BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 320 Page 1 SENATE THIRD READING SB 320 (Lara) As Amended September 4, 2015 Majority vote SENATE VOTE: 39-0 -------------------------------------------------------------------- |Committee |Votes|Ayes |Noes | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |----------------+-----+-----------------------+---------------------| |Education |7-0 |O'Donnell, Chávez, | | | | |Kim, McCarty, | | | | |Santiago, Thurmond, | | | | |Weber | | | | | | | |----------------+-----+-----------------------+---------------------| |Appropriations |17-0 |Gomez, Bigelow, Bloom, | | | | |Bonta, Calderon, | | | | |Chang, Nazarian, | | | | |Eggman, Gallagher, | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |Eduardo Garcia, | | | | |Holden, Jones, Quirk, | | | | |Rendon, Wagner, Weber, | | | | |Wood | | | | | | | SB 320 Page 2 | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: 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 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. 2)Requires the CDE to take the following actions: a) If the CDE finds merit in an appeal, its 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) If the public school failed to address an issue raised in the complaint of the public school's decision about that complaint, the CDE shall 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 SB 320 Page 3 provided the required response. c) If the complainant submits evidence in conjunction with the appeal that is related to an issue raised in the underlying complaint and that is presented for the first time on appeal and the CDE determines there is merit in the appeal, the CDE shall resolve the underlying complaint. If the CDE determines there is not merit in the appeal, it shall send the underlying complaint and new evidence back to the public school for further consideration. d) If the complainant raises one or more issues on appeal that were not presented in the underlying complaint, the CDE shall 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. 3)Requires a 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 governing board to explain the public school's failure to satisfy that requirement. FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee: 1)General Fund costs to the California Department of Education of approximately $315,000 for increased administrative and SB 320 Page 4 legal workload. Increased workload includes: regulatory 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 (1988)/General Fund 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, this 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: 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 SB 320 Page 5 a tentative settlement that would have established a 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 2011, the 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) of 2012. 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. Purpose. Even after the enactment of AB 1575, supporters of this 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. There is no opposition on file. Analysis Prepared by: Rick Pratt / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN: 0002096 SB 320 Page 6