BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
SB 240 (Rubio)
Hearing Date: 05/23/2011 Amended: 05/04/2011
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Education 6-1
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 240 provides that a pupil's absence due to a
collective action, as defined and specified, is an excused
absence, prohibits any absence due to a collective action from
being counted in determining whether a pupil is a truant.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 Fund
Attendance funding Potentially significant state
savings, directly General*
proportionate to loss
of school ADA funding Local
Attendance tracking Potentially substantial
reimbursable mandate General*
Truancy notifications Potentially significant
state savings General*
*Counts toward meeting the Proposition 98 minimum funding
guarantee
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
Under existing law, a pupil is declared to be a truant when
absent without a valid excuse for three days in a school year,
or absent without a valid excuse three times for more than 30
minutes at a time, or any combination of days and minutes
totaling three instances. Upon classification as a truant,
school districts are currently mandated to notify the parent or
guardians of specified options and consequences related to that
status, including that the pupil is truant, that the parent or
guardian is obligated to compel the attendance of the pupil,
SB 240 (Rubio)
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that the pupil's parent or guardian may be subject to
prosecution, and that alternative educational programs are
available to the pupil.
This bill would provide that an absence of a pupil due to a
collective action is an excused absence, and would prohibit any
absence due to a collective action from being counted in
determining whether a pupil is a truant. A pupil, thus excused,
would not be subject to classification as a truant, and his or
her parent or guardian could not be prosecuted under specified
provisions.
For purposes of determining a pupil's absence to be excused due
to a "collective action", this bill defines collective action as
an action in which the parents or guardians of a majority of the
pupils enrolled in a grade level at a public elementary, middle,
or high school withhold their children from attendance at that
school because of a grievance these parents, guardians, pupils,
or other members of the school community are presenting to the
administration of the school or school district relating to the
alleged failure to provide pupils with educational opportunity,
including, but not limited to, failure to provide translated
documents pursuant to Section 48985 of the Education Code,
highly qualified teachers and a consistent and stable teaching
force, sufficient textbooks or instructional materials, or
facilities maintained in good repair.
For purposes of determining a pupil's absence to be excused due
to a collective action, a collective action commences three days
after a petition setting forth the grounds for the grievance,
and signed by the parents or guardians of a majority of the
pupils enrolled in a grade level at the public elementary,
middle, or high school, is presented to the principal of the
school, to the schoolsite council if one exists at that school,
and to the secretary or presiding officer of the governing board
of the school district in which the school is located, as
specified. The collective action concludes on the date that an
agreement is signed by the parents or guardians of a majority of
the pupils enrolled in a grade level at the public elementary,
middle, or secondary school for which the petition was
submitted, stating that the grievance has been addressed to
their satisfaction, or on the 30th day after the collective
action commenced, whichever occurs first.
SB 240 (Rubio)
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Schools primarily receive funding based on the average daily
attendance (ADA) of pupils. Whether or not an absence is
excused, a pupil's absence results in a loss of funding to the
school. This bill would not have the effect of restoring
funding; it would only excuse the pupil and the pupil's parent
or guardian from any consequences related to being classified as
a truant. Thus, to the extent that parents who would otherwise
have compelled their children to attend school choose instead to
remove them as part of a collective action, the state could
realize significant savings from reducing a school's funding due
to reduced ADA. That state savings is directly proportionate to
a local school's funding loss.
By creating a new excused absence category, this bill would
alter activities related to tacking attendance, classifying
truancies, and notifying parents of truancies. In recent years,
the existing mandate for truancy notification has resulted in
approximately $15.9 million in annual reimbursements. As a
result, AB 1610 (Committee on Budget, Ch. 724, 2010) limited the
state costs for the existing truancy notification mandate, by
requiring school districts to provide the truancy notification
using the most cost-effective method possible rather than
requiring the notice be sent by mail. To the extent that pupils
would have been classified as truants without this bill excusing
their collective action related absences, the state will realize
savings from reduced notifications.
This bill will, however, likely overall result in substantially
expanding activities related to the existing truancy mandate.
Under existing law, absences are excused by the parent or
guardian notifying the school of the reason for an absence. This
bill requires that a school's attendance staff verify that no
collective action is pending before classifying an absence as
unexcused. If a collective action is pending, staff would have
to determine which students are excused as part of the
collective action. This is problematic because the bill is not
clear as to whether all students in a grade level are
preemptively excused if a petition was signed by the majority of
the grade level parents, or only the pupils whose parents signed
the petition. If it is the latter, then staff would need to
determine which pupils' parents signed the petition. Regardless
of the actual prevalence of collective actions that result in
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parents withholding pupils from school, all schools will likely
need to provide training on how to implement these policies
because a collective action could occur in the future.