BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 705
Page 1
SENATE THIRD READING
SB
705 (Hill)
As Amended July 9, 2015
Majority vote
SENATE VOTE: 21-13
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|Committee |Votes|Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Education |5-2 |O'Donnell, McCarty, |Chávez, Kim |
| | |Santiago, Thurmond, | |
| | |Weber | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Appropriations |12-5 |Gomez, Bloom, Bonta, |Bigelow, Chang, |
| | |Calderon, Daly, |Gallagher, Jones, |
| | |Eggman, Eduardo |Wagner |
| | |Garcia, Holden, | |
| | |Quirk, Rendon, Weber, | |
| | |Wood | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY: Requires a school district, within 10 days of receipt
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of a facilities request from a charter school or making a
preliminary offer or final offer of facilities to a charter
school, to post the information on the school district's
Internet Web site. Specifies that "preliminary offer" includes
situations in which the school district reasonably anticipates
that a public school facility located in a district-operated
school will be allocated to a charter school.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, Proposition 98 (1988)/General Fund state mandated
costs, likely in the low tens of thousands, for school districts
to post facility proposals or requests on their Web site.
COMMENTS: In 2000, voters passed Proposition 39 (2000), which
gave districts the opportunity to seek approval of a local
education bond based on a 55% vote rather than a two-thirds vote
under specified conditions. The initiative also enacted
provisions in the Education Code to require school districts to
make school facilities available to charter schools with at
least 80 units of average daily attendance operating in the
district. Facilities are required to be reasonably equivalent
to facilities pupils would receive if the pupils were to attend
district schools. School districts are required to make
reasonable efforts to provide the charter school with facilities
near where the charter school wishes to be located. Facilities
provided by the district shall be contiguous, furnished, and
equipped. School districts are allowed to charge a pro rata
share of any facilities costs the school district pays for with
general fund revenues.
Under regulations specified in California Code of Regulations
Title 5, charter schools and school districts are required to
comply with the following timeline:
1)On or before November 1, a charter school is required to
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submit a written facilities request for facilities for the
following school year including a projection of the number of
in-district pupils who will be attending the charter school.
2)On or before December 1, the school district is required to
express any disagreement with the projected number of pupils
and provide a projection the district considers reasonable.
3)On or before January 2, the charter school responds to the
district's objections and either reaffirms or modifies its
previous projections.
4)On or before February 1, the school district provides a
written preliminary proposal regarding the space to be
allocated to the charter school.
5)On or before March 1, the charter school is required to
respond in writing to the school district's preliminary
proposal.
6)On or before April 1, the school district is required to
submit in writing a final notification of space offered to the
charter school.
What does this bill do? This bill requires a school district,
within 10 days of receiving a facilities request from a charter
school or making a preliminary offer or final offer of
facilities to a charter school, to post the information on the
school district's Internet Web site.
The author introduced this bill in response to parent and
community concerns following the San Mateo Union High School
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District's decision to co-locate a charter school with an
existing high school, Mills High School, in Millbrae. According
to the author's office, members of the community expressed
concerns about the lack of community engagement and transparency
in the process and raised concerns about potential traffic,
scheduling and overcrowding problems at the schoolsite.
According to the California Department of Education (CDE), Mills
High School had an enrollment of 1,232 in 2013-14. According to
the author's office, the capacity at the schoolsite is 1,454.
The charter school opened with 140 9th graders in the 2014-15
school year, but is expected to grow to about 600 when all four
grade levels are reached. The charter school was given six
classrooms, resulting in nine Mills High School teachers having
to share classrooms. Common areas such as the library and the
gym are shared by the two schools. The district ultimately
formed a task force to help the two schools determine how best
to share the facility for the 2014-15 school year and found that
keeping the charter school at that schoolsite is not feasible
long-term and will impact the educational programs of both
schools. The local newspaper, The Daily Journal, reported
teachers' concerns that sharing classrooms will impact their
ability to do prep work and keep a classroom organized, which
could potentially impact the education of students.
Proposition 39 requirement. The premise behind the Proposition
39 requirement was to give charter schools access to district
facilities. Implementation has been challenging for some
districts, with lawsuits filed in several areas. Not all
districts have surplus property, and if they do, the property
may not be located where the charters wish to reside.
Co-locating charters with existing schools is not uncommon,
although logistically and administratively challenging. This
bill simply requires a district to post information on the
school district's Internet Web site within 10 days of receiving
a request by a charter school or upon making a preliminary or
final offer to a charter school. The prior version of this bill
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would have required a school district to provide written
notification to a school and parents and guardians of students
of the school of a potential co-location. According to the CDE,
as of 2013-14, there were 1,125 charter schools enrolling
approximately 514,000 of the state's 6.2 million students.
Analysis Prepared by:
Sophia Kwong Kim / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN:
0001437