BILL NUMBER: AB 1014 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY JUNE 1, 2015
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MAY 4, 2015
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 26, 2015
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Thurmond
(Coauthor: Assembly Member Bonta)
FEBRUARY 26, 2015
An act to add and repeal Section 48270 of the Education Code,
relating to pupils, and making an appropriation therefor.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 1014, as amended, Thurmond. Pupils: truancy: Our Children's
Success-The Early Intervention Attendance Pilot Grant Program.
Existing law requires a pupil subject to compulsory full-time
education or to compulsory continuation education who is absent from
school without a valid excuse 3 full days in one school year or tardy
or absent for more than a 30-minute period during the schoolday
without a valid excuse on 3 occasions in one school year, or any
combination thereof, to be classified as a truant. Existing law
requires, upon a pupil's initial classification as a truant, a school
district to notify the pupil's parent or guardian of specified
information using the most cost-effective method possible.
This bill would make various findings and declarations regarding
truancy. The bill would establish the Our Children's Success-The
Early Intervention Attendance Pilot Grant Program under the
administration of the State Department of Education. The program
would provide grants to applicant public schools
schools, school districts, and county offices of
education seeking to resolve the attendance problems of pupils
in kindergarten and grades 1 to 3, inclusive. The bill would provide
that public schools the above entities
maintaining kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 3, inclusive, could
apply for grants under the program. The bill would authorize the
applications for grants submitted by public schools
the above entities to the department to reflect a plan
including specified components.
The bill would require the department to give priority in awarding
grants under this bill to applicant public schools
to those applicants who demonstrate
financial need for the grant and that have the highest truancy
rates in urban areas, rural areas, and suburban areas, respectively.
The bill would require the grants to be awarded for 3 years and to be
used to address attendance problems of pupils in kindergarten and
grades 1 to 3, inclusive, pursuant to the plans submitted by the
applicant public school. applicant
. The bill would provide that each grant awarded be for
no more than $500,000 and would require the applicant to provide a
20% match. The bill would require public schools
an applicant receiving a grant to submit a
report, containing specified data, to the department at the
conclusion of the grant. The bill would require the department to
submit a report, on or before January 1, 2021, to the respective
appropriations committees and education committees of the Assembly
and the Senate, and would require this report to include a
recommendation on whether the grant program established
under the bill should continue. These provisions would be
repealed on January 1, 2022.
The bill would appropriate an unspecified sum from an unspecified
source to the department for purposes of implementing the bill.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: yes. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:
(a) Only 17 percent of chronically absent kindergartners and first
graders in California read proficiently by grade 3 and pupils who do
not read proficiently by grade 3 are four times more likely to drop
out of school. Children who drop out of school cost the state more
than $46 billion each year, including more than $1 billion in
juvenile crime costs alone.
(b) Ninety percent of elementary school pupils with severe
attendance problems, missing 36 or more days in the school year, are
estimated to be from low-income families.
(c) In the 2013-14 school year, 250,000 elementary school pupils
and 1 one in 10 pupils from low-income
families were chronically absent, missing 10 percent or more of the
school year.
(d) In the 2013-14 school year, African American elementary school
pupils were the highest subgroup, including homeless pupils, to be
truant and these pupils are chronically truant at four times the rate
of all other pupils.
(e) In the 2012-13 school year, one in five, or 744,085,
elementary school pupils were truant, an increase of 1.2 percent from
the 2011-12 school year.
(f) In the 2010-11 school year, California schools lost $1.4
billion in average daily attendance funding due to pupil absences and
California school districts have lost over $3.5 billion between the
2010-11 and 2013-14 school years.
SEC. 2. Section 48270 is added to the Education Code, to read:
48270. (a) Our Children's Success-The Early Intervention
Attendance Pilot Grant Program is hereby established under the
administration of the department. This grant program is established
for the purpose of helping public schools resolve the attendance
problems of pupils in kindergarten and grades 1 to 3, inclusive. This
grant program shall be implemented upon the appropriation of
sufficient funding under Section 3 of the act that added this
section.
(b) A public school school, school
district, or county office of education maintaining
kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 3, inclusive, seeking to
participate in the grant program established by this section may
apply to the department for a grant pursuant to this section. An
application submitted by a public school
school, school district, or county office of education to the
department under this subdivision may reflect a plan that includes,
but is not necessarily limited to, all of the following components:
(1) Establishment of a training program for key school officials
and attendance staff to identify pupils with chronic attendance
problems upon their second occurrence of tardiness or absence in a
school year, and the mailing of attendance letters to the pupil's
home in a timely manner.
(2) Establishment of a phone call outreach program, including a
minimum of two calls from a school official, not limited to a
recording, to follow up on those pupils whose attendance problems
continue during that school year after the attendance letters are
mailed.
(3) Establishment of a parent advocate position or positions,
designated for ongoing followup with the pupil and the parent
throughout the school year to ensure the pupil's continued consistent
school attendance. The number of these parent advocate positions may
vary according to the school's needs, resources, and the parent
advocate's ability to manage the workload.
(4) Establishment of an outreach worker position or positions
whose primary job is assisting families with a child or children who
have ongoing chronic attendance problems. The duties of an outreach
worker include sending letters, making phone calls and home visits,
and helping to connect the family to the appropriate local, state, or
federal programs in order to resolve issues that are creating
impediments to the child's consistent attendance in school. The
number of these outreach worker positions can vary according to the
school's applicant's needs, resources,
and the outreach worker's ability to manage the workload.
(5) Determining that the applicant school's
applicant's plan is instituted, to the best of the
school's applicant's ability, before a
pupil enters the school attendance review board process.
(6) Establishment of a plan for teacher followup with pupils with
chronic attendance problems to make up for lost instructional time.
(7) Establishment of a plan to track both longitudinal, pupil
level pupil attendance and aggregate data on tardiness and
attendance throughout the school year to determine whether
improvement has been made.
(8) Establishment of a plan to assess trends in attendance and
chronic absence rates among pupils who are English learners, eligible
for a free or reduced-price meal, or are foster youth, as those
terms are defined in Section 42238.01, and target resources towards
those groups of pupils who are most at risk for ongoing attendance
problems.
(9) (A) Submission of deidentified, aggregate data on chronic
absence and attendance rates to the Bureau of Children's Justice
within the Department of Justice for inclusion in the report "In
School + On Track" prepared by the Office of the Attorney General.
(B) For purposes of this paragraph, "deidentified" means
information that cannot be used to identify an individual pupil.
(c) The applicant shall include an estimate for the amount of the
grant needed in the application and shall be required to provide 20
percent matching funds for any amount requested to encourage
applicants to apply for less than the maximum grant amount specified
in paragraph (2) of subdivision (f).
(c)
(d) The grant program established by this section shall
not be construed as a replacement of, or a substitution for, the
school attendance review board process as described in this article.
(d)
(e) (1) The department shall award grants under this
section based on the selection criteria in paragraph (2).
(2) The department shall give priority to applicant
public schools to those applicants who demonstrate
financial need for the grant and with the highest truancy rates
in each of the following areas:
(A) Urban areas.
(B) Rural areas.
(C) Suburban areas.
(e)
(f) (1) Grants under this section
shall be awarded for three years, and shall be used to address the
attendance problems of pupils in kindergarten and in grades 1 to 3,
inclusive, pursuant to the plans submitted by the applicant
public school under subdivision (b).
(2) Each grant awarded pursuant to this section shall be for no
more than five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000).
(3) The department shall provide no less than 10 grants.
(4) The department shall award no more than five million dollars
($5,000,000) in total grant moneys.
(f)
(g) A public school An
applicant that receives a grant under this section shall submit
a report to the department at the conclusion of the grant. This
report shall specify how the grant funds were used and the strategies
employed to address pupil attendance problems. The report shall also
include pupil attendance data measured both before and after the
implementation of the grant.
(g)
(h) On or before January 1, 2021, the department shall
submit a report to the respective committees on appropriations and
committees on education of the Assembly and the Senate. This report
shall evaluate the strategies and the attendance data of the
public schools applicants that received funds
from the grant program established under this section. The report
shall include, but not necessarily be limited to, a recommendation on
whether the grant program should continue.
(h)
(i) This section shall remain in effect only until
January 1, 2022, and as of that date is repealed, unless a later
enacted statute, that is enacted before January 1, 2022, deletes or
extends that date.
SEC. 3. The sum of ____ dollars ($____) is hereby appropriated to
the State Department of Education for purposes of implementing Our
Children's Success-The Early Intervention Attendance Grant Program,
as established in Section 48270 of the Education Code. It is the
intent of the Legislature that the funds appropriated under this
section be drawn from sources that may include, but are not
necessarily limited to, the General Fund, the Safe Neighborhoods and
Schools Fund established by Proposition 47 on the November 2014
statewide general election ballot, federal and local government
funds, and contributions from nonprofit organizations and other
private entities.