BILL ANALYSIS
AB 555
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 29, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 555 (Portantino and Furutani) - As Amended: April 23, 2009
[This bill was referred to and heard by the Assembly Higher
Education Committee as it relates to the issues under its
jurisdiction]
SUBJECT : Community colleges: attendance by secondary school
pupils
SUMMARY : Authorizes the Kern, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Los
Rios, and San Jose-Evergreen community college districts to
enter into partnerships with school districts to provide
elementary and secondary school pupils with the opportunity to
benefit from advanced scholastic, career-technical, or
vocational coursework. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires participating community college districts to adopt a
partnership agreement with each school district partner upon
approval by the governing board of the community college
district and the governing board of the school district as
follows:
a) Specifies that the partnership agreement shall outline
the terms of the partnership and may include specified
components. Requires a copy of the partnership agreement
be filed with the California Department of Education (CDE)
and with the office of the Chancellor of the California
Community Colleges prior to the start of a program.
b) Provides that any applicable open course and facilities
requirements that are operative either in statute or in
regulations of the Board of Governors of the California
Community Colleges shall be waived for any community
college district that enters into a partnership.
c) Prohibits a community college (CC) district from
providing physical education course opportunities to
secondary school pupils as part of the partnerships
established through this bill.
d) States that a pupil shall receive credit for CC courses
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that he or she completes at the level determined to be
appropriate by the school district and CC governing boards
pursuant to the partnership agreement.
2)Provides that, for purposes of state apportionments, a CC
district shall be credited additional full-time equivalent
students attributable to the attendance of high school
students in CC courses as special part-time students, and
provides that for purposes of state apportionments, a school
district shall be credited for attendance by those high school
students computed in the manner prescribed by law and that a
student's attendance at school for the minimum school day
shall be deemed a day of attendance for purposes of making
that computation.
3)Prohibits a CC district from receiving a state allowance or
apportionment for an instructional activity for which a school
district has been, or shall be, paid an allowance or
apportionment, and provides that the attendance of a pupil at
a CC as a special part-time or full-time student is authorized
attendance, for which the CC shall be credited or reimbursed,
provided that no school district has received reimbursement
for the same instructional activity.
4)Authorizes a special part-time student to enroll in 11 units
or less per semester, or the equivalent thereof, at the CC he
or she attends.
5)Prohibits the governing board of a CC district from assigning
a high priority for registration or enrollment to a special
part-time or full-time student attending CC pursuant to this
bill in order to ensure that the special students do not
displace regularly admitted students.
6)Requires each CC district and school district to submit an
annual report to the office of the Chancellor of the
California Community Colleges containing prescribed data and
requires the report be transmitted to the Legislature, the
Director of Finance the Superintendent of Public Instruction,
and the governing boards of the participating community
college and school districts.
7)Repeals the provisions of this bill on January 1, 2015, unless
a later enacted statute, that is enacted before January 1,
2015, deletes or extends that date.
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EXISTING LAW :
1)Authorizes the governing board of a school district, upon
recommendation of the principal of a pupil's school of
attendance, and with parental consent, to authorize a pupil
who would benefit from advanced scholastic or vocational work
to attend community college as a special part-time or
full-time student.
2)Prohibits a principal from recommending, for any particular
grade level, or community college summer session attendance,
more than 5% of the total number of pupils who completed that
grade immediately prior to the time of recommendation.
3)Exempts from the 5% cap a pupil recommended by his or her
principal for enrollment in a college-level summer session
course if the course in which the pupil is enrolled meets
specified criteria and repeals these provisions on January 1,
2014.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : Concurrent enrollment provides pupils the opportunity
to enroll in college courses and earn college credit while still
enrolled in high school. Currently, a pupil is allowed to
concurrently enroll in a CC as a "special admit" while still
attending high school, if the pupil's school district determines
that the pupil would benefit from "advanced scholastic or
vocational work." Special-admit students have typically been
advanced pupils wanting to take more challenging coursework or
those who come from high schools where Advanced Placement or
honors courses are not widely available. According to the CC
Chancellor's Office for 2006-07 a total of 127,173 special admit
students enrolled in a CC.
This bill establishes a pilot program for five community college
districts to partner with school districts to provide concurrent
enrollment opportunities to primary and secondary school pupils
in an attempt to improve college participation rates. One of
the joint authors states, "Community colleges provide a unique
benefit to high school students when the school district cannot
offer college level or career technical courses. In many cases,
community colleges have the facilities and instructors to teach
high schools students who are prepared for training for
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technical careers. Exposure to college classes and the college
environment while in high school improves college participation
rates."
This Committee passed a similar bill, AB 78 (Portantino),
authorizing the establishment of partnerships between community
college and school districts for purposes of providing
concurrent enrollment opportunities to pupils. AB 78 creates a
statewide policy, whereas this bill creates a pilot program to
expand concurrent enrollment opportunities to pupils in the five
community college districts previously mentioned.
There are notable differences between this bill and AB 78,
particularly in relation to pupil eligibility for participation
and open course and facility requirements. Should this
Committee wish to approve this bill, staff recommends this bill
be amended to address the differences between the two bills and
to conform the provisions of this bill to the prior action taken
by this Committee in approving AB 78.
Pupil eligibility for participation in concurrent enrollment :
Current law, which would still be operative if this bill were to
be enacted, provides for limited opportunities for concurrent
enrollment. The governing board of a school district, upon
recommendation of the principal of a pupil's school of
attendance, and with parental consent, may authorize a pupil who
would benefit from advanced scholastic or vocational work to
attend community college as a special part-time or full-time
student. Additionally, current law allows principals to
recommend up to 5% of the total number of high school pupils who
completed a grade immediately prior to the time of
recommendation, to enroll in courses at a CC during summer
session and provides for some exemptions to this rule for
certain courses. The courses that currently do not count
towards the 5% summer enrollment cap are:
1. Courses that are designated as part of the
Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum or
courses that apply toward the general education breadth
requirements of the CSU. In recent years, the Legislature
has passed a number of bills adding exemptions to this
restriction;
2. College-level occupational courses for credit that are
part of a sequence of vocational or career technical
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education courses leading to a degree or certificate in the
subject area covered by the sequence; and
3. Non-college credit courses necessary to assist a pupil
who has not passed the high school exit exam.
These restrictions would continue to apply to the participants
of the pilot program thus limiting the scope of the pilot
program. Staff recommends the bill be amended to reflect that
the existing concurrent enrollment restrictions would be removed
for purposes of the pilot program established by this bill, thus
making the bill consistent with AB 78, and instead, insert the
provisions that this Committee adopted for AB 78 relative to a
pupil's eligibility for participation in concurrent enrollment.
AB 78, as amended in this Committee, authorizes a secondary
school pupil to enroll in a CC course if that pupil's parent
consents and the pupil has exhausted all opportunities to enroll
in an equivalent course at the pupil's school or other district
programs and has notified his or her school principal. The
language in this bill is inconsistent in specifying whether both
elementary and secondary pupils would be able to participate in
concurrent enrollment courses pursuant to this pilot program.
Staff recommends this bill be amended to limit the pilot program
to secondary schools pupils.
Open course and facilities provisions : This bill would waive
any open course and facilities requirements that are operative
either in statute or in regulations for instruction of secondary
pupils on a campus of the partner school district. Existing law
provides that in order for a CC district to receive state
apportionments for a high school student attending a CC, the
class must be open to the general public. If the class is held
on a high school campus the class may not be held during a time
that the campus is closed to the general public. It is unclear
as to whether this bill is referring to any other facility
requirements. For purposes of making this bill and AB 78
consistent, staff recommends the bill be amended to delete this
provision from the bill. Because this is a pilot program that
seeks to identify effective practices for potential replication,
this appears to be a significant change in policy that may have
implications that should be considered in a larger context.
Pilot program evaluation : This bill establishes a pilot
program, and this Committee's rules require the following of all
pilot projects:
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Any bill that proposes the creation of a pilot project
shall contain a statement of purpose of the proposed
pilot project which specifically states the goals or
objectives and the length of time of the project. Such
bill shall also contain a definitive mechanism by
which the value and success, if any, of the project
may be quantified. This mechanism shall include
specific numerical objectives that must be met or
exceeded, if a project is to be judged successful, and
a suggested time line.
This bill provides for an annual report of specified data but
the bill does not contain a definitive mechanism by which the
value and success of the project will be quantified, nor does it
include specific numerical objectives that must be met or
exceeded to make a judgment that the program has been
successful. Staff recommends the bill be amended to correct
this deficiency and address all the pilot project requirements
that this Committee has adopted.
Course offerings : AB 78 allows the partnering districts to
offer pupils access to the following coursework: advanced
scholastic, career technical, or other coursework, and expresses
intent that the coursework may include but is not limited to
summer school opportunities, high school exit exam preparation,
English as a second language, basic skills remediation and
dropout intervention. This bill allows the partnering districts
to offer pupils opportunities for advanced scholastic, career
technical or vocational coursework and expresses intent that
these opportunities may include summer school and dropout
intervention. In consideration of the nature of this bill which
creates an experiment to evaluate a new policy, a narrower list
of course offerings may be prudent. An evaluation of the pilot
may provide information about possible expansion of the pilot
program, including expansion of course offerings.
Previous controversy on concurrent enrollment : In December
2002, the Orange County Register published a story regarding
abuses of concurrent enrollment in the CCs and reported that
some community college districts were inappropriately enrolling
special admit students in physical education (PE) courses. That
story, and several follow-up articles, alleged pupils were
enrolled in courses without their knowledge, instructors were
paid twice for the same courses, state apportionments were paid
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to both K-12 and the CC for the same courses, and CC districts
were using summer sports camps to inflate their enrollments for
significant monetary gain. Some districts eventually admitted
their illegal actions and repaid funds.
In the months following the scandal, the Legislature responded
with budget reductions and legislative reform. SB 338 (Scott),
Chapter 786, Statutes of 2003, placed tight controls on PE
enrollment by special-admit students. This bill does not remove
those caps and includes safeguards to avoid potential similar
abuses. This bill prohibits physical education courses from
being part of the courses offered as part of this pilot program.
This bill passed out of the Assembly Higher Education Committee
on April 27, 2009 with a vote of 7-0.
Arguments in support : The Long Beach City College District
writes, "LBCC is excited about the opportunity to participate in
this pilot program and demonstrate how secondary school students
could benefit from concurrently attending a community college
for instruction in advanced scholastic or career technical
education courses."
Related legislation : AB 78 (Portantino) Removes certain
restrictions on concurrent enrollment and authorizes school
districts to enter into partnerships with community college
districts to provide high school pupils opportunities for
advanced scholastic work, career technical or other coursework
at a community college campus. AB 78 is pending in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee.
AB 552 (Furutani) establishes the Commission on Adequate Funding
for Career Technical and Vocational Education at the California
Community Colleges, which would be required to conduct a study
and make recommendations regarding financing alternatives for
career technical education, vocational education, and high-cost
laboratory programs at the California Community Colleges.
Previous legislation : SB 1437 (Padilla), Chapter 718 Statutes
of 2008, extends the sunset for the exemptions to the summer
session enrollment 5% cap to 2014.
AB 1409 (Portantino), of 2007 expands the use of concurrent
enrollment between high schools and the CCCs by raising and
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ultimately lifting the cap on the percentage of high school
pupils that principals may recommend for CCC summer sessions and
by easing restrictions on the types of CCC courses that may be
offered to high school pupils, pursuant to a partnership between
the school district and the CCC. AB 1409 was held in Senate
Appropriations.
SB 1303 (Runner), Chapter 648, Statutes of 2006, exempts from
the specified 5% cap on community college summer session
enrollment, a pupil recommended by his or her principal if the
pupil meets one of the specified criteria and if the high school
principal who recommends the pupil provides the Chancellor of
the CCCs, upon request of that office, with the data it requires
to report to the Department of Finance.
AB 2050 (Canciamilla) of 2006, provides full apportionment to
school districts for pupils enrolled in minimum day and
attending a community college for vocational courses that
satisfy high school graduation requirements and makes numerous
reporting requirements. AB 2050 was held in the Senate
Appropriations Committee.
AB 967 (Canciamilla), Chapter 399, Statutes of 2005, exempts
from an enrollment cap on concurrent enrollment at the CCC a
student recommended by his/her principal for enrollment in a
college level advanced scholastic summer session course, or in a
vocational CCC summer session course, if specified criteria are
met, and requires the governing board of a CCC district to
assign a low enrollment priority to the above student in order
to ensure these students do not displace regularly admitted
students.
SB 905 (Chesbro) of 2004 eliminates the cap and associated
conditions on summer session concurrent enrollment by K-12
students at community colleges, and prohibits these K12 students
from displacing regular community college students. SB 905 was
vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger with the following veto
message:
"This bill would eliminate a number of important reforms to
concurrent enrollment practices implemented last year. Those
reforms were enacted to address concerns that concurrent
enrollment practices were deviating from their original intent
established in law. Furthermore, the California Performance
Review has raised significant issues concerning concurrent
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enrollment. Until the CPR has completed its review, this bill
is premature."
SB 338 (Scott), Chapter 786, Statutes of 2003, makes several
changes to existing law governing community college concurrent
enrollment, including the specification of eligible courses, the
determination of academic credit for course completed,
appropriate claiming of per student funding for courses offered
and the disclosure of course availability.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Long Beach City College District
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Marisol Avi?a / ED. / (916) 319-2087