BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
AB 1444 (Buchanan) - Kindergarten
Amended: April 22, 2014 Policy Vote: Education 5-2
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: June 30, 2014
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: AB 1444 requires, beginning with the 2016-17
school year, a student to have completed one year of
kindergarten before being admitted to the first grade, thereby
requiring kindergarten attendance.
Fiscal Impact:
$100 million - $200 million (General Fund) annually, in
additional average daily attendance (ADA) costs statewide.
Background: Existing law requires every person between the ages
of 6 and 18 years to attend school, for at least the minimum
schoolday as required by statute and school districts.
(Education Code � 48200)
Existing law requires a school to admit a student to
kindergarten if the student will be 5-years-old on or before
September 1 of the 2014-15 school year and every year
thereafter. Children are not, however, required to attend
kindergarten. (EC � 48000)
Existing law authorizes school districts to admit to
kindergarten, on a case-by-case basis, a student who will be
5-years-old during the school year, subject to the following
conditions: 1) the governing board of the school district
determines that the admittance is in the best interests of the
student; and, 2) the parent is given information regarding the
advantages and disadvantages and any other explanatory
information about the effect of this early admittance. (EC �
48000)
A student must be admitted to the first grade if the student
will be 6-years-old on or before September 1 of the 2014-15
AB 1444 (Buchanan)
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school year and every year thereafter. (EC � 48010)
In 2013, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) was enacted,
which overhauled the way local educational agencies (LEAs) are
funded in California. The LCFF replaces almost all sources of
state funding, including most categorical programs, and uses new
methods to allocate these resources and future resources to
school districts, charter schools, and county offices of
education. The LCFF allows LEAs much greater flexibility to
spend the funds than under the prior system. This formula is
designed to provide districts and charter schools with the bulk
of their resources in unrestricted funding to support the basic
educational program for all students, plus supplemental funding,
based on the enrollment of educationally disadvantaged students
(low-income students, English learners (ELs), and foster youth),
provided to increase or improve services to these high-needs
students. County offices of education receive different funding
levels within the LCFF, based upon the same allocation
principles.
The LCFF allocates resources to LEAs as follows:
1 Base Grants are provided to all school districts and
charter schools. They are calculated on a per-pupil basis
(measured by student average daily attendance) according to
grade span (K-3, 4-6, 7-8, and 9-12) with adjustments that
increase the base rates for grades K-3 (10.4% of base rate)
and grades 9-12 (2.6% of base rate).
2 Supplemental Grants provide an additional 20% in base
grant funding to school districts and charter schools for
each low-income student, EL, and foster youth (unduplicated
pupil count).
3 Concentration Grants provide an additional 50% above
base grant funding to school districts and charter schools
for each low-income student, EL, and foster youth that
exceed 55% of total enrollment. (Charter schools are capped
at the concentration rate of the school district in which
they are located).
Proposed Law: AB 1444 requires, beginning with the 2016-17
school year, a student to have completed one year of
kindergarten before being admitted to the first grade, in
AB 1444 (Buchanan)
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addition to the existing condition on age-eligibility.
Staff Comments: This bill makes one year of kindergarten
attendance a prerequisite to attending first grade. Kindergarten
is not currently mandatory in California, though most
age-eligible students do attend kindergarten.
The costs of this bill will be determined by the number of
additional students who will enroll in kindergarten in a public
school, and the demographics of those students. The state funds
ADA for each student, as well as providing supplemental funding
as described in the Background section. The level of funding
would vary annually, depending on those factors.
As a point of reference, the California Department of Education
(CDE) estimates that approximately 28,000 students who were not
enrolled in kindergarten in 2010-11, then enrolled in first
grade in a public school in 2011-12. Because the CDE does not
track data on private schools, it is unclear how many of the
28,000 children attended kindergarten in a private school (which
would also meet the bill's requirement). Assuming half of those
students (1) not attend kindergarten at all; (2) would now
enroll in a public school for kindergarten; and, (3) were of a
demographic distribution similar to the rest of the public
school distribution (for purposes of supplemental funding), the
increased ADA would drive new costs of approximately $116
million (Prop 98 General Fund).