BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
SB 1432 (Huff) - School attendance: pupil transfer options:
school districts of choice
-----------------------------------------------------------------
| |
| |
| |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Version: April 13, 2016 |Policy Vote: ED. 9 - 0 |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
| | |
|--------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| | |
|Hearing Date: April 25, 2016 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
| | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill extends the sunset of the "school district
of choice" program to July 1, 2022. It also, among other
things, allows a 10 percent cap on the total number of students
enrolled in a district of choice at a point in time; requires
the Legislative Analyst's Office to submit an evaluation of the
program to the Legislature and the Governor; reassigns certain
reporting requirements to the Superintendent of Public
Instruction; and expands various oversight responsibilities to
county superintendents.
Fiscal
Impact:
SB 1432 (Huff) Page 1 of
?
Administrative costs: The California Department of Education
(CDE) estimates costs of $132,000 for one position to gather
and report specified information required by this bill.
(General Fund)
Mandate: The requirement for each school district to make
information regarding its schools, programs, policies, and
procedures available to any interested person upon request,
could impose a potentially significant reimbursable state
mandate. If this requirement took each school district one
hour, provided a request was made, costs would be in the tens
of thousands. (Proposition 98)
Cost pressure: This bill provides authority for appeals to be
made by parents and complaints to be made by school districts
of choice and school districts of residence to the county
superintendent of schools. The superintendent would incur an
unknown cost pressure to take time to address any potential
appeal or complaint brought forth. It is unclear whether the
Commission on State Mandates would determine this to be a
state mandate.
Background: Existing law:
1) Requires students to attend the public full-time day
school or continuation school or classes in which the
residency of either the parent or legal guardian is
located. (Education Code § 48200)
2) Authorizes the governing board of a school board to
declare themselves a school district of choice willing to
accept a specified number of inter-district transfers. As a
condition of participating in the program, either the
district of residence or district of choice may prevent a
transfer if the transfer would exacerbate racial
segregation. (EC § 48300, et seq.)
3) Requires a school district of choice to select students
through a random and unbiased process that prohibits
enrollment based upon academic or athletic talent. It is
incumbent upon the school district of choice to ensure that
the auditor who conducts its annual financial audit also
reviews compliance with the specified selection
requirements. (EC § 48301)
SB 1432 (Huff) Page 2 of
?
4) Authorizes a school district of residence with an
average daily attendance (ADA) of less than 50,000 to cap
outbound transfers each year to 3% of its ADA for that year
and to cap the maximum number at 10% of its ADA for the
duration of the program. A school district of residence is
also authorized to limit transfers if it has a negative or
qualified status on the most recent budget certification or
if a determination is made by the county superintendent
determines that the school district will not meet standards
for fiscal stability due to the impact of additional
transfers, as specified. (EC § 48307)
5) Authorizes a school district of residence with an
average daily attendance greater than 50,000 limit the
number of pupils transferring out each year to 1 percent of
its current year estimated ADA.
6) Requires each school district of choice to keep records
of:
a) The number of requests granted, denied, or
withdrawn as well as the reasons for the denials;
b) The number of pupils transferred out of the
district, as specified; and
c) The number of pupils transferred into the
district, as specified.
(EC § 48301)
7) Further requires, school districts of choice to annually
report this information to neighboring school districts,
their county office of education, the Superintendent of
Public Instruction (SPI) and Department of Finance (DOF),
as specified. The DOF is required to make the information
available to the Legislative Analyst. The Legislative
Analyst is required to conduct a comprehensive evaluation
of the district of choice program, as specified, and submit
the evaluation, along with recommendations, to the
appropriate legislative education policy committees, and
the Governor, by January 31, 2016. This section is
scheduled to sunset July 1, 2017. (EC § 48300, et seq.)
SB 1432 (Huff) Page 3 of
?
Proposed Law:
This bill:
1)Extends the sunset of the district of choice program to July
1, 2022.
2)Requires, instead of authorizes, all school districts to make
information regarding its schools, programs, policies, and
procedures available to any interested person upon request.
Also it requires, school districts of choice to make public
announcements regarding its schools, programs, policies, and
procedures during the enrollment period.
3)Requires, instead of authorizes, if a governing board of a
school district elects to operate as a school district of
choice and accept transfers, the governing board to adopt a
resolution to determine and adopt the number of transfers it
is willing to accept and ensure that students that are
admitted through this program are selected through a random,
unbiased process.
4)Requires a school district of choice to post application
information on its website, including a form and timeline for
a transfer and an explanation of the selection process at the
school district.
5)Amends the audit requirement, clarifying that the compliance
review be incorporated into the district's annual audit
already required by current law.
6)Modifies the authorization provided to school districts of
residence for implementing existing transfer caps by (1)
establishing new procedures by requiring districts of choice
to notify districts of residence once a certain percentage of
transfers are accepted to that district of choice, and (2)
require action by the governing board.
7)Amends the authorization for districts with an average daily
attendance (ADA) of less than 50,000, to cap the maximum
number of students transferring out at 10 percent based on ADA
SB 1432 (Huff) Page 4 of
?
at a point in time, instead of for the duration of the
program. It requires the district to authorize additional
students to participate in the program as current program
participants leave or graduate.
8)Authorizes only a school district of residence to prohibit or
limit transfers when the governing board determines that the
transfer would likely negatively impact a court-ordered or
voluntary desegregation plan of the racial and ethnic balance
of the school district of residence.
9)Requires, instead of authorizes, the notification to parents
regarding the status of the application, the explanation for a
rejected application, and the notification to the district of
residence if an application is accepted or provisionally
accepted, as specified.
10)Authorizes a parent of a student that is denied a transfer
under this program to appeal that decision to the county
superintendent of schools; and authorizes a school district of
choice and a school district of residence to bring a complaint
alleging a violation of the provisions of the program against
one another to the county superintendent of schools. The bill
requires the county superintendent of schools to rely only on
the provisions established under this program to determine
whether they were applied accurately.
11)Streamlines the reporting required by school districts of
choice to go to the CDE, instead of also to the Department of
Finance.
12)Requires the Superintendent to (1) maintain a list of the
school districts of choice in the state; (2) collect specified
information from each district of choice; (3) post the
previously stated information on the CDE's website; (4) post a
single list of all school choice programs on the CDE's
website; and (5) report to the Legislature and the Legislative
Analyst's Office a description of the plan for collecting data
currently required by school districts of choice to collect by
July 1, 2017.
SB 1432 (Huff) Page 5 of
?
13)Allows the Superintendent to require the information
collected by school districts of choice to be provided through
the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System
(CALPADS), or another system administered by the CDE.
14)Requires the Legislative Analyst's Office to conduct a
comprehensive evaluation of the program, as specified, and
provide recommendations regarding the extension of the program
by January 31, 2020.
Related
Legislation: SB 597 (Huff, Chapter 421, Statutes of 2015)
extended, for one year, the sunset and repeal dates of statute
that allows the governing board of a school district to permit
the enrollment of pupils who reside in another district by
declaring to be a District of Choice (DOC).
SB 680 (Romero and Huff, Chapter 198, Statute of 2009) extended
the inoperative and repeal dates for which school districts are
permitted to enroll pupils who reside in another school district
by declaring to be a "school district of choice," and repealed
the prohibition on new districts electing to become a DOC.
AB 1407 (Huff, 2009) would have extended the sunset and repeal
dates for the DOC programs for 5 years and required a census
report on DOC by California Department of Education by November
2010. The bill was held on the Assembly Appropriations
Committee suspense file.
Staff Comments: The CDE notes that due to the changes necessary
to be made to the CALPADS system, the earliest that data
pertaining to school districts of choice could be reported would
be the 2017-18 fiscal year. This bill requires the data to be
reported annually. If the bill is enacted, the operative date
would be January 2017.
Also, staff notes that the school district of choice program is
an option available to school districts. Therefore any
requirements as a condition of operating the program would not
SB 1432 (Huff) Page 6 of
?
be eligible for reimbursement under state mandate law. Finally,
to the extent additional students transfer from non-basic aid
districts to a basic aid districts due to this bill, this could
generate Proposition 98 savings to the state in an unknown
amount. A basic aid district is a district whose allotment
calculated under the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) is met
entirely with local property tax funds which they get to keep
and treat like general purpose funding. Therefore, the state
does not contribute LCFF funding to these districts but under
the school district of choice program, these district receive 70
percent of the base funding a student would have generated at
the home district.
-- END --