BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1065
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Date of Hearing: March 30, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
AB 1065 (Bradford) - As Introduced: February 18, 2011
SUBJECT : Pupil transfers: records
SUMMARY : Requires a former school district or private school
to satisfy a current requirement that a pupil's permanent record
be transferred to the new district or private school where the
pupil intends to enroll, within five business days of receiving
a request from the new district or school.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires, whenever a pupil transfers to or from a school
district, or to or from a private school, the pupil's former
district or private school to transfer the pupil's permanent
record, or a copy, upon request to the district or private
school where the pupil intends to enroll. Also authorizes the
State Board of Education to adopt rules and regulations
concerning the transfer of records.
2)Implements the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity
for Military Children, that creates a formal interstate
agreement that addresses the educational transition issues of
children of military families, including requiring the former
school to provide records within 10 days of a request for
those records from the new school of enrollment �note that the
2 schools involved would be in different states].
3)Requires the former local educational agency (LEA) to transfer
a foster youth, and that pupil's educational information and
records to the new LEA within 2 business days from the date
that a request is made by a county placing agency.
4)Requires the school district, where a student with
disabilities is now enrolled, to "promptly acquire" a new
pupil's records, including the Individualized Education Plan
(IEP), from the former school district; also requires the
former district to supply these records within 5 business days
of a request from the new district of enrollment.
5)Requires, under the federal McKinney-Vento Act, that the
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former school district transfer pupil records for homeless
youth to the district where the pupil intends to or is now
enrolled.
6)Requires, in the California Code of Regulations, that whenever
a pupil transfers from one school district to another, the
pupil's English language development test records be
transferred by the former district within 20 calendar days
upon a request from the district where the pupil intends to or
is now enrolled.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : Current law requires that the former school district
or private school of a transferring pupil to provide that
pupil's permanent record, or a copy of that record, to the
pupil's new school district or private school. Current law also
places a deadline within which those records of pupil's with
disabilities or in specified circumstances must be provided. No
statute or regulation, however, places any deadline or time
limit on the provision of the permanent records of transferring
general education students who do not fall into the specified
categories; yet these pupils clearly constitute the majority of
inter-district and private-public school transfers.
According to the author, "School districts have reported that in
some instances, the pupil records were never transferred to the
new LEA. Others report that records come as late as two years
or longer after the initial request is made."
According to the bill's sponsor, the Los Angeles County Office
of Education, when staff asked the attendees of "four Student
Records workshops ? with an average of 75 participants ? how
many were having problems with getting records in a timely
manner, 50 percent had problems and about 10-15 of those waited
months and years to get records or never got them. Participants
have asked if legislation could be passed to make
districts/records clerks more accountable for sending the
records."
A former district's or school's lack of response or delay in
responding to a request for a pupil's records from a new
district or school of enrollment places the pupil's new district
and school in the position of making potentially high stakes
educational decisions about the pupil without the benefit of the
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cumulative record and information that has been compiled
throughout the pupil's educational career; this may have a clear
adverse impact on the pupil's future education and
opportunities. A pupil's new school and teachers need timely
information in order to make appropriate placement,
programmatic, and instructional decisions involving the pupil; a
pupil's permanent record provides much of that information and
should, in the best interests of the pupil, be provided in a
timely manner. This bill proposes to require that the transfer
of pupil records take place no later than five business days
following receipt of the request for those records.
Committee amendments: Committee staff recommends the following
amendments:
1)Define "school district", for the purposes of this section of
law, to include school districts, county offices of education,
and charter schools; this amendment would ensure that pupils
in all public schools, as well as private schools, will have
their permanent educational record transferred, upon request,
to a new district or school whenever a pupil transfers
enrollment.
2)Make technical amendments to clarify and update statutory
language.
Previous legislation: AB 343 (Saldana), Chapter 237, Statutes
of 2009, enacts the Interstate Compact on Educational
Opportunity for Military Children; as part of that compact,
school districts in California and other states signing on to
the compact are required to provide pupil records for
transferring military dependents within 10 days of receiving a
request from the former school or district in another state. SB
963 (Vincent), vetoed in 2001, would have authorized probation
officers and social workers access to pupil records for purposes
of casework planning and for monitoring progress of wards of the
court, foster children, or youth on probation, and would have
required school districts to make the information available at
the school site within five working days.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
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Support
Centinela Valley Union High School District
El Dorado County Office of Education
Los Angeles County Office of Education (Sponsor)
Saddleback Valley Unified School District
San Bernardino County Office of Education
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087