BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2815
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 4, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Patrick O'Donnell, Chair
AB 2815
(O'Donnell) - As Amended April 5, 2016
SUBJECT: Pupil attendance: supervisors of attendance
SUMMARY: Authorizes a supervisor of attendance to provide
specified support services and take specified interventions.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Expresses the intent of the Legislature that in performing his
or her duties, a supervisor of attendance shall promote a
culture of attendance and establish a system to accurately
track pupil attendance in order to raise awareness of chronic
absenteeism, identify and address factors contributing to
chronic absenteeism and habitual truancy, and ensure that
pupils with attendance problems are identified as early as
possible in order to provide support services and
interventions.
2)Authorizes a supervisor of attendance to provide support
services and interventions, including, but not limited to, any
or all of the following:
a) Hold a conference between school personnel, the pupil's
parent or guardian, and the pupil.
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b) Promote cocurricular and extracurricular activities that
increase pupil connectedness to school, such as tutoring,
mentoring, the arts, service learning, or athletics.
c) Recognize pupils who achieve excellent attendance or
demonstrate significant improvement in attendance.
d) Refer a pupil to a school nurse, school counselor,
school psychologist, school social worker, and other pupil
support personnel for case management and counseling.
e) Collaborate with child welfare services, law
enforcement, courts, public health care agencies, or
government agencies, or medical, mental health, and oral
health care providers to receive necessary services.
f) Collaborate with school study teams, guidance teams,
school attendance review teams, or other
intervention-related teams to assess the attendance or
behavior problem in partnership with the pupil and his or
her parents, guardians, or caregivers.
g) Identify barriers to attendance that may require
schoolwide strategies rather than case management in
schools with significantly higher rates of chronic
absenteeism.
h) Refer a pupil for a comprehensive psychosocial or
psychoeducational assessment, including for purposes of
creating an individualized education program for an
individual with exceptional needs, or plan adopted for a
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qualified handicapped person as that term is defined in
regulations promulgated by the United States Department of
Education pursuant to Section 504 of the federal
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. Sec. 794).
i) Refer a pupil to a school attendance review board (SARB)
established by the county or by a school district or to the
probation department.
j) Refer a pupil to a truancy mediation program operated by
the county's district attorney or probation officer.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Requires the governing board of a school district and any
county office of education (COE) to appoint a supervisor of
attendance and assistant supervisors of attendance as may be
necessary to supervise the attendance of pupils in the school
district or county. Requires the governing board to prescribe
the duties of the supervisor or assistant supervisor to
include, among other duties that may be required by the
governing board, those specific duties related to compulsory
full-time education, truancy, work permits, compulsory
continuation education, and opportunity schools, classes, and
programs, now required of attendance supervisors. (Education
Code (EC) Section 48240)
2)Requires that each person between the ages of 6 and 18 years,
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
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person having control or charge of the pupil ensure that
pupil's enrollment and attendance. (EC Section 48200)
3)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)
4)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)
5)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 school attendance review board (SARB) or a
truancy mediation program. (EC Section 48262)
6)Defines a "chronic truant" as any pupil subject to compulsory
full-time education or to compulsory continuation education
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)
7)Authorizes a SARB to be established at the local and county
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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: None. This bill is keyed non-fiscal by the
Legislative Counsel.
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, is tardy for
more than 30 minutes, or any combination thereof, 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
(five absences and/or tardiness for more than 30 minutes) 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 2014-15, the California Department
of Education (CDE) reported a truancy rate of 31.43%, with two
million students out of a total enrollment of 6.2 million
considered truants.
Students who are chronically absent in lower grades are much
less likely to be proficient readers and have higher levels of
suspensions. According to the CDE, 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.
This bill expresses the intent of the Legislature for attendance
supervisors, in addition to establishing a system to accurately
track pupil attendance, to promote a culture of attendance in
order to raise the awareness of the effects of chronic
absenteeism and truancy and to identify and address factors
contributing to truancy and absenteeism.
According to the author, the purpose of this bill is to update
the education code on the duties of attendance supervisors,
which were established in 1976. Each district or COE is
required to appoint an attendance supervisor and assistant
attendance supervisors as necessary. Historically, attendance
supervisors have had an enforcement role. Over the last several
years, legislative and school-based policies have shifted from
tough disciplinary approaches to strategies that focus on how to
support students in order to compel students to attend school
and keep students at school. Attendance supervisors play an
important role in coordinating and implementing these
strategies, including those authorized by this bill, such as
making referrals to school- and community-based services such as
counseling, special education services, SARBs, and social
welfare, health, mental health, and oral health services
provided by local governmental agencies. The strategies also
include positive strategies, such as recognizing students who
have excellent attendance records or students who significantly
improve their attendance.
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The strategies proposed by this bill were developed by the state
SARB, established to encourage the cooperation, coordination and
development of strategies to support county SARBs in carrying
out their responsibilities to establish district SARBs.
Existing law requires county SARBs and authorizes local SARBs to
include, but need not be limited to, specified members from
school, local law enforcement, and community and county service
agencies. SARBs meet with referred pupils and their
parents/legal guardians to assess their personal and family
situations that may cause pupils to be tardy or absent from
school on a regular basis and identify community/public
resources that may help pupils improve their attendance in
school, or refer pupils to law enforcement agencies, if
necessary.
Superintendent TomTorlakson, writing in support of the bill,
states, "While current law does recognize the importance of
attendance supervisors, it does not include a focus on
preventing truancy by improving school climate and analyzing
chronic absence data to provide early identification of
high-risk students for early intervention and access to
appropriate school and community services. Attendance
supervisors are key personnel in our efforts to reduce truancy
and chronic absenteeism, and establishing alternatives to
out-of-school suspensions."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Association of California School Administrators
AB 2815
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Children Now
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by:Sophia Kwong Kim / ED. / (916) 319-2087