BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                            Senator Kevin de León, Chair


          SB 1349 (Jackson) - Report on Competitive Athletics
          
          Amended: April 23, 2014         Policy Vote: Education 7-1
          Urgency: No                     Mandate: No
          Hearing Date: April 28, 2014                                 
          Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez                       
          
          This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. 

          
          Bill Summary: SB 1349 requires public schools to report specific  
          information regarding pupil participation in competitive  
          athletics, beginning with the 2015-16 school year and every  
          three years thereafter. This bill also requires the Bureau of  
          State Audits (BSA) to conduct Title IX compliance audits, as  
          specified. This bill also makes legislative findings and  
          declarations relative to gender equity in athletics.

          Fiscal Impact: 
              Reporting and posting: Minor and absorbable costs for  
              individual schools to report athletics program information  
              to their respective districts' governing boards. Likely  
              minor, but potentially significant, costs for school  
              districts to receive and post that information on their  
              websites and to update the information every 3 years.
              Audits: The cost to audit 10 high schools for full  
              compliance with Title IX will depend on the level of  
              investigation needed, and scope violations the BSA  
              discovers. The BSA estimates $160,000 - $175,000 to conduct  
              the audits. See staff comments.

          Background: Federal law provides that, in part, "no person in  
          the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from  
          participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to  
          discrimination under any educational program of activity  
          receiving Federal financial assistance." In order to be in  
          compliance with Federal Title IX, relative to athletics, a  
          school must show compliance with one of these three parts. The  
          federal tests are:

          1)   Athletic participation of women and girls is proportionate  
               to enrollment.








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          2)   The school has a history and continuing practice of program  
               expansion for women or girls.

          3)   The school is fully meeting female athletes' interests and  
               abilities in its present athletic program. (Title IX of the  
               Education Amendments of 1972 to the 1964 Civil Rights Act)

          Enforcement of compliance is initiated upon the filing of a  
          complaint alleging a violation of Title IX. State law  
          establishes standards virtually identical to those of Federal  
          Title IX. (Education Code § 230)

          Proposed Law: This bill requires, beginning with the 2015-16  
          school year, each public school with students who participate in  
          competitive athletics to report to its school district governing  
          board all of the following information: a) the total enrollment  
          of the school, classified by gender; b) the number of students  
          who participate in competitive athletics, classified by gender;  
          and, c) the number of boys' and girls' teams, classified by  
          sport and by competition level. This bill further requires that  
          school districts post the data from each school within the  
          district on the district's website, and for the data to be  
          retained by the school for at least 3 years.

          This bill requires, beginning July 1, 2019 and every 3 years  
          thereafter, the BSA to randomly choose 10 high schools that  
          offer competitive athletics with numbers that are not  
          proportionally representative of the male and female  
          participants in the athletic program, and conduct an audit of  
          each school for full compliance with Title IX. Within 6 months  
          of the July 1 initiation of an audit, the BSA must report the  
          results of the audit to the affected schools, their school  
          districts, the California Department of Education, the Governor,  
          and the Education and Judiciary Committees of both the Senate  
          and Assembly. This bill sunsets this reporting requirement on  
          January 1, 2024.

          Related Legislation: AB 2512 (Bonilla) adds compliance with  
          Title IX, including the total number of pupils, by gender,  
          participating in existing after school athletic programs, to  
          indicators to be included in the Academic Performance Index.  
          That bill also authorizes, beginning January 1, 2018, school  
          districts to include this information in the district's local  








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          control accountability plan as one indicator of school climate.  
          That bill is pending in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.  

          Staff Comments: This bill requires elementary and secondary  
          schools that offer competitive athletics to report specified  
          information about their athletic programs to their respective  
          school districts in 2015-16, and every 3 years thereafter.  
          School districts, in turn, must post that information on their  
          websites. 

          While the provisions of this bill do not constitute a  
          reimbursable state mandate, because school districts are not  
          required to offer athletics, it functionally mandates new  
          activities for the majority of school districts which provide  
          athletics in one or more schools; they must either comply or  
          cancel their athletics programs. The new requirements of this  
          bill are likely to result in a minor workload increase for  
          individual schools.  The workload burden on school districts  
          will vary by the size of the school districts. For example, the  
          Los Angeles Unified School District has more than 900 schools;  
          collecting and posting athletics information for hundreds of  
          schools on the district website could take significant staff  
          time. 

          This bill also requires the BSA to randomly choose 10 high  
          schools that offer competitive athletics, and whose athletics  
          participation numbers are not proportional, by gender, to  
          enrollment, to audit for full Title IX compliance. Auditing a  
          school for Title IX compliance would go beyond competitive  
          athletics, and would require the BSA to investigate numerous  
          academic and extracurricular programs at the schools being  
          audited. BSA staff would travel to schools, conduct the audits,  
          and write a report, and the agency estimates $160,000 - $175,000  
          in costs for the 10 initial audits. Those expenses would be  
          incurred every 3 years thereafter.
          

          Recommended Amendments: Joint Rules of the Senate and Assembly,  
          Rule 37.4 (b) specifies that "any bill requiring action by the  
          Bureau of State Audits shall contain an appropriation for the  
          cost of any study or audit."  Staff notes that this bill does  
          not provide for payment of State Auditor costs associated with  
          the Title IX audits, and the author may wish to provide an  
          appropriation in this bill or to make the required audits  








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          contingent upon a Budget Act appropriation.