BILL ANALYSIS Ó SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION Carol Liu, Chair 2013-2014 Regular Session BILL NO: SB 590 AUTHOR: De Leon INTRODUCED: February 22, 2013 FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 10, 2013 URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Lenin Del Castillo SUBJECT : Classified School Employee Staff Development Program. SUMMARY This bill establishes the Classified School Employee Staff Development and Training Program for classified employees at community colleges and local educational agencies (school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools) and allows a portion of the funds provided from state, federal, or local sources for teacher professional development to be set aside for professional development training for classified school employees. BACKGROUND Currently, there is not a state funded professional development training program for classified employees. The Administrator Training and Chief Business Officer Training programs provided incentive grants of up to $3,000 per person to local educational agencies for training principals, vice principals, and chief business or financial officers. However, these programs were recently repealed. Classified school employees include paraprofessionals, healthcare professionals, office and clerical staff, bus drivers, groundskeepers, custodians, information technology assistants, instructional assistants, food service workers, and school safety personnel. They are employed in K-12 public school settings or at the community colleges and have major responsibilities for reinforcing classroom instruction and the health and safety of students. Classified school employees include both part-time and full-time staff. SB 590 Page 2 Current law authorizes the Professional Development Block Grant, which supports professional development activities allowed by the Staff Development Instructional Support, Teaching as a Priority, and Intersegmental programs. These activities include teacher recruitment and retention incentives, staff development projects designed to improve elementary teacher skills, and programs that promote development of highly qualified teachers. While the Budget Act of 2012 includes $218.4 million for this block grant, the funds are subject to categorical flexibility whereby school districts may utilize the funds for any educational purpose. ANALYSIS This bill establishes the Classified School Employee Staff Development and Training Program for classified employees at community colleges and local educational agencies and allows a portion of the funds provided from state, federal, or local sources for teacher professional development to be set aside for professional development training for classified school employees. Additionally, this bill: 1) Defines a "classified school employee" as a person employed on a full-time or a part-time basis as a classified school employee at a community college, a public school, a charter school, or a county office of education. 2) Declares legislative intent that a portion of the total funding for staff development from state, federal, or local funds be set aside for professional development training for classified school employees to update their skills and learn about best practices for any of the following: a) Pupil learning and achievement training. b) Pupil campus safety. c) Education technology. d) School facility maintenance and operations. e) Special education. f) School transportation and bus safety. SB 590 Page 3 g) Parent involvement. h) Food service. i) Health and nursing standards. j) Environmental safety. STAFF COMMENTS 1) Need for the bill . Classified employees perform a variety of functions on school campuses, including instructional aide, maintenance, accounting, transportation, food service, and safety. Schools often rely on paraprofessionals, healthcare professionals, information technology assistants and other classified school employees to perform these duties. These jobs may require specific training, certifications or licenses, Peace Officer Standards and Training certification, medical procedures, food handling, etc. Under current law, there is no categorical program that provides specific training for classified school employees and teaches them new approaches in fulfilling their job responsibilities. The author's office believes that professional development is necessary to ensure that these employees continue to maintain and update their skills and knowledge to implement new statutory requirements for student care, and to better assist students, parents, and other educators. Staff recommends that the bill be amended to require any of the funds set aside for classified employee training to emphasize common core standards and school safety, while also instituting an accountability system in which a school district must meet specified preconditions that include the development of a plan, in conjunction with parents and teachers, to accelerate pupil progress towards academic proficiency. 2) Governor's Local Control Funding Formula . 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 countless "discretionary" provisions of statute, while implementing a new formula known as the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The LCFF would consolidate SB 590 Page 4 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" and programs in any of these areas would be dependent on local district discretion. To the extent that the LCFF or a modified version of it is adopted as part of the budget, the majority of currently required categorical activities would be left to local districts' discretion. Therefore, the provisions of this bill could be diluted, eliminated, rendered obsolete or discretionary at the local level. 3) Prior related legislation . AB 406 (Yamada, 2009) would have created the Classified School Employee Training Program to provide grants to school and community college districts through the consolidation of existing funds for classified staff training and from any new funds from state, federal, or local sources. This bill was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. SUPPORT California School Employees Association (sponsor) California Federation of Teachers OPPOSITION None on file.