BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1672
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Date of Hearing: April 30, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 1672 (Holden) - As Amended: April 24, 2014
Policy Committee: EducationVote:5-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: Yes
SUMMARY
This bill requires the governing board of each school district
that has established a school attendance review board (SARB) to
adopt rules and regulations to require the appropriate officers
and employees of the school district to gather and transmit
specified data to the county superintendent of schools and the
Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI). Specifically, this
bill:
1)Requires the following information to be provided:
a) The number of pupils enrolled in the school district.
b) The number of chronic absentees, as defined in the
California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System
(CALPADS), in the school district.
c) The percentage of chronic absentees in the school
district.
d) The number of pupils in the school district referred to
a school-level meeting, such as a student attendance review
team or a student success team.
e) The number of pupils in the school district referred to
a SARB meeting and the reason for referral.
f) The number of pupils referred to a SARB who improved
their attendance by at least 50% during the following
semester or trimester after attending the SARB meeting.
g) The number of pupils and parents or guardians referred
to the district attorney, city prosecutor, or probation
department for mediation or prosecution following a SARB
meeting.
h) The number of pupils and parents or guardians referred
to community services following a SARB meeting.
i) The number of pupils referred to alternative education
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placement following a SARB meeting.
j) The number of requests for petitions to the juvenile
court.
2)Requires the information to be disaggregated and submitted by
the following subgroups: English learner status; Foster youth
status; Gender; Grade levels; Low income status; Race or
ethnicity; and disability.
3)Requires the county office education (COE) to make available
on its Internet Web site, if one is available, the contents of
the SARB reports, as specified. Requires the information to
be made available in an anonymized format that is easy for the
public to access and understand.
FISCAL EFFECT :
1)Ongoing P98/GF state mandated costs to school districts in the
range of $200,000 to $1 million. This assumes 30% to 50% of
school districts currently have established SARBs. Costs
associated with school district workload will vary depending
on existing SARB support and resources.
2)Minor costs to COEs to make contents of SARB reports available
online.
3)Ongoing administrative costs to CDE related collection,
certification and reporting of attendance and SARB data. CDE
estimates ongoing costs of $432,000. The bill requires
various data elements to be reported to CDE but does not
explicitly state what CDE is to do with the data. CDE would
incur costs assuming the intent is to have the data processed
at the state level.
COMMENTS :
1)Purpose. This bill is part of a package of truancy-related
bills sponsored by Attorney General (AG) Kamala Harris. In
the course of conducting the AG's report titled "In School and
On Track," the AG found that attendance, truancy, and SARB
data were not readily available. Consequently, several of the
bills sponsored by the AG, including this bill, focus on data
collection.
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2)SARB Background . Existing law authorizes the formation of
SARBs, either by a county office of education, a school
district, or two or more districts. Statute also provides for
a state SARB to oversee and assist county and local SARBs and
to provide statewide policy coordination regarding serious
attendance, behavior issues and dropout prevention. There is
no statewide data on the number of SARBs that currently exist
though recent surveys suggest anywhere from 30% to 50% of
districts and counties have a SARB.
This bill is intended to focus on collection of information
from SARBs. Under current law, the governing board of each
school district is required to direct school district staff to
transmit the number and type of referrals to SARBs and the
requests for petitions to juvenile courts to the county
superintendent of schools. The state SARB has developed a
couple of reporting forms that districts may use to submit
reports to county superintendents. One is a simple form that
captures the number of referrals by grade, gender, reason for
the referral (behavior, attendance/truancy) and court
referrals. The other form additionally captures the impact of
SARBs (e.g., number of students who improve attendance, number
of students who improve behavior, number of court referrals,
number of agency referrals and number of transfers to
alternative schools). This bill incorporates almost all of
the information found on the expanded form, and requires the
information to be sent to the SPI in addition to the county
superintendent of schools. The COE is required to post, in an
anonymized format, the content of the reports or a summary of
the reports on its Internet Web site. If the county SARB
accepts referrals, that information must also be posted on the
Web site.
3)Related legislation .
a) AB 1643 (Buchanan), pending in this committee, requires
the establishment of county SARBs, requires county SARBs to
meet at least four times each year, adds the county
district attorney as a member of county and local SARBs,
and specifies that county and local SARBs shall not convene
without the presence of two-thirds of its members.
b) AB 1866 (Bocanegra), pending in this committee, adds
truancy-related elements to the pupil attendance data that
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the CDE is required to collect and report through the
California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System
(CALPADS).
c) AB 2141 (Hall), pending in this committee, requires a
state or local authority conducting a truancy-related
mediation or prosecuting a pupil or a pupil's parent or
legal guardian, to provide the outcome of each referral to
the agency that made a referral.
d) SB 1107 (Monning), pending in the Senate, requires the
AG to issue an annual report on elementary school truancy
and chronic absenteeism.
Analysis Prepared by : Misty Feusahrens / APPR. / (916)
319-2081