BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 2145
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 25, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 2145 (Alejo) - As Amended: April 9, 2012
Policy Committee: Education
Vote:9-1
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill requires pupil suspension and expulsion data to be
disaggregated by subgroups and requires the State Department of
Education (SDE) to use the California Longitudinal Pupil
Achievement Data System (CALPADS) to make specified pupil
suspension, expulsion, and truancy data available on its
Internet website. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires SDE, on an annual basis and using CALPADS, to
disaggregate the number and types of truancy referrals to
school attendance review boards and juvenile court by
ethnicity, special education status, English learners (ELs),
socioeconomic status, and gender and cross-tabulate all these
categories by gender and special education status. Further
requires SDE to post this information on its Internet website.
2)Requires SDE, on an annual basis and using CALPADS, to make
pupil suspension and expulsion data available on its Internet
website in a manner that reflects all fields collected,
including, but not limited to, the district and school, the
offense that lead to the suspension/expulsion, and the total
number of pupils suspended or expelled. Further requires SDE
to disaggregate this data, as specified.
3)Requires school districts to maintain and report data
indicating whether an educational program or instructional
support was provided to a pupil whose suspension was extended,
including a description of the type of program or support
provided to the pupil.
4)Requires SDE, on an annual basis and using CALPADS, to make
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pupil suspension program data available to the public on its
Internet website. Further requires SDE to disaggregate this
data, as specified.
5)Requires SDE to make the prior year data collected pursuant to
this bill available by July 1 of each year and prohibits
disaggregated data from being publically available in a manner
that reveals the identity of the pupil.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Minor absorbable GF/98 costs to SDE to collect and publish
data related to pupil suspension and expulsions, as specified.
SDE reports CALPADS is fully functional and in the process of
collecting this data, including disaggregating it.
2)GF/98 state reimbursable mandated costs, likely in excess of
$1 million, to require school districts to maintain data on
whether an educational program or instructional support was
provided to a pupil whose suspension was extended, including a
description of the type of program or support provided to the
pupil.
COMMENTS
1)Background . Federal law requires the state to report the
number of expulsions and suspensions. There were 700,844
pupils (11% of enrollment) suspended and 18,649 pupils (0.03%
of enrollment) expelled from California schools in 2010-11.
Also, 1.8 million pupils (29% of enrollment) were classified
as truants.
Current law authorizes a principal to suspend a pupil for five
consecutive days, with an appeal to the district
superintendent for additional days. The total number of
suspension days can be no more than 20 days in a school year.
Statute also requires a principal or superintendent of schools
to immediately suspend and recommend expulsion of a pupil for
specified acts at school or at a school activity, including
possession of a firearm, brandishing a knife, committing or
attempting to commit a sexual assault, and selling a
controlled substance. Current law also authorizes a pupil to
be suspended or expelled (based on the determination of the
superintendent or principal) for committing specified acts,
including causing physical injury to another person,
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unlawfully furnished a controlled substance, and stealing
school property.
Statute also classifies a pupil as truant when he or she
misses more than 30 minutes of instruction without an excuse
three times during the school year.
The CALPADS, established by SB 1453 (Alpert), Chapter 1002,
Statutes of 2002, required the SDE to track student
achievement in order to comply with the federal No Child Left
Behind Act of 2001. A longitudinal database requires
individual student identifiers be given to each student
enrolled in the public K-12 system. In the 2004-05 fiscal
year, school districts were provided incentive funding to
create these identifiers and establish systems to maintain
them. SDE began to fully implement CALPADS in the fall of
2009.
2)Purpose . The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil
Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles
released a report in April 2012 entitled: Suspended Education
in California (Olsen, D; Martinez, T; Gillespie, J) which
revealed: "There are large numbers of students suspended from
every racial group, but the disparities between groups are
often profound. Across California, nearly 1 out of every 5
African American students (18%), 1 in 9 American Indian
students (11%), and 1 in 14 Latino students (7%) in the state
sample were suspended at least once in 2009-10, compared to 1
in 17 white students (6%) and 1 in 33 Asian American students
(3%)."
According to the author, "Studies have consistently found that
out-of-school suspension does nothing to improve student
behavior and often exacerbates the problem. In fact, students
who are subjected to out-of-school discipline not only lose
important instructional educational time, but are also more
likely to drop out of school and enter the juvenile
delinquency system. AB 2145 would ensure that the key
categories of discipline indicators are annually reported and
made public to policymakers and the community in effort to
help California understand and address issues that lead to
school suspensions and expulsions."
3)Will SDE be able to meet the requirements of this measure by
2013 ? SDE reports it is currently working to implement the
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CALPADS data collection requirements of this bill, including
collecting disaggregated data. It is unclear, however,
whether it will be done with this process prior to the bill's
effective date (January 2013). If SDE is forced to accelerate
its current timeline for completing this work, it may require
additional staff, which would increase GF administrative
costs. The author may consider amending this bill to extend
the implementation date of the data collection requirements.
4)Unpaid K-12 mandates . According to the Legislative Analyst's
Office, the state owes approximately $3.4 billion in K-12
mandate costs for prior years. Prior to the 2010 Budget Act,
the state deferred mandate payments for several years with the
promise of making the payments to school districts in future
years. As a result, districts did not received payment for
annual services they were required to conduct, including the
school safety plan mandate. The school suspension and
expulsion mandates related to notification and due process
total approximately $10.6 million GF/98 annually.
SB 90 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review), Chapter 7,
Statutes of 2011 allocated $80 million GF/98 to school
districts for annual K-12 mandate costs; the state, however,
still owes school districts for the prior year costs.
5)Governor's proposal to establish K-12 mandate block grant .
The January 2012-13 proposed budget eliminates approximately
25 (50%) of the 50 K-12 mandates and establishes a K-12
optional mandate block grant as a mechanism for LEAs and
charter schools to receive state reimbursement for the
remaining 25 mandates. The majority of the 25 mandates that
are proposed to be eliminated are already suspended in the
current year pursuant to 2011 Budget Act. The mandates
related to school suspension, expulsion, and truancy are
proposed to be eliminated.
The 2012-13 proposed budget provides $178 million for the new
optional, mandate block grant, which funds the remaining 25
mandates. This funding equates to approximately $30 per pupil
for school districts, $89 per pupil for COEs, and $26 per
pupil for charter schools. LEAs and charter schools can
either choose to participate or submit mandate claims directly
to the Commission on State Mandates, which is the current
process for reimbursement. If an LEA or a charter school
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receives the block grant funding, they are required to meet
all activities associated with the 25 mandates funded in the
block grant.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081