BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Carol Liu, Chair
2013-2014 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 590
AUTHOR: De Leon
INTRODUCED: February 22, 2013
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: April 10, 2013
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Lenin Del Castillo
SUBJECT : Classified School Employee Staff Development
Program.
SUMMARY
This bill establishes the Classified School Employee Staff
Development and Training Program for classified employees
at community colleges and local educational agencies
(school districts, county offices of education, and charter
schools) and allows a portion of the funds provided from
state, federal, or local sources for teacher professional
development to be set aside for professional development
training for classified school employees.
BACKGROUND
Currently, there is not a state funded professional
development training program for classified employees. The
Administrator Training and Chief Business Officer Training
programs provided incentive grants of up to $3,000 per
person to local educational agencies for training
principals, vice principals, and chief business or
financial officers. However, these programs were recently
repealed.
Classified school employees include paraprofessionals,
healthcare professionals, office and clerical staff, bus
drivers, groundskeepers, custodians, information technology
assistants, instructional assistants, food service workers,
and school safety personnel. They are employed in K-12
public school settings or at the community colleges and
have major responsibilities for reinforcing classroom
instruction and the health and safety of students.
Classified school employees include both part-time and
full-time staff.
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Current law authorizes the Professional Development Block
Grant, which supports professional development activities
allowed by the Staff Development Instructional Support,
Teaching as a Priority, and Intersegmental programs. These
activities include teacher recruitment and retention
incentives, staff development projects designed to improve
elementary teacher skills, and programs that promote
development of highly qualified teachers. While the Budget
Act of 2012 includes $218.4 million for this block grant,
the funds are subject to categorical flexibility whereby
school districts may utilize the funds for any educational
purpose.
ANALYSIS
This bill establishes the Classified School Employee Staff
Development and Training Program for classified employees
at community colleges and local educational agencies and
allows a portion of the funds provided from state, federal,
or local sources for teacher professional development to be
set aside for professional development training for
classified school employees.
Additionally, this bill:
1) Defines a "classified school employee" as a person
employed on a full-time or a part-time basis as a
classified school employee at a community college, a
public school, a charter school, or a county office of
education.
2) Declares legislative intent that a portion of the
total funding for staff development from state,
federal, or local funds be set aside for professional
development training for classified school employees
to update their skills and learn about best practices
for any of the following:
a) Pupil learning and achievement training.
b) Pupil campus safety.
c) Education technology.
d) School facility maintenance and operations.
e) Special education.
f) School transportation and bus safety.
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g) Parent involvement.
h) Food service.
i) Health and nursing standards.
j) Environmental safety.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . Classified employees perform a
variety of functions on school campuses, including
instructional aide, maintenance, accounting,
transportation, food service, and safety. Schools
often rely on paraprofessionals, healthcare
professionals, information technology assistants and
other classified school employees to perform these
duties. These jobs may require specific training,
certifications or licenses, Peace Officer Standards
and Training certification, medical procedures, food
handling, etc. Under current law, there is no
categorical program that provides specific training
for classified school employees and teaches them new
approaches in fulfilling their job responsibilities.
The author's office believes that professional
development is necessary to ensure that these
employees continue to maintain and update their skills
and knowledge to implement new statutory requirements
for student care, and to better assist students,
parents, and other educators.
Staff recommends that the bill be amended to require
any of the funds set aside for classified employee
training to emphasize common core standards and school
safety, while also instituting an accountability
system in which a school district must meet specified
preconditions that include the development of a plan,
in conjunction with parents and teachers, to
accelerate pupil progress towards academic
proficiency.
2) Governor's Local Control Funding Formula . As part of
the 2013-14 Governor's Budget, the administration
proposes to restructure the existing K-12 finance
system and eliminate over 40 existing programs while
also repealing, what the administration determines are
countless "discretionary" provisions of statute, while
implementing a new formula known as the Local Control
Funding Formula (LCFF). The LCFF would consolidate
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the vast majority of state categorical programs and
revenue limit apportionments into a single source of
funding (12 categorical programs, including Special
Education, Child Nutrition, Preschool, and After
School programs, would be excluded). The LCFF
proposal would also eliminate the statutory and
programmatic requirements for almost all existing
categorical programs - the programs would be deemed
"discretionary" and programs in any of these areas
would be dependent on local district discretion. To
the extent that the LCFF or a modified version of it
is adopted as part of the budget, the majority of
currently required categorical activities would be
left to local districts' discretion. Therefore, the
provisions of this bill could be diluted, eliminated,
rendered obsolete or discretionary at the local level.
3) Prior related legislation . AB 406 (Yamada, 2009)
would have created the Classified School Employee
Training Program to provide grants to school and
community college districts through the consolidation
of existing funds for classified staff training and
from any new funds from state, federal, or local
sources. This bill was held in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee.
SUPPORT
California School Employees Association (sponsor)
California Federation of Teachers
OPPOSITION
None on file.