BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 1107 (Monning) - Annual Truancy Report
Amended: April 21, 2014 Policy Vote: Education 9-0, Pub.
Safety 6-0
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: May 12, 2014 Consultant: Jacqueline
Wong-Hernandez
This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill Summary: SB 1107 requires the Attorney General (AG) and the
California Department of Education (CDE) to jointly submit a
report on elementary school truancy and chronic absenteeism to
the Governor, the Legislature, and to the State Board of
Education (SBE), as specified, on or before September 30, 2015,
and annually thereafter. This bill also requires, upon the
request of the AG or CDE, county and local prosecuting
authorities or local educational agencies (LEAs), respectively,
to provide specified information in anonymized format to the
requesting entity.
Fiscal Impact:
Truancy report: Up to $150,000 (General Fund) annually, for
the AG's office to complete the required report, in
coordination with the CDE; approximately $80,000 in annual
CDE costs.
Mandate: LEAs - Potentially significant reimbursable state
mandate on LEAs to provide specified information at any
future request of the CDE. It is unlikely that all school
districts would reach the $1,000 minimum threshold (in costs
or workload) if required to report, but those that did could
aggregate staff time from all of their schools in submitting
a reimbursement claim.
Mandate: local prosecuting authorities - Potentially
significant reimbursable state mandate on local prosecuting
authorities to provide specified information at any future
request of the AG.
Background: Existing law defines chronic absentee as a student
who is absent on 10% or more of the schooldays in the year,
whether or not the absences were excused. (Education Code �
60901(c))
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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)
Existing law authorizes, but does not require, a county and/or
local SARB to be 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 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 also generally provides for the jurisdiction of the
juvenile court over a person under the age of 18 who
"persistently or habitually refuses to obey the reasonable and
proper orders or directions of his or her parents, guardian, or
custodian, or who is beyond the control of that person," or who
violates curfew offenses, as specified. These types of offenses
are known generally as "status" offenses - acts that are illegal
only if committed by juveniles. (Welfare and Institutions Code �
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601)
With regard to reporting, existing law requires the Annual
Report on Dropouts in California to include, when data is
available, truancy rates and chronic absentee rates. It
requires local control accountability plans to include
information addressing specific state priorities, including
student engagement as measured by school attendance rates,
chronic absenteeism rates, dropout rates and graduation rates.
(EC � 48070.6 � 52060 and � 52066)
It also requires, contingent upon federal funding, the
California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (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 that, subject to available
funding, on or before September 30, 2015, and annually
thereafter until September 30, 2019, the AG and the CDE jointly
submit a report (to the Governor, the Legislature, and the state
board on elementary school truancy and chronic absenteeism in
California public schools) which includes, but is not limited
to, all of the following information regarding pupils in
kindergarten through 5th grade, as specified:
1) Attendance-related data, as specified.
2) Information regarding truancy prevention and
intervention efforts by LEAs or local prosecuting
authorities, including, but not limited to: a) information
regarding specified parental notifications; b) information
regarding the activities of local SARBs; c) information
regarding the outcomes of prosecutions and mediation or
diversion programs for pupils who are truant or who have
irregular attendance, or whether the prosecuting authority
declined to prosecute referrals of those pupils.
3) An analysis of whether LEAs are complying with
requirements concerning the reporting of students
classified as truant, school notification to parents that a
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pupil is truant, reports of repeat truants, and the
gathering and transmitting to the county superintendent of
schools the number and types of referrals to SARBs and of
requests for petitions to the juvenile court.
Staff Comments: The AG's office has opined that completing the
report would require $150,000 for a dedicated staff position
responsible for the report. The CDE would require a .75 PY at a
cost of approximately $80,000. The bill language makes the
report contingent upon funds being "available" to the AG and the
CDE to cover their costs for producing the report. Both
departments' budgets are sufficiently large that they may be
able to divert funding from other areas to complete the report,
but it does not preclude asking for a budget appropriation
specific to the report.
Regardless of any availability of funding for the actual report,
however, the bill's most significant costs are likely the
mandates it places on local entities. This bill requires both
LEAs and local prosecuting authorities to submit, upon the
request of the the respective state agencies: information
regarding truancy prevention and intervention efforts (including
parental notifications); information regarding the activities of
local SARBs; information regarding the outcomes of prosecutions
and mediation or diversion programs for pupils who are truant or
who have irregular attendance; analysis of 1) whether LEAs are
complying with truancy reporting requirements, and 2) local
compliance with state requirements 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.
The discretion and authority is left to the AG and CDE to make a
request of any or all LEAs and local prosecuting authorities. If
they do, those local entities would be statutorily required (by
this bill) to provide the information and analysis. The
activities undertaken by locals to do so would likely be deemed
to be a reimbursable state mandate by the Commission on State
Mandates. The scope of the mandate would be determined by the
number of LEAs and local prosecution authorities required to
submit data, and the extent of the analysis requested in a
particular year. If the AG and CDE never request the information
that would trigger the reimbursable mandate, their costs would
likely increase because the burdens of data collection and
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analysis for the report would fall increasingly to them.
For practical purposes, the CDE can likely enforce the
information sharing requirements simply by making a request and
communicating its expectations directly with LEAs. Placing those
requirements on LEAs in state law, however, will likely be
deemed a reimbursable state mandate on school districts. The
same is true of the AG requesting information from local
prosecuting agencies: simply requesting the information is
likely to yield results even without placing a requirement in
state law.