BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Gloria Romero, Chair
2009-2010 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 2363
AUTHOR: Mendoza
AMENDED: March 23, 2010
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: June 16, 2010
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Beth Graybill
SUBJECT : Charter Schools Petitions
SUMMARY
This bill expands existing signature requirements for
conversion charter school petitions to include classified
employees and requires the signature petition to prominently
display a statement that the classified employees signing the
petition have a meaningful interest in working at the charter
school.
BACKGROUND
Existing law authorizes anyone to develop, circulate, and
submit a petition to establish a charter school. Current law
requires charter developers to collect certain signatures in
support of the petition and requires petitions to include a
prominent statement that a signature means that the person
signing has a meaningful interest in teaching in or having
his or her children attend the school. (Education Code
47605)
For petitions that propose to establish a new charter
school the charter developers must obtain the signatures
of either the parents of at least half of the pupils
expected to enroll at the school or half of the teachers
expected to be employed at the school during its first
year of operation.
For petitions that propose to convert an existing public
school to a charter school, the charter developer must
collect the signatures of not less than 50 percent of
the teachers at the school to be converted.
Existing law requires the Superintendent of Public
Instruction and the State Board of Education to establish a
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list of Persistently Lowest Achieving Schools (PLAS) and
requires, for purposes of implementing the federal Race to
the Top (RTTT) program, the governing boards of schools so
identified to implement one of four intervention models for
turning around PLAS: (EC 52300 et. seq.)
Turnaround model in which the Local Education Agency
(LEA) undertakes a series of major school improvement
actions including replacing the principal and rehiring
no more than half of the staff.
Restart model in which the LEA converts a school or
closes and reopens a school as a charter school.
School closure model in which the LEA closes a school
and enrolls students in another school.
Transformation model in which the LEA implements a
series of required school improvement strategies,
including replacing the principal and increasing
instructional time.
ANALYSIS
This bill :
1) Requires a petition to convert an existing public school
to a charter school to be signed by not less than 50
percent of the permanent status teachers and the
permanent classified employees currently employed at the
public school to be converted.
2) Requires a petition to establish a new charter school
that has been signed by at least one-half of the number
of teachers estimated to be employed at the school
during its first year of operation to also be signed by
at least one half of the number of classified employees
estimated to be employed at the school during its first
year of operation.
3) Requires petitions that include the signatures of
classified employees to include a prominent statement
specifying that a classified employee's signature means
that the classified employee is meaningfully interested
in working at the charter school.
STAFF COMMENTS
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1) Need for the bill : The sponsor of this measure, Service
Employees International Union (SEIU), maintains that
although classified employees play an important role in
the operation of a school, they are generally not
represented in the petition process and do not have a
formal voice in decisions that may impact their
employment. Proponents maintain that while current law
provides classified employees certain limited rights to
be assigned to positions elsewhere in the district, they
are often at greater risk of losing their jobs during a
charter school conversion. According to the author's
office, the intent of AB 2363 is to provide parity for
classified employees by entitling classified employees
who have achieved permanent status in their
classification to participate in a charter school
petition process in the same manner as teachers who are
on permanent status.
2) Charter school policies . Charter schools are public
schools that provide instruction in any combination of
grades, kindergarten through grade 12. Except where
specifically noted otherwise, California law exempts
charter schools from many of the statutes and
regulations that apply to schools and school districts.
According to the California Department of Education
(CDE), there are 870 active and pending charter schools
(fifty-one of these schools are considered "pending"
because they will not claim funding until the 2010-11
school year).
Parents, teachers, or community members may initiate a
charter petition, which is typically presented to and
approved by a local school district governing board.
The law also allows, under certain circumstances, for
county boards of education and the State Board of
Education to authorize charter schools. The specific
goals and operating procedures for a charter school are
detailed in the agreement (charter) between the
authorizing entity and the charter developer.
3) Classified employees . According to SEIU, the number of
permanent classified staff at any individual school
varies depending on the type and size of the school,
district resources, the needs of students, and the needs
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of a given school for certain services such as school
safety. For example, Bell High School, which serves
approximately 4,400 pupils in the Los Angeles Unified
School District (LAUSD), has more than 125 classified
employees, while Helen Bernstein High School, also in
LAUSD, employs about 37 classified employees and serves
approximately 1,100 pupils. By expanding the signature
requirement, could this measure have the unintended
consequence of giving classified employees the power to
block a charter school conversion by withholding their
signatures?
4) A new barrier ? In recent years, state and federal
policies have supported the expansion of charter
schools. The federal Race to the Top incentive grant
program (RTTP), for which California submitted a second
application on June 1, 2010, awards points to states
that ensure successful conditions for high-performing
charter schools, specifically, the extent to which the
state's charter school laws do not prohibit or
effectively inhibit increasing the number of
high-performing charter schools. By expanding the
signature requirement, this bill could inhibit efforts
to increase the number of charter schools. Could
passing this measure make it more difficult for
California to be successful in the second RTTP grant
round? Moreover, could this bill make it more difficult
for governing boards to comply with state law and
restart a Persistently Low Achieving School as a
conversion charter school?
Notwithstanding the importance of classified staff to a
learning community and the operation of a school site,
it could be argued that the required signatures should
remain limited to those who have a meaningful interest
in the educational outcome of a school, such as parents
who want their children to attend the school or the
teaching staff who will be responsible for implementing
the programmatic reforms and accountable for student
success. Is there any empirical evidence to suggest
that requiring petitions to include half of the
classified staff at a school will improve charter school
quality?
5) Related and prior legislation .
AB 1741 (Coto), requires a local educational agency (LEA)
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that identifies a persistently lowest-achieving school
(PLAS) and chooses to implement a restart model, as
described in federal regulations, by converting the
school or closing and reopening the school under a
charter school operator or a charter management
organization (CMO), to select a charter school operator
or CMO that demonstrates specified requirements relative
to meeting the needs of English learners (ELs).
AB 1982 (Ammiano) establishes a cap on the number of charter
schools that can be authorized in California, and makes
other changes to charter school authorization process.
AB 1950 (Brownley) requires enhanced charter school fiscal
and academic accountability standards.
AB 2320 (Swanson) requires charter school petitions to
describe the different and innovative teaching methods
the school will use, how the school will provide
vigorous competition and stimulate continual
improvements within the public school system, and the
means by which the school will achieve a balance of
pupils who live in poverty, are English learners or are
individuals with exceptional needs; deletes the
authorization for the state board of education (SBE) to
approve charter school petitions on appeal; and, limits
state wide benefit charter schools to those that partner
with specific entities.
AB 2543 (Lowenthal), requires the governing board of a school
district or a county board of education to approve or
deny a charter school renewal petition no later than
December 1 of the renewal year; and, authorizes a
charter school to appeal a district board's denial of a
renewal petition to the county board of education, or a
county board's denial of a renewal petition to the state
board, within 30 days of the date of the denial.
SUPPORT
California Federation of Teachers
California Labor Federation
California School Employees Association
Service Employees International Union, California
OPPOSITION
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California Charter Schools Association