BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
1148 (Alquist)
Hearing Date: 04/26/2010 Amended: 04/06/2010
Consultant: Dan Troy Policy Vote: ED 8-0
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 1148 would define as a chronic truant any
K-12 pupil subject to compulsory education who is absent from
school without a valid excuse for 10 percent or more of the
schooldays in a given school year. The bill would further
require these pupils to be identified as chronic truants in
their permanent records.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
Chronic truancy Unknown, likely
several hundred thousand General*
in annual mandate claims
CALPADS Tens of thousands in one-time
costs General**
*Counts toward meeting the Proposition 98 minimum funding
guarantee
**It is possible that federal funds could be utilized for this
purpose
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
Under current law, a truant is defined as a pupil subject to
compulsory full-time education who is absent without valid
excuses three full days in one school year, or tardy or absent
for more than any 30-minute period on three occasions, or any
combination. Also under current law, school districts are
required to establish, maintain, and destroy pupil records
according to regulations adopted by the State Board of Education
(SBE). Among other things, these regulations establish state
policy as to what items of information shall be placed into
pupil records. Attendance data is not currently required in the
permanent record.
This bill would require a pupil's permanent record to record
that the pupil has been determined to be a chronic truant if the
pupil has been absent from school for 10 percent or more of
schooldays in any school year.
This bill would impose a reimbursable state mandate on local
education agencies. It is unknown how many pupils would be
deemed chronic truants under this bill's definition, as no such
data is maintained at the state level (CALPADS does not include
attendance data). If one percent of the state's pupils in
grades 7 through 12 met this standard, approximately 30,000
permanent records would need to be modified. Assuming costs of
even just $15 per unit, this bill would cost $450,000. Staff
notes that costs could be higher or lower depending on the
relevant number of pupils and the cost of claimable activities
that districts would report. An existing mandate relating to
habitual truants had claims of over $7 million in the 2007-08
fiscal year. Further, existing statute requires
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SB 1148 (Alquist)
the Department of Education to add data concerning truancy to
CALPADS when such data becomes available. If this bill triggers
that requirement, SDE estimates costs in the tens of thousands
to add a truancy field to the system.
SB 1357 (Steinberg, 2010), scheduled to be heard by this
Committee on April 26, would expand CALPADS to include
attendance data and define chronic absence as a circumstance in
which a pupil is absent on 10 percent of the days within a
school year, whether the absence was excused or not.
SB 1301 (Simitian, 2010), scheduled to be heard by this
Committee on April 26, would require a pupil's permanent record
to include a unique student identifier.