting the standard of 'chronically truant' for
children 16 and over, [this bill] will make the program more
equitable, as all families would be held to the same standards
regardless of where they live."
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Also in support, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP)
states, "These sanctions are counterproductive to our shared
goal of ensuring that children succeed in school. It's hard to
do well in school when you're hungry, or when you're sleeping on
the couch in the living room with too many other people. And
parents who are stressed about the heat being turned off or
where they're going to sleep next week are less likely to be
able to read to their children or help with homework. A recent
California Office of the Attorney General report cited poverty
as a significant cause of poor school attendance. This finding
is supported by research that shows that increased income from a
government program had a direct and positive impact on
children's reading and math scores - and that impact was larger
for the most disadvantaged families."
There is no opposition on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Myesha Jackson / HUM. S. / (916)
319-2089
FN: 0005141