BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 1014 (Liu) - Pupil rights: pregnant and parenting pupils
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| |
| |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Version: March 29, 2016 |Policy Vote: ED. 9 - 0 |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Hearing Date: April 11, 2016 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
| | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill authorizes a school district to grant
parental leave to a student, and provides that such absences
generate average daily attendance (ADA) funding if the school
district files an expectant and parenting student policy with
the California Department of Education (CDE).
Fiscal
Impact:
ADA funding: To the extent school districts file an expectant
and parenting student policy, students choose to take leave,
and are absent up to the length provided in this bill, state
costs in the mid tens of millions could be incurred related to
school districts including these absences in their ADA
calculation. (Proposition 98)
Mandate costs: The bill's requirements to expand the existing
annual parent notification mandate and disseminate information
SB 1014 (Liu) Page 1 of
?
as specified, could drive state costs of about one million.
To the extent the Commission on State Mandates (COSM)
determines these activities to be reimbursable, it could
create pressure to increase the K-12 mandate block grant.
(Proposition 98)
Administrative costs: The CDE indicates unknown costs
attributed to providing guidance to local educational agencies
(LEAs) related to attendance accounting for students that go
on parental leave and other programmatic and legal guidance.
(General Fund)
Background: State aid to school districts for general purposes is driven
by the ADA of students in a school district. ADA is generated
by students actually attending classes under the immediate
supervision of a properly credentialed teacher. (Education Code
§ 46300, et seq.)
Existing law prohibits excused absences from generating state
aid derived by ADA but does allow the student to make up any
missed assignments or tests during the absence. Excused
absences include those due to the illness or medical appointment
of a student's child. (Education Code § 48205)
Existing federal law, known as Title IX, among other things,
excuses absences due to pregnancy or childbirth for as long as
the student's doctor says is necessary, and gives students the
opportunity to make up any missed assignments. (United States
Code, Title 20, § 1681, et seq.)
Existing state law requires that a student with a temporary
disability which makes school attendance impossible or
inadvisable, receive individual instruction provided by the
school district. This is instruction provided to an individual
student in his or her home, in a hospital, or other residential
health facility and each hour of teaching time counts as one day
of attendance. Statute defines temporary disability as a
physical, mental, or emotional disability after which the
student can reasonably be expected to return to the student's
classes or education program without special intervention. (ECS
48206.3)
SB 1014 (Liu) Page 2 of
?
State and federal regulations require educational institutions
(for federal regulations, LEAs that receive federal financial
aid) to treat pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy,
termination of pregnancy, and recovery therefrom in the same
manner and under the same policies as any other temporary
disabling condition. (California Code of Regulations, Title 5 §
4950 and Code of Federal Regulations, Title 34, § 106.40)
Proposed Law:
This bill:
1. Authorizes a school district to allow a student who
gives birth, or expects to give birth, as well as a
parenting student who did not give birth, parental leave.
The length of time taken would be determined by the student
but it cannot exceed six weeks for births without
complications or eight weeks for Caesarian section births.
For a parenting student who did not give birth, parental
leave cannot exceed four weeks. Absences due to parental
leave would count towards a school district's ADA
calculation as long as the governing board of the school
district files an expectant and parenting student policy
with the CDE. These policies must require a student to
submit a parental leave request form to the school and the
school to provide makeup work plan development process
guidelines to a student and approve the parental leave.
2. Requires school districts to notify pregnant and
parenting students of their rights and options through a
number of ways: annual school year welcome packets required
by existing law; independent study packets; school district
websites; lactation rooms; locker rooms; and school
libraries. Specifically, these rights and options include
those available through federal Title IX, the reasonable
accommodations provided to a lactating student, individual
instruction provided to those with temporary disabilities,
and the parental leave option proposed by this bill.
3. Specifically provides that up to four absences per year
to care for a sick child of a student, are deemed excused
absences (and do not generate ADA funding).
4. Modifies the definition of "temporary disability" to
SB 1014 (Liu) Page 3 of
?
include pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy, termination
of pregnancy, and recovery therefrom. It also requires
that if providing individualized instruction to a student
with a temporary disability as a result of pregnancy is not
available, the student is to be provided guidelines for
makeup work plan development.
Related
Legislation: SB 1375 (Jackson) requires, among other things,
public and private schools that receive federal funding to post
on their website specified information relating to federal Title
IX. SB 1375 is pending in this committee.
SB 946 (Leyva) allows a school district to generate state
apportionment funding for a student's absence who is serving as
a member of a precinct board for an election. SB 946 is
scheduled to be heard by this committee on April 11, 2016.
Staff
Comments: The largest cost imposed by this bill is allowing
school districts to claim ADA funding for students when they are
on parental leave. According to the California Department of
Public Health, in 2013 there were about 30,000 births in
California to females ages 15 to 19. Assuming 19 year old
students are no longer attending high school, one can estimate
about 20,000 births to females between ages 15 to 18.
Costs for parental leave would ultimately depend upon: (1) if a
school district files an expectant and parenting student policy;
(2) whether a student decides to take leave; and (3) if so, for
how long. Assuming a rate of $50 generated per ADA (the grade
nine through 12 base rate at full implementation of the state's
recently enacted funding formula, divided by 180 school days in
a year), six to eight weeks of parental leave for females would
drive statewide costs of between $30 million to $40 million,
assuming all leave occurs during the school year. Making the
same assumptions for parental leave for those that did not give
birth, costs would be about $20 million for four weeks. Costs
would increase to the extent the student on leave is classified
as an English learner, low-income student, or foster youth, as
they generate additional funding in the state's funding formula.
SB 1014 (Liu) Page 4 of
?
The second significant cost driver of this bill is the
state-mandated activities. This bill requires school districts
to notify pregnant and parenting students of certain rights and
options through a number of ways. This requirement likely
expands the existing consolidated annual parent notification
mandate which, before the K-12 mandate block grant, averaged
costs of about $9 million per year. Based on the formula for
calculating claimable costs developed by the COSM, this bill
could result in about $400,000 to print the additional, possibly
three pages, to be included in the annual parent notification.
This bill also requires school districts to disseminate this
information on the school district's website, in lactation
rooms, in locker rooms, and in school libraries. It is unclear
if a notice is required to be in every lactation room, locker
room, and school library in the school district. However,
assuming this requirement takes each school district two hours
to create and make the notice available on their websites and
for each school in the state one hour to make them available in
each location on campus, at a rate of $50 per hour including
benefits, statewide costs would be about $600,000.
This bill modifies the definition of "temporary disability" to
include pregnancy, childbirth, false pregnancy, termination of
pregnancy, and recovery therefrom. Existing law requires a
student who is on temporary disability to receive individual
instruction. State and federal regulations require pregnancy,
childbirth, false pregnancy, termination of pregnancy, and
recovery therefrom to be treated in the same manner as a
temporary disability. Therefore the changes made in this bill
related to the temporary disability definition do not appear to
add significant duties to school districts. However, it does
require them to provide guidelines for makeup work if
individualized instruction is not available for those with a
temporary disability due to a pregnancy.
-- END --
SB 1014 (Liu) Page 5 of
?