BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 1567 (Campos) - Before and after school programs:
enrollment: fees: homeless and foster youth: snacks or meals
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|Version: June 22, 2016 |Policy Vote: ED. 9 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: August 1, 2016 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: Beginning July 1, 2017, this bill: (1) establishes
first priority for enrollment in before and after school
programs to be students who are identified as homeless and in
foster care, and (2) prohibits programs from charging a family
for a child that the program knows to be a homeless youth or a
foster care youth.
Fiscal
Impact:
Though this bill does not expand services, it creates a
potentially significant Proposition 98 cost pressure to the
extent children whose families are currently able to pay
AB 1567 (Campos) Page 1 of
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family fees are displaced due to priority enrollment for
homeless and foster youth, whose fees would be waived. This
would result in forgone revenue that would have otherwise
supported local programs, thereby creating cost pressures on
the After School Education and Safety (ASES) program. See
staff comments.
Background: Existing law establishes the ASES program, a three year grant
program, to create incentives for establishing locally driven
before and after school enrichment programs that partner with
public schools and communities to provide academic and literacy
support and safe, constructive alternatives for youth. The ASES
program serves students in kindergarten and grades 1 through 9.
Local educational agencies (LEAs) may operate a before school
component of a program, an after school component, or both, on
one or multiple school sites. (Education Code § 8482 and
8482.3)
Existing law specifies that every student attending a school
operating an ASES program is eligible to participate in the
program, subject to capacity. Priority for funding is required
to be given to schools where a minimum of 50 percent of the
students in elementary schools and 50 percent of the students in
middle and junior high schools are eligible for free or reduced
cost meals through the school lunch program of the United States
Department of Agriculture. A program is not required to charge
family fees or conduct eligibility determinations based on need.
Existing law continuously appropriates to the California
Department of Education (CDE) $550 million from the General Fund
for the ASES program. (EC § 8482.6, 8482.5, and 8483.5)
The federal McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and
Youths Program requires state educational agencies to ensure
that homeless children and youth have equal access to the same
free public education as is provided to other children and
youth. States are required to review and take steps to revise
any laws, regulations, practices, or policies that may act as
barriers to the enrollment, attendance, or success in school of
homeless children and youth. (United States Code, Title 42, §
11431, et seq.)
AB 1567 (Campos) Page 2 of
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Proposed Law:
Beginning July 1, 2017, this bill:
Requires that if an ASES program charges family fees, it is
prohibited from charging a family for a child that the program
knows to be a homeless youth or a foster care youth;
Establishes first priority for enrollment in before and after
school programs to be students who are identified as homeless
and in foster care;
Establishes second priority for programs serving middle and
junior high school students to students who attend daily;
Requires a program to inform the parent or caregiver of the
right of homeless children and foster children to receive
priority enrollment and how to make a request; and
Requires program administrators to allow self-certification of
a student for purposes of identifying a student who is
eligible for priority enrollment.
This bill provides that nothing in it be construed to require a
program to verify, or a school district to disclose to an after
school program, that a student applying for or participating in
the program is a homeless youth or a foster youth.
Administrators may obtain this information through the school
district liaison designated for homeless children if the school
district has the appropriate waiver.
Finally, this bill provides legislative intent that an ASES
program be prohibited from using its core operating funds for
mandatory snacks or meals, but be required to instead seek to
qualify program sites as approved distribution sites for
federally funded after school snacks or meals provided for by
the National School Lunch Program, the Summer Food Service
Program, or the Child and Adult Care Food Program.
AB 1567 (Campos) Page 3 of
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Related
Legislation: AB 2615 (Wood, 2016) among other things, requires
programs that charge family fees to waive or reduce the cost of
these fees for students who are eligible for free or
reduced-price meals. This bill prohibits, if a program charges
family fees, charging a family for a child if it is known that
the child is a homeless youth or is in foster care. AB 2615 is
pending in this committee.
AB 1426 (Cooper) increases the per-student daily and weekly
rates for ASES. AB 1426 is pending in this committee.
Staff
Comments: According to the author, some of the poorest and most
vulnerable children do not have access to ASES programs because
they are unable to secure a spot on the waiting list or to pay
the minimal fee required by some programs. This bill seeks to
ensure that state funded after school programs are available to
the neediest of children by giving priority access and waiving
fees for homeless or foster care youth.
Priority for ASES funding is provided for schools that have a
minimum of 50 percent of students that are eligible for free- or
reduced-price meals, and funding priority is given to programs
serving the highest percentages of students eligible for those
meals. Though the intent of the program is to not deny a child
access to an ASES program due to inability to pay, programs may
still charge family fees. There are a number of payment
structures that programs employ such as donations, sliding scale
fees depending upon family income, and flat fees with
scholarships available. Some programs do not charge fees at
all. However, some programs use the revenue to help meet the
required local match of one-third of the total grant they
receive.
This bill provides that if an ASES program charges family fees,
it is prohibited from charging a family for a child that it
knows to be a homeless youth or a foster care youth. Because
funding is capped at the $550 million annual appropriation, some
programs may have waitlists or limited slots in their programs.
AB 1567 (Campos) Page 4 of
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Providing priority enrollment and family fee waivers to homeless
and foster youth will likely displace other participants who may
be able to afford the fee which would be used to support the
program. For example at Lake County Office of Education, family
fees range from $25 to $100 per month based on income level. To
the extent 10 students in the highest income bracket are
displaced by this priority enrollment, the program could lose
$10,000 over the course of the school year. The maximum grant
level for middle or junior high schools is $150,000. However,
the priority enrollment ensures that some of the most
disadvantaged are served first.
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