BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Carol Liu, Chair
2013-2014 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 236
AUTHOR: Pavley
AMENDED: April 1, 2013
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 3, 2013
URGENCY: Yes CONSULTANT:Daniel Alvarez
SUBJECT : Four-day school week: Moorpark Unified School
District.
SUMMARY
This bill, an urgency measure, authorizes schools within
the Moorpark Unified School District to operate a four-day
school week, beginning in the 2013-14 fiscal year, if the
school district complies with existing minimum
instructional time requirements and meet their Academic
Performance Index growth targets, as specified. The intent
of the bill is to only apply to schools that have a middle
college program.
BACKGROUND
Current law authorizes nine school districts to operate on
a four-day school week, provided the school district meet
various criteria, including but not limited to, (a)
provides that participating school districts may only
operate four-day school weeks if they reach mutual
agreement to the operation in a memorandum of understanding
with their collective bargaining units; (b) requires a
school site council to be involved in the planning and
evaluation of a four-day school week; (c) requires a
participating school district to provide on an annual basis
not less than 560 hours of instructional time for
kindergarten, not less than 700 hours for grades 1, 2, and
3, and not less than 845 hours for grades 4 through 12; and
(d) prohibits a school day from exceeding eight hours and a
school week from being less than four days. (EC § 37700 et
seq.)
Finally, current law authorizes the establishment of middle
college high schools. The goal of the middle college high
school is to select at-risk students who are performing
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below their academic potential and place them in an
alternative high school located on a community college, in
order to reduce the likelihood of dropping out. The
specific design of a middle college high school may vary
depending on the circumstances of the community college or
school district. The basic elements of the middle college
high school shall include, but not be limited to, the
following:
1) A curriculum that focuses on college and career
preparation.
2) A reduced adult-student ratio.
3) Flexible scheduling to allow for work internships,
community service experience, and interaction with
community college student role models.
4) Opportunities for experiential internships, work
apprenticeships, and community service. (EC § 11300 et
seq.)
ANALYSIS
This bill , an urgency measure, authorizes schools within
the Moorpark Unified School District to operate a four-day
school week, beginning in the 2013-14 fiscal year, if the
school district complies with existing minimum
instructional time requirements and meet their Academic
Performance Index (API) growth targets, as specified. The
intent of the bill is to only apply to schools that have a
middle college program. Specifically, this bill:
1) Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to
reduce the base revenue limit for the Moorpark Unified
School District if the district operates schools on a
four-day week and the pupils are provided fewer than
180 days, or fewer than the minimum number of minutes
of instruction for each grade level, of instruction.
2) Permanently revokes the authority of a school to
operate a four-day week if a small school with between
11 and 99 valid Standard Testing and Reporting Program
test scores fails to achieve its Academic Performance
Index (API) growth target for two consecutive years.
This bill revokes this authority beginning with the
school year following the second consecutive year the
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school failed to achieve its API growth rate.
3) Requires the Moorpark Unified School District, if it
operates any schools on a four-day week pursuant to
this bill, to submit a report to the California
Department of Education and the Senate and Assembly
Education Committees by January 15, 2018. This bill
requires the report to include:
a) Programs the district offered on the fifth
school day and their
participation rates.
b) Whether the four-day school week schedule
resulted in any fiscal
savings.
c) Impact on overall attendance of the schools
operating a four-day
school week.
d) Programs for which the State Board of
Education (SBE) waived
requirements regarding operation for a minimum
amount of time and for five consecutive days, and
the operational and educational effects of the
programs if they operated at less time than
required.
e) The impact of the four-day school week on
crime statistics,
especially on the fifth day when school is not in
operation.
f) Information on the API for every year a
school in the Moorpark
Unified School District operated on a four-day
week, including but not limited to:
i The base and growth API of each
school that operated a four-day week.
ii Whether that school met the API
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growth targets.
1) Authorizes the State Board of Education to waive
existing requirements to operate any school on a
four-day week.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for bill . According to the author, the
traditional five-day school week is not conducive to
Moorpark Unified School District's (USD) "middle
college" program. The traditional five-day school
week currently required by statute is not conducive to
the advanced pacing of the Middle College program.
Typically, four-day school weeks have been implemented
as a form of budget control. However, allowing
Moorpark USD to convert this one program to a four-day
school week would provide needed flexibility for an
academically intense middle college curriculum.
2) Effects of a four-day school week . Several research
studies have been conducted and found that by
operating on a four-day week the following positive
effects were realized by school districts:
a) Schools can save money on costs of
transportation, but must reduce or eliminate
transportation for extra-curricular activities on
non-school days.
b) Schools can save money on utility costs, but
only if utilities are not used on non-school
days.
c) Schools can save money on costs of food
services.
d) Teacher and pupil absenteeism is reduced,
thereby reducing the need to pay for substitute
teachers.
The effects on pupil achievement are negligible.
The research also details some concerns with operating
a four-day school week:
a) The need for parents to find full-day child
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care on the non-school day.
b) The possibility of pupil fatigue,
particularly for younger pupils. Some schools
have responded to this concern by putting the
bulk of the academic work into the earlier parts
of the day.
c) A three-day break creates additional
barriers for at-risk pupils, although there is
limited research to support this claim.
3) Longer school week tied to incentive funding, and past
rationale for allowing four-day school weeks . Prior
to 1983, school districts were required to operate
schools for five days and 175 days per year. The
Hughes-Hart Educational Reform Act of 1983 (SB 813,
Chapter 498, Statutes of 1983) offered incentive
funding for districts to offer 180 days of instruction
each year. Current law authorizes nine districts to
operate on a four-day school week. Generally, the
Legislature has applied the following criteria to
school districts seeking approval for this option:
a) Serves a widely dispersed population
requiring long travel times for significant
number of students in the school district.
b) Demonstrates the expected benefits to the
school(s) and students of operating on shorter
school week and instructional year.
a) Has considered and addressed concerns about
possible negative consequences of a longer school
day and shorter week on employees, students and
families.
b) Is held to the requirements of existing law
governing those school districts already
operating schools on a four-day week.
4) Staff recommends the following amendments:
a) Clarify that Moorpark Unified School
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District can only exercise a four-day school week
at high schools offering a middle college
program.
b) Include specific outcomes by school, as part
of the reporting requirements, including but not
limited to, attendance rates, graduation rates,
college entrance and attendance rates, and
employment rates for students who do not attend
college.
c) Include a five-year sunset of this provision
of June 30, to insure the outcomes justify the
additional flexibility of a four-day school week.
5) Governor's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) : As
part of the 2013-14 Governor's Budget, the
administration proposes to restructure the existing
K-12 finance system and eliminate over 40 existing
programs while also repealing, what the administration
determines are "discretionary" provisions of statute.
The LCFF would consolidate the vast majority of state
categorical programs and revenue limit apportionments
into a single source of funding (12 categorical
programs, including Special Education, Child
Nutrition, Preschool, and After School programs, would
be excluded). The LCFF proposal would also eliminate
the statutory and programmatic requirements for almost
all existing categorical programs - the programs would
be deemed "discretionary" at the local level.
Therefore, the changes proposed by this bill for a
four-day school week and middle college program could
be diluted, eliminated, rendered obsolete or
discretionary at the local level.
SUPPORT
Moorpark College
OPPOSITION
None on file.
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