BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1014
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 22, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Patrick O'Donnell, Chair
AB 1014
(Thurmond) - As Amended March 26, 2015
SUBJECT: Pupils: truancy: Our Children's Success-The Early
Intervention Attendance Grant Program
SUMMARY: Establishes the Our Children's Success - The Early
Intervention Attendance Grant Program for the purpose of helping
public schools resolve the attendance problems of pupils in
kindergarten through grade 3. Specifically, this bill:
1)Specifies that the grant program shall be implemented upon the
appropriation of sufficient funding.
2)Provides that a public school maintaining kindergarten through
grade 3 seeking to participate in the grant program may apply
to the California Department of Education (CDE) for a grant.
Requires an application submitted by a public school to
reflect a plan that includes, but is not necessarily limited
to, all of the following:
a) 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
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attendance letters to the pupil's home in a timely manner.
b) 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.
c) Establishment of a parent advocate position or
positions, designated for ongoing follow-up 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.
d) 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 needs, resources, and
the outreach worker's ability to manage the workload.
e) Determining that the applicant school's plan is
instituted, to the best of the school's ability, before a
pupil enters the school attendance review board (SARB)
process.
f) Establishment of a plan for teacher follow-up with
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pupils with chronic attendance problems to make up for lost
instructional time.
g) Establishment of a plan to track pupil attendance and
aggregate data on tardiness and attendance throughout the
school year to determine whether improvement has been made.
3)Requires the CDE to give priority to applicant schools that
have prioritized pupil engagement in their local control and
accountability plans (LCAP).
4)Specifies that the grant program established by this section
shall not be construed as a replacement of, or a substitution
for, the SARB.
5)Appropriates an unspecified amount to the CDE for purposes of
implementing the Our Children's Success-The Early Intervention
Attendance Grant Program. Expresses the intent of the
Legislature that the funds appropriated pursuant to this bill
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.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires that each person between the ages of 6 and 18 years,
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not otherwise exempted, be subject to compulsory full-time
education and attend the public full-time day school or
continuation school or classes in which their parent or
guardian resides, and that each parent, guardian or other
person having control or charge of the pupil ensure that
pupil's enrollment and attendance. (Education Code (EC)
Section 48200)
2)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 any
30-minute period during the schoolday without a valid excuse
on three occasions in one school year, or any combination
thereof. (EC Section 48260)
3)Requires a school district, upon a pupil's initial
classification as a truant, to notify the pupil's parent or
guardian and provide them with specified information. (EC
Section 48260.5)
4)Defines a "habitual truant" as any pupil who has been reported
as a truant three or more times per school year, where an
appropriate district officer or employee had made a
conscientious effort to hold at least one conference with a
parent and the pupil, after the filing of either a truancy
report to the attendance supervisor or district
superintendent. Specifies that a habitual truant may be
referred to a SARB or a truancy mediation program. (EC
Section 48262)
5)Defines a "chronic truant" as any pupil subject to compulsory
full-time education or to compulsory continuation education
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who is absent from school without a valid excuse for 10
percent or more of the schooldays in one school year, from the
date of enrollment to the current date. (EC Section 48263.6)
6)Authorizes a SARB to be established at the local and county
level to provide intensive guidance and coordinated community
services to meet the needs of pupils with school attendance or
school behavior problems. (EC Section 48320)
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS: Truancy. California's compulsory education law
requires all students between the ages of six and 18 to attend
school full-time and their parents and legal guardians to be
responsible for ensuring that children attend school. A student
who is absent from school without a valid excuse for more than
30 minutes on three days in a school year is considered a
truant. Parents or legal guardians are notified when their
children has been classified as a truant and are reminded of
their obligation to compel the attendance of pupils at school.
Upon a pupil's third truancy in a school year and following a
district's conscientious effort to hold a conference with the
parent or legal guardian of the pupil and the pupil, a pupil is
classified as a habitual truant and may be referred to a SARB or
to the local probation officer. Upon a fourth truancy, students
and/or their parents or legal guardians may be fined. In
2012-13, the CDE reported a truancy rate of 29.28%, with 1.9
million students out of a total enrollment of 6.2 million
considered truants.
According to the CDE, students who are chronically absent in
lower grades are much less likely to be proficient readers and
have higher levels of suspensions. Chronic absence in the sixth
grade is the most predictive indicator that a student will not
graduate from high school.
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In 2013, the Attorney General's (AG's) office released a report
titled "In School and On Track" on truancy of elementary school
kids. Calling it a crisis, the AG argues that truancy at the
elementary level has negative impacts on the students, who are
more likely to drop out of high school; on public safety, when
students become more likely to become involved with gangs,
substance abuse, and incarceration; on school districts, who
lose attendance dollars; and on the economy, due to lost
economic productivity and revenues.
Purpose of the bill. According to the author, this bill
attempts to improve student attendance while generating needed
revenue for schools, and creating brighter, long term outcomes
for California's youth. Schools receive their funding based on
average daily attendance (ADA). According to the AG's report,
school districts lost approximately $1.4 billion in the 2010-11
school year due to absences. The author believes that early
intervention will not only improve student attendance, it will
be a good investment in increasing a school's ADA.
This bill appropriates an unspecified amount of funds to
establish the Our Children's Success - The Early Intervention
Attendance Grant Program. The grant program is intended to
provide outreach to pupils from kindergarten through grade 3. A
school interested in receiving a grant must submit an
application to the CDE. The application must include a plan
that includes, but is not limited to all of the following
components:
a)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.
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b)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.
c)Establishment of a parent advocate position or positions,
designated for ongoing follow-up 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.
d)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 needs,
resources, and the outreach worker's ability to manage the
workload.
e)Determining that the applicant school's plan is instituted, to
the best of the school's ability, before a pupil enters the
school attendance review board process.
f)Establishment of a plan for teacher follow-up with pupils with
chronic attendance problems to make up for lost instructional
time.
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g)Establishment of a plan to track pupil attendance and
aggregate data on tardiness and attendance throughout the
school year to determine whether improvement has been made.
The plan's requirements. The bill requires schools to submit a
plan. However, the components of the plan are already specified
by the bill. It is not clear what components schools are
required to develop. Staff recommends an amendment to specify
that the components may be, rather than are required, to be part
of the plan.
Some of the components of the plan are already required in
current law, including notification to parents by mail or phone
call, which takes place upon an initial classification as a
truant (tardy 30 minutes or absent without a valid excuse three
times). Grant funds will be used for an outreach worker, whose
job isn't just to send letters or make phone calls, but also to
make home visits and help connect families with social services
that may be the cause(s) of attendance problems. This is
similar to the role of SARBs, which are established by a county
superintendent of schools or a school district comprised of
representatives of school districts, social services agencies,
and law enforcement agencies to evaluate and address a student's
attendance problems. Students are typically referred to SARBs
after the third classification as a truant (9 tardies or
absences). The outreach worker established by this bill would
start the intervention earlier.
It is not clear what the difference is between the outreach
worker and the parent advocate. It is also unclear whether the
parent advocate is a parent or a paid staff position. If it is
a paid staff position, the author may wish to incorporate the
parent advocate duties with the outreach workers' duties. If
it's a parent, the author may wish to consider confidentiality
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issues and providing training to parents.
According to the author, the intent of the bill is to outreach
to kids at an early age - between kindergarten through grade 3 -
to prevent long-term absentee problems. Staff recommends an
amendment to clarify that the funds shall be used for early
intervention for pupils in kindergarten through grade 3.
Selection criteria. The criteria CDE is required to use to
select grantees is unclear. The bill specifies that the CDE is
to give priority to applicants that have prioritized pupil
engagement in their LCAP. It is not clear how that will be
determined. The local control funding formula funds can be used
for any purpose in accordance with the LCAP, which is developed
locally to meet the needs of each district. The LCAP is
required to meet eight state priorities. One of the priorities
is "pupil engagement," as measured by factors such as school
attendance rate and chronic absenteeism rate. It is not clear
how CDE will determine whether pupil engagement is a higher
priority in one school's LCAP over another. Staff recommends
eliminating this criterion.
Should the grant program be a pilot? Staff recommends
establishing this grant program as a pilot in order to be able
to gauge the impact of the early intervention strategies, with
the following components:
1) Establish a six-year pilot with a three year minimum
grant.
2) Require selection of a diversity of applicant schools in
urban, rural and suburban areas.
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3) Require selection of applicant schools in each region
that have the highest truancy rates.
4) Require schools to submit a report to the CDE.
5) Require CDE to submit a report to the Legislature.
Arguments in support. According to the author, this bill is
modeled after an attendance program established by the Berkeley
Unified School District (BUSD), which spent $100,000 in the
first year and saw an increase of $500,000 in ADA the following
year. The author states, "The school district successfully
brought the students back into the classroom, while at the same
time helping their families address the challenges that lead to
the students' attendance problems. Attendance levels at BUSD
have remained high due to the school district's focus on
holistic solutions to the complex set of problems that cause
children to miss school regularly. Schools and school districts
across the country are demonstrating the value of addressing
student attendance prior to the point of delinquency. Early
intervention and a broad set of tools is the best way to get
children back into the classroom consistently."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Children Now
AB 1014
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Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by:Sophia Kwong Kim / ED. / (916) 319-2087