BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 1235
Page A
Date of Hearing: June 27, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Julia Brownley, Chair
SB 1235 (Steinberg, Price and Rubio) - As Amended: May 14,
2012
SENATE VOTE : 23-12
SUBJECT : Pupils: suspension.
SUMMARY : Requires schools to implement evidence based
schoolwide strategies for the purpose of reducing the suspension
rate if the number of pupils suspended out of the school's
enrollment or any numerically significant pupil subgroup is
above a specified threshold. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires, beginning with the 2013-2014 school year, that if
the number of pupils suspended from a school during the prior
school year exceeded 25 percent of the school's enrollment or
any numerically significant pupil subgroup of the school's
enrollment, the school district must, for a minimum of three
years, implement at least one of the following strategies to
reduce the suspension rate or disproportionality:
a) An evidence based system of schoolwide positive
behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) that employs
school-level information about the behavioral and academic
history of pupils to define and implement systems of
support and interventions at the school, classroom and
individual levels and is aimed at improving the social,
emotion and academic success for all pupils; or,
b) Other schoolwide strategies that are evidence based and
designed to address school climate in order to create
learning environments where teachers can teach and pupils
can learn and to reduce suspensions from classrooms and the
school.
2)Authorizes the California Department Education (CDE) to
provide information regarding additional schoolwide strategies
that meet the criteria for evidence-based strategies.
3)Requires, beginning with the 2014-2015 school year, that the
percentage of a school's enrollment, or of any numerically
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significant pupil subgroup of a school's enrollment, whose
suspension triggers the implementation of one of the
strategies above, shall be reduced by 2 percent per year until
it is 15 percent.
4)Requires a school facing the requirements specified in
paragraph 1) to report to the superintendent of the school
district on the rate of reduction in the school's off-campus
suspensions and the strategies and activities used to comply
with the requirements; and, requires the school district to
report this information on an annual basis at a regularly
scheduled meeting of the school board, to the State
Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) and to the county
superintendent of schools.
5)Requires the SPI to publish, on an annual basis, a list of all
schools that trigger the requirements in paragraph 1) and to
include the annual rate of reduction in each school's
out-of-school suspensions.
6)Expresses the intent of the Legislature to encourage all
schools to examine alternatives to off-campus suspensions that
lead to resolution of pupil misconduct without sending pupils
off campus; and, specifies that schools using strategies
described in paragraph 1) are not precluded from suspending
pupils to an off-campus site.
7)Authorizes a school district to use appropriate state or
federal funding sources to support the evidence-based
schoolwide strategies required of schools meeting the
requirements specified in paragraph 1).
8)Defines a "numerically significant pupil subgroup" as any
racial and ethnic subgroups, socioeconomically disadvantaged
pupils, English learners or pupils with disabilities that meet
both of the following criteria:
a) The subgroup consists of at least 50 pupils enrolled at
the school; and,
b) The subgroup constitutes at least 15 percent of the
total population of pupils enrolled at the school, or if a
subgroup does not constitute that percentage, the subgroup
consists of at least 100 pupils enrolled at the school.
9)Deletes provisions in existing law encouraging schools with
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suspension rates of higher than 30 percent of the school's
enrollment to implement a supervised suspension program or a
progressive discipline approach that could include:
a) Conferences between school staff, parents and pupils;
b) Referrals to the school counselor, psychologist, child
welfare attendance personnel, or other school support
staff;
c) Detention; and,
d) Study teams, guidance teams, resource panel teams, or
other assessment related teams.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Encourages schools where the number of pupils suspended during
the prior school year exceeded 30 percent of the school's
enrollment to report to the district superintendent in charge
of school support services on the rate of reduction in the
school's off-campus suspensions and to implement at least one
of the following:
a) A supervised suspension program; or,
b) An alternative to school's off-campus suspension program
that involves a progressive discipline approach that occurs
during the schoolday on campus using any of the following
activities:
i) Conferences between school staff, parents and
pupils;
ii) Referral to the school counselor, psychologist,
child welfare attendance personnel, or other school
support service staff;
iii) Detention; and,
iv) Study teams, guidance teams, resource panel teams,
or other assessment-related teams. (Education Code (EC)
Section 48911.2)
2)Authorizes the superintendent of the school district or
principal to use his or her discretion to provide alternatives
to suspension or expulsion, including, but not limited to,
counseling and an anger management program. (EC Section 48900)
3)Provides that suspension shall be imposed only when other
means of correction fail to bring about proper conduct; and,
provides that a pupil, including an individual with
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exceptional needs, may be suspended upon first offense for
causing physical injury to another person; possessing a
firearm, knife or other dangerous object; possessing or using
a controlled substance; selling a controlled substance;
committing robbery or extortion; or if the pupil's presence
causes a danger to persons. (EC Section 48900.5)
4)Prohibits a principal from suspending a pupil from school for
more than five consecutive days or in excess of 20 total
schooldays in a school year (EC Sections 48903 and 48911).
5)Provides that a pupil may be suspended or expelled for
committing any of the following offenses:
a) Causing, attempting to cause, or threatening to cause
physical injury to another person; or willfully using force
or violence upon another person, except in self-defense;
b) Possessing, selling, or otherwise furnishing a firearm,
knife, explosive, or other dangerous object;
c) Unlawfully possessing, using, selling or otherwise
furnishing a controlled substance;
d) Unlawfully offering, arranging or negotiating to sell a
controlled substance, alcoholic beverage, or an intoxicant
of any kind;
e) Committing or attempting to commit robbery or extortion;
f) Causing or attempting to cause damage to school property
or private property;
g) Stealing or attempting to steal school property or
private property;
h) Possessing or using tobacco, or products containing
tobacco or nicotine products;
i) Committing an obscene act or engaging in habitual
profanity or vulgarity;
j) Unlawfully possessing or unlawfully offering, arranging
or negotiating to sell drug paraphernalia;
aa) Disrupting school activities or otherwise willfully
defying the authority of supervisors, teachers,
administrators, school officials or other school personnel
engaged in the performance of their duties;
bb) Knowingly receive stolen school property or private
property;
cc) Possessing an imitation firearm;
dd) Committing or attempting to commit a sexual assault or
sexual battery;
ee) Harassing, threatening or intimidating a pupil who is a
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complaining witness or a witness in a school disciplinary
proceeding in order to prevent the pupil from being a
witness or retaliating against that pupil for being a
witness, or both;
ff) Unlawfully offering, arranging to sell, or negotiating
to sell the prescription drug Soma;
gg) Engaging in or attempting to engage in hazing;
hh) Engaging in the act of bullying, including, but not
limited to, bullying committed by means of an electronic
act;
ii) Committing sexual harassment (grades 4 through 12 only);
jj) Causing or attempting to cause, threatening to cause, or
participating in an act of hate violence (grades 4 through
12 only);
aaa) Engaging in harassment, threats, or intimidation against
school district personnel or pupils that have the effect of
disrupting classwork, creating substantial disorder and
invading the rights of either school personnel or pupils by
creating an intimidating or hostile educational environment
(grades 4 through 12 only); and,
bbb) Making a terroristic threat against school officials or
school property, or both (EC Sections 48900, 48900.2,
48900.3, 48900.4, 48900.7).
FISCAL EFFECT : The Senate Appropriations Committee estimates
that to the extent that schools have to create and implement new
disciplinary processes, this bill would create a potentially
significant reimbursable state mandate. The Senate
Appropriations Committee also estimates that the changes made by
this bill will likely result in decreased suspensions
state-wide, which will increase student attendance and related
state average daily attendance payments to schools.
COMMENTS : According to the author, "California recorded more
than 750,000 suspensions in 2009-2010. While some number of
these suspensions may be necessary to protect student and campus
safety, each represents instructional time and educational
opportunity lost. California has a higher rate of suspension
than most other states - 7.5% of all students in the most recent
year for which suspension rates were reported. The way schools
implement state policy on suspension has a disproportionate
impact on students of color." The author further states that
"more than two decades of research has confirmed that
out-of-school suspensions do not improve student behavior and,
in fact, often exacerbate it. Students who are suspended lose
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valuable instructional time, and are more likely to fall behind
in school, drop out, and enter the juvenile delinquency system,
at great cost to the state."
Schoolwide strategies for improving school climate: This bill
seeks to reduce the suspension rate in California schools by
requiring schoolwide strategies for improving school climate be
developed and implemented in schools with high suspension rates.
It provides schools with two options for implementing schoolwide
climate improving strategies. The school may opt to employ
either a PBIS approach or another evidence-based approach
designed to address school climate. Whichever strategy is
chosen, it must be implemented for a minimum of three years.
Option 1: Positive behavior intervention and support: The PBIS
approach focuses on setting specific behavioral expectations for
students that reflect desirable behavior.<1> When students
uphold these positive behavioral expectations, they are rewarded
and the positive habits are reinforced through schoolwide
systems. It is a proactive approach that involves the whole
school community and seeks to prevent misbehavior by rewarding
and recognizing desired student behavior.
Numerous studies and reports verify and highlight the
effectiveness of PBIS programs at improving school climate and
leading to greater student success. According to the National
Association of School Psychologists (NASP), The PBIS approach is
an "empirically validated, function-based approach to eliminate
challenging behaviors and replace them with prosocial skills."
NASP explains that use of this approach "decreases the need for
more intrusive or aversive interventions (i.e., punishment or
suspension) and can lead to both systemic as well as
individualized change."
One example of positive results generated by a schoolwide PBIS
program is at Garfield High School in the Los Angeles Unified
School District. In the five years prior to the implementation
of a schoolwide PBIS program, Garfield High School had at least
510 suspensions or expulsions each year. Since the inception of
the program in 2009-2010, Garfield High School has experienced a
dramatic reduction in the number of severe offenses with 103
suspensions or expulsions in 2009-2010 and only one suspension
---------------------------
<1> U.S. Department of Education, National Technical Assistance
Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. 2012.
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in 2010-2011. Administrators remark that there is also
noticeable improvement of the school climate as a result of this
program.
Option 2: Other evidence based schoolwide strategies to improve
school climate: Instead of implementing a PBIS program, this
bill also authorizes schools to use other schoolwide strategies
that are evidence based and designed to address school climate
in order to create positive learning environments. This bill
does not specify what these programs may be, but authorizes the
CDE to provide information regarding additional schoolwide
strategies that meet the criteria for evidence-based strategies.
One example of an evidence-based strategy that schools may opt
to implement is a schoolwide Restorative Justice program.
Restorative Justice is a set of principles and practices
employed to build community and respond to student misconduct
with the goals of repairing harm and restoring relationships
between those impacted. In this program, students learn about
the way in which an action they took may have harmed the
relationships they have with other individuals. Using trained
facilitators in a "family group conference" involving the
student, the person or persons harmed by the action, the family
of the student involved, and a supporter of the person or
persons harmed, appropriate "reparations" are determined and
agreed upon. Reparations are steps that will be taken to repair
the harm caused by the actions taken. Follow up meetings
regularly occur to ensure the agreed upon reparations are being
completed. Supporters of this program argue that this process
more effectively addresses the root causes of an individual's
action and is therefore a more meaningful strategy than punitive
discipline.
Evidence from the implementation of this strategy indicates
success at reducing suspension rates. A study conducted by Boalt
Law School at UC Berkeley on the implementation of a Restorative
Justice program at Cole Middle School in West Oakland found that
the Restorative Justice program led to an 87% decrease in
suspensions over a multi-year period. Recent reports from the
implementation of the Restorative Justice program at Richmond
High School also indicate that the schoolwide strategy has led
to a significant decline in the suspension rate.
Schoolwide strategy requirement threshold : The requirements in
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this bill are triggered only when a school suspends a percentage
of the total school population or a percentage of a numerically
significant pupil subgroup that exceeds the set threshold rate
for that year. The threshold rate gradually declines over time.
Initially, the threshold is a suspension rate of 25% or higher.
In subsequent years, the threshold is reduced by 2% each year
until it reaches a suspension rate of 15% or higher. Once the
threshold is a suspension rate of 15% or higher, it will remain
at this level over time. Pushing all of California's schools to
reduce their suspension rates below 15% or to be implementing
schoolwide strategies to improve school climate is a positive
change that would likely benefit many students across the state.
The language in the section that currently addresses the
changing threshold over time, however, can be misinterpreted.
Staff recommends specifying by year the threshold rate that
triggers the requirements to implement a schoolwide strategy for
school climate improvement.
Supervised suspension vs. off-campus suspension : This bill
requires that schools that have triggered the requirements to
implement schoolwide climate improving strategies provide
suspension rate information on an annual basis to the SPI, the
county superintendent of schools and to the district governing
board. This bill also requires the SPI to publish information
about which schools have suspension rates that trigger the
requirements of this bill and what the annual rate of reduction
in off-campus suspensions is each year for each school. Many
schools, however, employ in-school suspension programs that
provide a supervised suspension environment on campus during the
schoolday. The CDE currently reports information about
off-campus suspensions only; however, recently the CDE has begun
collecting information about in-school suspensions and will
likely be capable of reporting it in the near future. In the
current language, this bill uses both the term "suspension" and
the term "off-campus suspension," which may create confusion as
to whether or not in-school suspensions are included or not in
the requirements of the bill. Staff recommends clarifying this
to include just off-campus suspension by replacing the word
"suspended" with the phrase "receiving off-campus suspensions"
on page 3, line 4 of the bill and by using the term "off-campus"
instead of "out-of-school" on page 4, line 1 of the bill.
Numerically significant pupil subgroups: This bill also
requires schools to comply with the requirements of this bill
when the suspension rate for any numerically significant pupil
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subgroup is above the given threshold. As currently written,
this bill identifies subgroups in four overarching categories
that align with those used to report California's Academic
Performance Index (API), but does not explicitly cite to those
sections. These subgroups include subgroups based on race and
ethnicity, socioeconomically disadvantaged pupils, English
learners, and pupils with disabilities. These appear to be
appropriate categories and each is well-defined and established
by CDE for the reporting of the API. Staff recommends citing
that the numerically significant pupil subgroups in this section
align with those set forth in EC Section 52052 and that have
been defined by the CDE for reporting the API.
Additionally, this bill requires a subgroup from the groups
specified above to meet two criteria in order to be considered a
"numerically significant pupil subgroup." The current definition
is consistent with the structure in place with the API, but the
way in which it is explained is slightly different and somewhat
unclear. Staff recommends rephrasing the current language so
that a subgroup is a numerically significant pupil subgroup if
either of the following two criteria is met:
1)The subgroup consists of at least 100 pupils enrolled at the
school; or,
2)The subgroup constitutes at least 15 percent of the total
population of pupils enrolled at the school and consists of at
least 50 pupils enrolled at the school.
Arguments in support : Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California
writes, "Suspensions and expulsion are sometimes necessary to
prevent unsafe or violent student behavior. Yet in some
circumstances giving students unsupervised days off from school,
rather than holding them accountable at school and taking steps
to improve their behavior, can lead to less safe communities.
Instead of helping correct students' negative behavior,
suspensions can make matters worse, resulting in students
falling behind in school and/or ending up out on the streets.
Given the risks, suspensions should be carefully considered
before being imposed and alternatives to suspension should be
pursued when safety is not at issue. SB 1235 would help ensure
more thoughtful consideration of the use of suspensions and
effective alternatives."
Public Counsel Law Center writes, "SB 1235 is a win-win for
schools and communities because it replaces harsh and excessive
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discipline practices, which have been shown to lower student
achievement and school safety levels, with practices proven to
make schools safer and stronger. This is particularly important
because California's recorded suspension numbers are some of the
highest in the nation."
Arguments in opposition : The Association of California School
Administrators (ACSA) writes, "While ACSA supports reducing the
suspension rate for all students, we are concerned about the
timing of this legislation. The costs for implementing the
school wide strategies called for in SB 1235 would be
significant. What this legislation fails to recognize is that
school districts have removed more adults from school sites due
to our significant budget crisis. More adults directly results
in an increase in student safety. And possibly even more
important, SB 1235 does not provide any training to site and
district administrators or staff on alternative suspension
programs or procedures. While the goal of SB 1235 is noble, the
legislature must recognize the timing of this reform and the
impact it will have at the school site."
Related legislation : AB 1729 (Ammiano) authorizes the use of
alternatives to suspension or expulsion that are age appropriate
and designed to address the pupil's specific misbehavior; and,
defines other means of correction. This bill is pending in the
Senate Education Committee.
AB 2242 (Dickinson) prohibits pupils who are found to have
willfully defied the authority of school or school district
officials from being subject to extended suspension, or
recommended for expulsion or expelled. This bill is pending in
the Senate Education Committee.
AB 2300 (Swanson) prohibits a school, at the request of a pupil
or his or her parent/guardian, from disclosing a pupil's
disciplinary records relating to a suspension to a postsecondary
educational institution under specified circumstances. This bill
was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee in 2012.
AB 2537 (V. Manuel P�rez) modifies the provisions on mandatory
expulsion and strikes a fine to be paid by a principal for
failure to notify appropriate law enforcement authorities of
specified acts committed by pupils. This bill is pending in the
Senate Education Committee.
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Prior legislation : AB 2728 (Friedman), Chapter 1016, Statutes
of 1994, provides that if the number of pupils suspended from
school during the prior school year exceeded 30 percent of the
school's enrollment, the school should consider implementing a
supervised suspension program as described in the bill or an
alternative to the school's off-campus suspension program which
involves a progressive discipline approach that occurs during
the schoolday on campus.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Fight Crime: Invest in Kids (co-sponsor)
Public Counsel Law Center (co-sponsor)
Advancement Project
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,
AFL-CIO
American Civil Liberties Union
California Association of Bilingual Education
California Association for Parent-Child Advocacy
California Correctional Peace Officers Association
California School Health Centers Association
California State PTA
Californians for Justice Education Fund
Californians Together
Cal-TASH
Children Now
Children's Defense Fund - California
Community Asset Development Re-defining Education
Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth
Disability Rights California
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
Disability Rights Legal Center
Gay-Straight Alliance Network
Hispanas Organized for Political Equality
Kids in Common, a program of Planned Parenthood Mar Monte
Labor/Community Strategy Center's Community Rights Campaign
Legal Advocates for Children and Youth
Legal Services for Children
Los Angeles Unified School District
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
National Center for Youth Law
New American Foundation
Oakland Unified School District
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Office of Restorative Justice of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles
People Improving Communities through Organizing, California
PolicyLink
Restorative Schools Vision Project
The Education Trust - West
Vallejo City Unified School District
Youth & Education Law Project, Mills Legal Clinic, Stanford Law
School
Youth Law Center
Youth Justice Coalition, LA
Several Individuals
Opposition
Association of California School Administrators
Analysis Prepared by : Mark Murphy and Sophia Kwong Kim / ED.
/ (916) 319-2087