BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 200
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Date of Hearing: May 18, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 200 (Hayashi) - As Amended: April 12, 2011
Policy Committee: Education
Vote:7-3
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill establishes the Health and Fitness Award (HFA) program
to provide non-monetary awards to schools that conduct their
physical education (PE) courses pursuant to PE model content
standards and demonstrate that increasing numbers of pupils
enrolled in those schools meet minimum standards on the physical
performance test (i.e., FITNESSGRAM). Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to use
currently collected data and specified criteria to identify
one school from each legislative district in the state to
receive recognition, including classification as a
distinguished school, being listed on an honor roll, and
receiving public commendations by the governor and
Legislature.
2)Requires the Legislature, to the extent funds are available,
to recognize the schools identified for the HFA program, as
specified.
3)Requires private funds to be used to pay for all of the costs
of implementing this program, including the administrative
costs of the State Department of Education (SDE). Authorizes
the SPI to receive donations and establish additional criteria
for award recipients, as specified.
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4)Prohibits the State Board of Education (SBE) from establishing
this program unless and until the Department of Finance (DOF)
certifies to the SPI that sufficient private donations have
been received to implement the HFA program.
FISCAL EFFECT
GF cost pressure, likely less than $100,000, to the SPI and the
Legislature to recognize school districts pursuant to the HFA
program.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . The 2009-10 FITNESSGRAM results revealed less than
a third of students tested scored in the Healthy Fitness Zone
(HFZ) in all six fitness areas. These results also show the
number of grade five students achieving the HFZ for all six
areas of the test slipped slightly for the first time since
2006, when the performance standards were last revised. In
addition, students in grades seven and nine have smaller
increases than in previous years.
According to the author, "Only 30% of children and 15% of
teens get the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity
every day. Providing quality physical education during the
school day is an effective and feasible means of increasing
physical activity levels among children. It is imperative that
schools support a robust physical education program and
provide opportunities for physical activity throughout the
day."
This bill establishes HFA program to provide non-monetary
awards to schools that conduct their PE courses pursuant to PE
model content standards and demonstrate that increasing
numbers of pupils enrolled in those schools meet minimum
standards on the physical performance test.
2)Need for the bill ? This bill establishes a non-monetary awards
program to recognize achievement in PE instruction. The SBE
and the SPI have sufficient discretion to establish an awards
program of any kind. For example, The California
Superintendents' Challenge was launched in 2003 as a
coordinated effort between the SDE and the California Task
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Force on Youth and Workplace Wellness. Its purpose is to
annually recognize exemplary nutrition and physical activity
policies developed and implemented by school districts and
offices of education in an effort to address California's
growing childhood obesity epidemic.
In 2007, the Challenge evolved into the School Wellness
Challenge. Continuing the SPI involvement, the School Wellness
Challenge decided to broaden its recognition and partner with
specific school districts. The program worked with 40 school
districts representing 250,000 pupils and 30,000 school
district employees.
3)Existing law requires PE instruction for grades 1-6 to be not
less than 200 minutes each 10 schooldays (with a minimum of
three schooldays each week).
AB 1793 (Migden), Chapter 943, Statutes of 2002, requires the
SDE to monitor the number of hours of physical education
instruction offered to pupils in grades 1 to 12, inclusive. It
also requires the SBE to adopt content standards for physical
education. These content standards were adopted in January
2005 to "represent the content of the discipline of physical
education and include the essential skills and knowledge
students will need to be physically active throughout their
lifetimes."
Current law requires school districts to administer an annual
physical fitness test, designated by the SBE, to all fifth,
seventh, and ninth graders annually. The physical fitness test
designated for California public school students is the
FITNESSGRAM, developed by The Cooper Institute. The test
assesses six major fitness areas, including aerobic capacity
(cardiovascular endurance), body composition (percentage of
body fat), abdominal strength and endurance, trunk strength
and flexibility, upper body strength and endurance, and
overall flexibility.
According to the SDE, approximately 1.32 million pupils (91%)
of pupils enrolled in grades five, seven, and nine, were
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administered the FITNESSGRAM.
4)Previous legislation . AB 2072 (Hayashi), similar to this
measure, was held on the Senate Appropriations Committee
suspense file in August 2008.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081