BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
AB 1672 (Holden) - Truancy Information
Amended: April 24, 2014 Policy Vote: Education 5-1
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: August 14, 2014
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez
SUSPENSE FILE. AS PROPOSED TO BE AMENDED.
Bill Summary: AB 1672 requires school districts that have
established a local school attendance review board (SARB) to
annually submit specified attendance and truancy data to the
county superintendent of schools and the Superintendent of
Public Instruction (SPI).
Fiscal Impact (as approved on August 14, 2014):
CDE: $200,000 (General Fund) in the first year, and
$175,000 (General Fund) ongoing, for the CDE to develop and
administer a webpage and web application to collect local
URLs and maintain a search page, and to provide training and
technical assistance to school districts on reporting their
data.
LEAs: Potentially significant costs for school districts
that have established SARBs to comply with reporting
requirements.
Background: Existing law defines a truant as a student who is
absent for 3 full days, or tardy or absent for more than a
30-minute period on 3 occasions, without a valid excuse in one
school year. Truants must be reported to the attendance
supervisor or superintendent of the school district. School
districts are required to notify the student's parent upon the
initial classification of truancy. (EC � 48260 et. seq.)
Existing law defines a habitual truant as a student who has been
reported as a truant 3 or more times per school year (absent or
tardy without an excuse for at least 5 days). It also requires
school districts to first make a conscientious effort to hold at
least one conference with a parent and the student prior to
classifying the student as a habitual truant. (EC � 48262)
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Existing law defines a chronic truant as a student who is absent
without a valid excuse for 10% or more of the schooldays in the
year, provided that the appropriate school district officer or
employee has complied with existing reporting and intervention
requirements. (EC � 48263.6)
Existing law authorizes, but does not require, a county and/or
local SARB to be established. If established, SARB membership
must include parents, school districts, county probation, county
welfare, county superintendent of schools, law enforcement,
community-based youth services, and personnel representing
school guidance, child welfare and attendance, school or county
health care, and mental health. (EC � 48321)
School districts may refer the student to, and the student is
required to attend, a SARB or a truancy mediation program. The
student may be within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court if
the student does not successfully complete the truancy mediation
program. (EC � 48264.5(c))
Existing law further requires the governing board of each school
district to direct school district staff to transmit to the
county superintendent of schools the number and type of
referrals to SARBs and the requests for petitions to juvenile
courts. (EC � 48273)
Existing law requires the Annual Report on Dropouts in
California to include, when data is available, truancy rates and
chronic absentee rates. (EC � 48070.6)
Existing law requires school districts to gather and transmit to
the county superintendent of schools the number and types of
referrals to SARBs and of requests for petitions to the juvenile
court. (EC � 48273)
Existing law requires, contingent upon federal funding, CALPADS
to support LEAs in their efforts to identify and support
students at risk of dropping out and be capable of issuing to
LEAs periodic reports that include district, school, class and
individual student reports on rates of absence and chronic
absentees. Reporting student attendance and chronic absentee
data for CALPADS is voluntary. (EC � 60901)
Proposed Law: This bill requires the governing board of each
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school district that has established a local SARB to require
employees of the district to gather and transmit to the county
superintendent and the SPI information for the prior school year
on the number of:
a) Students enrolled in the school
district.
b) Chronic absentees in the school
district.
c) Students in the district who are referred to a
school-level meeting, such as a student attendance review
team or a student success team.
d) Students in the district who are referred to a
SARB, and the reason for the referral.
e) Students referred to a SARB who improved their
attendance by at least 50% during the following semester
or trimester after attending the SARB meeting.
f) Students and parents referred to the district
attorney, city prosecutor, or probation department for
mediation or prosecution following a SARB meeting.
g) Students and parents who are referred to the
community services following a SARB meeting.
h) Students referred to an alternative education
placement following a SARB meeting.
i) Petitions to the juvenile court.
This bill requires the information to be disaggregated by: a)
English learner status; b) foster youth status; c) gender; d)
grade level; e) low income status; f) race or ethnicity; and, g)
disability status.
This bill requires the COE to post on its website the data it
receives from school districts, or that summarize the results of
those reports, or reports that the county office creates if the
county SARB accepts referrals. It further requires school
districts to submit the information to the county superintendent
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and SPI by September 15 of each year.
Related Legislation: AB 1643 (Buchanan) requires each county to
have a SARB. AB 1643 will also be heard in this Committee on
August 4, 2014.
AB 1866 (Bocanegra) expands data in CALPADS to include chronic
absentee numbers, and truancy numbers and rates. AB 1866 will
also be heard in this Committee on August 4, 2014.
AB 2141 (Hall) requires a state or local authority conducting
truancy-related mediation or prosecuting a student or parent to
provide school districts, SARBs, the county superintendent of
schools and probation department with the outcome of each
referral. AB 2141 will also be heard in this Committee on
August 4, 2014.
AB 2195 (Achadjian) allows truancy cases to be referred to the
Informal Juvenile and Traffic Court and be heard by a juvenile
hearing officer, as specified. AB 2195 will also be heard in
this Committee on August 4, 2014.
SB 1107 (Monning) 2014 would have required the CDE and Attorney
General to report annually on specific information regarding
truancy and chronic absenteeism. SB 1107 was held on the
Suspense File in this Committee.
Staff Comments: The costs of this bill are unclear, because it
does not make clear what the role of the CDE is in its
implementation. This bill requires specific attendance and
truancy information (on both occurrence and LEA action) to be
reported by LEAs maintaining SARBs to their COEs and to the SPI.
It specifically provides that the governing board of each
affected school district "shall adopt rules and regulations to
require appropriate officers of the school district to gather
and transmit" the information, which implies that numerous LEAs
would each decide how to submit the information to the SPI.
Moreover, the SPI is not required to do anything with the
information.
On its face, the bill requires school districts that maintain
local SARBs to either disband those SARBs or comply with new
data reporting requirements. If the school district elects to
continue its SARB and comply with reporting requirements, it can
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choose how to report the required information to its COE and the
SPI. The only requirement is for the COE to post the information
on its website. Because the information must be reported to the
SPI, however, there is an implied oversight role; at a minimum,
the SPI should verify that the entities required to provide
attendance and truancy data have actually reported the
information.
The CDE collects student-level information through CALPADS. If
the CDE requested that LEAs report the information through
CALPADS, the state cost would be $500,000 (General Fund)
annually for the CDE to expand the CALPADS system to collect
specified points of attendance and truancy outcome data, to
train LEAs on reporting, to maintain the new functionality, and
to provide ongoing technical assistance. (There would also be
local costs for CALPADS data entry and training). Staff notes
that the same CALPADS changes would be needed if AB 1866
(Bocanegra) is enacted; this bill would not require significant
additional changes to CALPADS beyond what is required for AB
1866.
As an alternative to CALPADS reporting, the SPI could collect
data from schools in the form of reports similar to School
Accountability Report Cards. Currently, each LEA is required to
provide the CDE with a link to its local webpage that houses its
local School Accountability Report Card. The CDE could similarly
require each LEA or county to send a URL link to a local report
of information required by this bill. The CDE could post links
to each report on the CDE website, with a searchable database.
That alternative cost would be approximately $200,000 (General
Fund) in the first year, and $175,000 (General Fund) ongoing,
for the CDE to develop and administer a webpage and web
application to collect local URLs and maintain a search page,
and to provide training and technical assistance to school
districts on reporting their data. The bill does not, however,
require the CDE to post the information. So, if the SPI just
receives the information and elects not make it available, costs
would be reduced.
This bill's data gathering and maintenance requirements apply to
school districts that have established, or may consider
establishing in the future, SARBs. To the extent that the
reporting requirements are viewed as onerous or work-intensive,
school districts may choose not to continue those SARBs.
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Author's amendments specify that LEAs to which the requirements
apply will be responsible for self-reporting their data and
posting reports on their respective websites. The CDE would
provide links to local websites in a searchable database on its
own website.