BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 1349 (Jackson) - Report on Competitive Athletics
Amended: April 23, 2014 Policy Vote: Education 7-1
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: May 23, 2014 Consultant: Jacqueline
Wong-Hernandez
SUSPENSE FILE. AS AMENDED.
Bill Summary: SB 1349 requires public schools to report specific
information regarding pupil participation in competitive
athletics, beginning with the 2015-16 school year and every
three years thereafter. This bill also requires the Bureau of
State Audits (BSA) to conduct Title IX compliance audits, as
specified. This bill also makes legislative findings and
declarations relative to gender equity in athletics.
Fiscal Impact (as approved on May 23, 2014):
Reporting and posting: Minor and absorbable costs for
individual schools to report athletics program information
to their respective websites.
Background: Federal law provides that, in part, "no person in
the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from
participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to
discrimination under any educational program of activity
receiving Federal financial assistance." In order to be in
compliance with Federal Title IX, relative to athletics, a
school must show compliance with one of these three parts. The
federal tests are:
1) Athletic participation of women and girls is proportionate
to enrollment.
2) The school has a history and continuing practice of program
expansion for women or girls.
3) The school is fully meeting female athletes' interests and
abilities in its present athletic program. (Title IX of the
Education Amendments of 1972 to the 1964 Civil Rights Act)
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Enforcement of compliance is initiated upon the filing of a
complaint alleging a violation of Title IX. State law
establishes standards virtually identical to those of Federal
Title IX. (Education Code � 230)
Proposed Law: This bill requires, beginning with the 2015-16
school year, each public school with students who participate in
competitive athletics to report to its school district governing
board all of the following information: a) the total enrollment
of the school, classified by gender; b) the number of students
who participate in competitive athletics, classified by gender;
and, c) the number of boys' and girls' teams, classified by
sport and by competition level. This bill further requires that
school districts post the data from each school within the
district on the district's website, and for the data to be
retained by the school for at least 3 years.
This bill requires, beginning July 1, 2019 and every 3 years
thereafter, the BSA to randomly choose 10 high schools that
offer competitive athletics with numbers that are not
proportionally representative of the male and female
participants in the athletic program, and conduct an audit of
each school for full compliance with Title IX. Within 6 months
of the July 1 initiation of an audit, the BSA must report the
results of the audit to the affected schools, their school
districts, the California Department of Education, the Governor,
and the Education and Judiciary Committees of both the Senate
and Assembly. This bill sunsets this reporting requirement on
January 1, 2024.
Related Legislation: AB 2512 (Bonilla) adds compliance with
Title IX, including the total number of pupils, by gender,
participating in existing after school athletic programs, to
indicators to be included in the Academic Performance Index.
That bill also authorizes, beginning January 1, 2018, school
districts to include this information in the district's local
control accountability plan as one indicator of school climate.
That bill is pending in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
Staff Comments: This bill requires elementary and secondary
schools that offer competitive athletics to report specified
information about their athletic programs to their respective
school districts in 2015-16, and every 3 years thereafter.
School districts, in turn, must post that information on their
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websites.
While the provisions of this bill do not constitute a
reimbursable state mandate, because school districts are not
required to offer athletics, it functionally mandates new
activities for the majority of school districts which provide
athletics in one or more schools; they must either comply or
cancel their athletics programs. The new requirements of this
bill are likely to result in a minor workload increase for
individual schools. The workload burden on school districts
will vary by the size of the school districts. For example, the
Los Angeles Unified School District has more than 900 schools;
collecting and posting athletics information for hundreds of
schools on the district website could take significant staff
time.
This bill also requires the BSA to randomly choose 10 high
schools that offer competitive athletics, and whose athletics
participation numbers are not proportional, by gender, to
enrollment, to audit for full Title IX compliance. Auditing a
school for Title IX compliance would go beyond competitive
athletics, and would require the BSA to investigate numerous
academic and extracurricular programs at the schools being
audited. BSA staff would travel to schools, conduct the audits,
and write a report, and the agency estimates $160,000 - $175,000
in costs for the 10 initial audits. Those expenses would be
incurred every 3 years thereafter.
Recommended Amendments: Joint Rules of the Senate and Assembly,
Rule 37.4 (b) specifies that "any bill requiring action by the
Bureau of State Audits shall contain an appropriation for the
cost of any study or audit." Staff notes that this bill does
not provide for payment of State Auditor costs associated with
the Title IX audits, and the author may wish to provide an
appropriation in this bill or to make the required audits
contingent upon a Budget Act appropriation.
Author's amendments remove the BSA audit requirements, and the
requirements for schools to report specified information to
their school districts. Instead, schools are required to post
the athletics information on their own websites.
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