BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 320
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Date of Hearing: August 19, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
SB 320
(Lara) - As Amended June 30, 2015
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill prohibits a public school from establishing a local
policy or procedure that authorizes the public school to resolve
a complaint regarding assessment of pupil fees, whether formally
or informally, by providing a remedy to the complainant without
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also providing a remedy to all affected pupils, parents, and
guardians. Specifically, this bill:
1)Provides the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) all
power and authority necessary to ensure that, when the
California Department of Education (CDE) finds merit in an
appeal filed relative to pupil fee complaints, the complaint
is resolved in a timely manner. Requires the SPI, on or before
June 30, 2016, to adopt regulations to govern the use of this
authority.
2)Requires the regulations to include, but not necessarily be
limited to, all of the following:
a) A specification that, if the CDE finds merit in an
appeal, CDE's written decision shall identify the
corrective action that the public school shall take to
confirm that it has provided a remedy to all affected
pupils, including, if applicable, specific direction
regarding the reasonable efforts the public school shall
take to ensure full reimbursement to all affected pupils.
b) A specification that, if the public school failed to
address an issue raised in the complaint of the public
school's decision about that complaint, the CDE will
require the public school to respond to the issue within 10
business days and, after providing this opportunity to
respond, the CDE is required to make findings on the merit
of the appeal without remanding the complaint to the public
school for further consideration, regardless of whether the
public school provided the required response.
c) A specification that, if the complainant submits
evidence in conjunction with the appeal that is related to
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an issue raised in the underlying complaint and that is
presented for the first time on appeal, the CDE is required
to notify the public school of the new evidence and provide
the public school with 10 business days to respond to the
new evidence, and, after providing this opportunity to
respond, the CDE is required to make findings on the merit
of the appeal without remanding the complaint to the public
school for further consideration, regardless of whether the
public school provided the required response.
d) A specification that, if the complainant raises one or
more issues on appeal that were not presented in the
underlying complaint, the CDE is required to remand any new
issue to the public school to treat as a newly filed
complaint, but is required to resolve the remainder of the
appeal.
e) Requires the public school to provide to the CDE, within
60 days of CDE's written decision, evidence documenting
that the public school has complied with any corrective
action specified in the written decision as specified. If
the public school has not satisfied this requirement, the
superintendent of the school district or the county office
of education or the principal of the charter school, as
appropriate based on the public school involved in the
underlying complaint, will be required to appear at the
next regularly scheduled meeting of the state board to
explain the public school's failure to satisfy that
requirement.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)General Fund costs to the California Department of Education
of approximately $315,000 for increased administrative and
legal workload. Increased workload includes: regulatory
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review, updating existing Uniform Complaint Procedures (UCP),
revision of compliance monitoring processes, review of
identified fees-related deficiencies, and provision of on-site
direct investigations where new evidence is presented or an
LEA fails to address an issue on appeal. Legal counsel will
also be needed to consult and train staff on the appellate
review process and to review appeal decisions and the
increased number of direct investigation reports.
2)Unknown Proposition 98/GF costs, potentially in the low
thousands, for schools and school districts to address issues
of noncompliance. For example, schools could incur costs to
refute new evidence of noncompliance presented on appeal.
Further, the bill requires the superintendent of the school
district or county office of education, as applicable, to
appear before the State Board of Education (SBE) if the public
school that they oversee fails to provide evidence that they
have complied with CDE's recommended corrective action within
60 days. School level and district level resources will be
needed to gather documentation to prove compliance and travel
to the SBE meeting, if necessary.
COMMENTS:
1)Background. In September 2010 the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) filed a class action lawsuit alleging the
unconstitutional assessment of pupil fees by school districts
[Jane Doe, et al. v. State of California]. The lawsuit
followed an August 2010 report from the ACLU that documented
more than 50 public school districts that required pupils to
pay fees for textbooks, workbooks, science labs, physical
education uniforms, classroom materials, and extracurricular
activities.
In December 2010 Governor Schwarzenegger and the ACLU
announced a tentative settlement that would have established a
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monitoring and enforcement system, but the court did not
finalize the settlement. The following April, the ACLU filed
an amended complaint that dropped the Governor as a defendant
and added the SPI, the California Department of Education, and
the State Board of Education (the "State Education
Defendants"). In May 2011the State Education Defendants and
the ACLU agreed to a stay of court proceedings to allow for a
legislative solution. The State of California did not agree
to the stay and instead suggested that the case be dismissed
pending the outcome of the legislative process.
The legislative solution, which was supported by the ACLU, was
AB 165 (Lara). AB 165 was vetoed by the Governor and the
court case was reactivated. On January 26, 2012, the court
overruled demurrers filed by the State of California and the
State Education Defendants, allowing the case to move forward.
Subsequently, however, the Governor signed AB 1575 (Lara,
Chapter 799, Statutes of 2012), which codified the prohibition
against pupil fees and provided for the resolution of
noncompliance through the UCP.
2)Purpose. Even after the enactment of AB 1575, supporters of
the bill state that some districts continue to charge unlawful
fees. The author notes, for example, that some districts have
reimbursed the family filing the complaint, but not all of the
families that were charged prohibited fees. Some districts
have simply refused to comply with the CDE's ruling or refund
the fees. The ACLU and other supporters of the bill are
seeking to further clarify and strengthen existing law to
ensure compliance with AB 1575.
Analysis Prepared by:Misty Feusahrens / APPR. / (916)
319-2081
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