BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 2815 Page 1 ASSEMBLY THIRD READING AB 2815 (O'Donnell) As Amended May 19, 2016 Majority vote ------------------------------------------------------------------- |Committee |Votes|Ayes |Noes | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |----------------+-----+----------------------+---------------------| |Education |7-0 |O'Donnell, Olsen, | | | | |Kim, McCarty, | | | | |Santiago, Thurmond, | | | | |Weber | | | | | | | | | | | | ------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 AB 2815 Page 2 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. 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. AB 2815 Page 3 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 qualified handicapped person as that term is defined in regulations promulgated by the United States Department of Education pursuant to federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Section 504 (29 United States Code (U.S.C.) Section 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. 3)Clarifies that county means a county superintendent of schools. 4)Replaces a reference to "board of school trustees of any district of a county" with the "governing board of a school district." 5)Strikes the reference to "receiving the approval of the county board of education" in the authorization of a school district to contract with the county superintendent of schools for the AB 2815 Page 4 supervision of the attendance of pupils in the school district. 6)Makes minor, technical changes. 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 2 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. AB 2815 Page 5 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 county superintendent of schools 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. AB 2815 Page 6 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. District and county SARBs, comprised of representatives from schools, local services agencies, and local law enforcement agencies, 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 Tom Torlakson, 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." Analysis Prepared by: Sophia Kwong Kim / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN: 0002998 AB 2815 Page 7