BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
AB 1866 (Bocanegra) - Statewide Truancy Data
Amended: As Proposed to be Amended.Policy Vote: Education 7-0
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: August 4, 2014
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez
SUSPENSE FILE. AS PROPOSED TO BE AMENDED.
Bill Summary: AB 1866 expands the information reported through
the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System
(CALPADS) to include specific data relative to truancy.
Fiscal Impact (as approved on August 14, 2014):
CALPADS: Approximately $500,000 (General Fund) in the first
year, and $500,000 annually for the California Department of
Education (CDE) to expand the CALPADS system to collect
specified points of attendance data, to train local
educational agencies (LEAs), to maintain the new
functionality, provide ongoing technical assistance, and to
report attendance and truancy back to LEAs and in the Annual
Report on Dropouts, as required.
Mandates: Potentially substantial one-time reimbursable
mandate, likely in excess of $1 million (General Fund), on
the approximately 1,000 school districts to modify existing
student information systems to enable the extraction of the
data required for submission to CALPADS. Potentially
substantial ongoing reimbursable mandate for personnel costs
to update all attendance data required by the bill,
including excused and unexcused absences, extract the data,
address validation errors, and review and amend local data.
See staff comments.
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.)
AB 1866 (Bocanegra)
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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)
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 Student Attendance Review Board (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 school attendance review boards and of requests for
petitions to the juvenile court. (EC � 48273)
Existing law requires, contingent upon federal funding, CALPADS
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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 expands the information reported through
the CALPADS to include specific data relative to truancy.
Specifically, this bill:
1) Expands information from chronic absentees and rates of
absence to also include: a) rates of chronic absenteeism,
as specified; b) rates of truancy and the number of
truants; c) rates of habitual truancy and the number of
habitual truants; and, d) rates of chronic truancy and the
number of chronic truants.
2) Defines "rates of absence" and specifies how they should be
calculated, with respect to each individualized student
record.
3) Expands the data to be contained in the Annual Report on
Dropouts in California to include all of the data described
in #1 above.
4) Requires LEAs to report attendance data on each pupil.
Authorizes LEAs to submit the data regarding rates of
absence at any time throughout the year that meets its
needs (rather than quarterly), but requires them to, at a
minimum, submit and certify rates of absence at the end of
the school year or on dates to be determined by the CDE.
5) Authorizes LEAs to receive reports that reflect the numbers
and rates described in this bill, and requires districts
and county offices to be able to view the submitted data in
a format disaggregated by subgroups, as specified. This
bill deletes the requirement that CDE provide, upon
request, an early warning report up to four times each
school year.
6) Deletes the requirement that CALPADS reports be capable of
issuing reports by "class" (in addition to by school and
individual student reports).
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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 1672 (Holden) expands the data that local SARBs are currently
required to submit to the county superintendent of schools, to
include specific data regarding chronic absenteeism, and
referrals to SARBs or other interventions. AB 1672 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 to 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 in kindergarten through grade
five. SB 1107 was held on the Suspense File in this Committee.
Staff Comments: This bill's expansion of CALPADS to include
attendance data is dependent on federal funding to do so. In
order to meet the requirements of the bill, which include
consultation with stakeholders, the creation of attendance
data-specific business rules, and LEA support, the CDE would
need approximately $500,000 in federal funds for personnel costs
to complete the CALPADS expansion envisioned by this bill.
Annual costs would continue to be approximately $500,000,
because this expansion will require significant maintenance
activities and technical support to LEAs to ensure the data is
accurate. The CDE will need to provide technical assistance to
LEAs (which includes more than 1,000 charter schools in addition
to the approximately 1,000 school districts) on new attendance
functionality, and support a new certification submission.
Ongoing LEA training and verifying of attendance data is
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particularly involved because the quality of the data varies by
LEA. LEAs track absences for state apportionment purposes, but
the nature of the absence ("excused" vs. "unexcused") is not
used for funding purposes; the nature of the absence is used at
the local level; without state accountability for disaggregated
attendance data, the degree to which an LEA consistently
collects accurate absence data depends on its priorities for
addressing truancy and absenteeism. In order to make the new
CALPADS data meaningful, the CDE would need to continue to
significantly support LEAs. It is not clear that federal funding
would be available to support ongoing maintenance of new
functionality or technical assistance; ongoing costs are likely
to be General Fund costs.
This bill places new requirements on all LEAs, which are likely
to be deemed by the Commission on State Mandates (CSM) to be
reimbursable. The one-time requirement to set up local
procedures to ensure compliance with CDE requirements will, on
its own, be costly. If every school district spent 10 hours of
administrator staff time on developing procedures and providing
training classified staff, statewide costs would exceed $1
million. This bill also mandates ongoing activities, including
entering attendance information into CALPADS for every student,
including excused and unexcused absences, address validation
errors, and reviewing and amending local data. These activities
will take significant staff time at the local level, and the
resulting costs will likely be deemed reimbursable. The actual
cost of the mandates will be partially determined by LEA
interpretation of their required activities and will likely vary
by the extent to which those activities differ from current
practice, and what the CSM believes to be a reasonable
reimbursement for this mandate.
Author's Amendments replace the language requiring the use of
federal funds, with "subject to an appropriation."