10 EDCAL October 30, 2017
BILLS
AB 830, Kalra. High school exit exami-
nation: repeal. Repeals the California High
School Exit Exam and eliminates the
requirement to pass the CAHSEE as a
condition of graduation from high school.
ACSA Position: Support.
Status: Signed by governor. SB 250, Hertzberg. Pupil meals: Child
Hunger Prevention and Fair Treatment Act
of 2017. Requires LEAs to ensure that a
pupil whose parent or guardian has unpaid
school meal fees is not shamed, treated
differently or served a meal that differs
from what a pupil whose parent or guard-
ian does not have unpaid school meal fees
would receive. Under SB 250, LEAs must
attempt to directly certify students who
have unpaid school meal fees for the free or
reduced-price meal program prior to noti-
fying the parent or guardian of the unpaid
fee. Finally, this bill prohibits discipl inary
action or the denial or delay of a nutrition-
ally adequate meal to that student because
of an unpaid fee.
ACSA Position: Watch.
Status: Signed by governor.
Charter Schools Curriculum and instruction
Continued from page 3
compared to the 2016-17 school year, and
getting the Legislature to release more than
$850 million in one-time discretionary
funding in 2017-18 instead of delaying the
appropriation until May 2019 as the gover-
nor had proposed.
Assessment
AB 1360, Bonta. Charter schools: pupil
admissions, suspensions and expulsions.
Specifies that a charter school petition
include clear and specific procedures for
the suspension or expulsion of a student
for disciplinary reasons or for students who
are otherwise involuntarily removed, disen-
rolled, dismissed, transferred or terminated
from the charter school for any reason.
ACSA Position: Support.
Status: Signed by governor.
Health and Nutrition
AB 10, Garcia, Cristina. Feminine
hygiene products: public school restrooms.
Requires public schools serving students
in grades 6-12, that meet the 40 percent
pupil poverty threshold required to oper-
ate a federal Title 1 program, stock at least
50 percent of the school’s restrooms with
feminine hygiene products at all times and
to provide those products at no charge.
ACSA Position: Support if amended.
Status: Signed by governor.
AB 341, Frazier. School field trips:
expenses. Authorizes school district funds
to cover the expenses of pupils participating
in field trips or excursions to other states,
the District of Columbia, or a foreign
country.
ACSA Position: Approve.
Status: Signed by governor.
Employer-employee relations
AB 568, Gonzalez Fletcher. School and
community college employees: paid mater-
nity leave. Would require a school district,
charter school or community college to
provide at least six weeks of full paid leave
of absence for a certificated employee who
is required to be absent due to pregnancy,
miscarriage, childbirth and recovery.
ACSA Position: Oppose.
Status: Vetoed by governor.
AB 621, Bocanegra. Classified employ-
ees: Classified School Employees Summer
Furlough Fund. Would authorize certain
classified school employees to participate in
Paid Advertisement
the Classified School Employees Summer
Furlough Fund with each $1 deposited by
the employee to be matched by $2 from
Proposition 98.
ACSA Position: Oppose
Status: Vetoed by governor.
AB 670, Thurmond. Classified employ-
ees: part-time playground positions. Adds
part-time playground positions in non-
merit districts to the classified service.
ACSA Position: Oppose
Status: Signed by governor.
English language learners
AB 81, Gonzalez Fletcher. English
learners: identification: notice. Provides
vital information in a notification letter to
parents at the time the Home Language
Survey be provided that explains the pur-
pose of the survey and the procedures for
identification and reclassification of English
learners.
ACSA appreciates that the legislation
will authorize LEAs with the ability to
send an alternative notice to comply with
this requirement, as LEAs could simply
amend existing enrollment forms that are
currently sent to parents and guardians at
the beginning of the school year. This will
help to mitigate negligible costs that may
be associated with the implementation of
the legislation.
ACSA Position: Support
Status: Signed by governor.
Governance
AB 261, Thurmond. School districts:
governing boards: pupil members: prefer-
ential voting. Requires a student member of
a school district governing board to prefer-
ential voting rights. Preferential voting is an
opinion that is recorded into the minutes of
the governing board meeting and the vote
cast before the official vote of the school
district.
ACSA Position: Support.
Status: Signed by governor.
Immigration
AB 699, O’Donnell. Educational equity:
immigration and citizenship status. Requires
the California Attorney General to devel-
op model policies limiting assistance with
immigration enforcement at public schools,
and requires school districts to adopt the
model policies or equivalent policies by July
1, 2018. Among other things, the policies
will have to include procedures for handling
requests to enter campus and requests for
sensitive student information made by fed-
eral immigration officials. AB 699 also pro-
hibits schools from collecting information
related to citizenship or immigration status
from pupils or family members.
ACSA Position: Support.
Status: Signed by governor.
SB 54, De León. Law enforcement:
sharing data. Limits state and local law
enforcement’s communication with federal
immigration authorities, and prevents offi-
cers from questioning and holding people
on immigration violations. These limita-
tions apply to school police and security
departments, which will also be restricted
from using their resources to investigate,
interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest persons
for federal immigration purposes.
ACSA Position: Watch.
Status: Signed by governor.
School finance
SB 527, Galgiani. Education finance:
local control funding formula: home-to-
school transportation: COLA. Would
require state funding received for specified
pupil transportation programs to be includ-
ed as part of the LCFF. This bill would,
commencing with the 2018–19 fiscal year,
have provided a cost-of-living adjustment
for transportation programs for all school
districts receiving this funding.
ACSA Position: Support
Status: Vetoed by the governor.
SB 751, Hill. School finance: school
districts: annual budgets: reserve balance.
Modifies the school district reserve cap
law established in 2014 in the state bud-
get. Current law mandates that, if certain
economic conditions are met, a reserve cap
would become active and would affect all
California school districts. SB 751 exempts
basic aid districts and small districts with
ADA of 2,500 or less from this law. The
bill also modifies the conditions under
which the reserve cap would be triggered to
require an accumulation of an amount equal
to at least 3 percent of the Proposition 98
minimum guarantee before the reserve cap
is imposed.
ACSA Position: Neutra l
Status: Signed by governor.
School safety
AB 424, McCarty. Possession of a fire-
arm in a school zone. Removes the author-
ity of school superintendents to provide
permission to employees to possess a fire-
arm within a school zone given they had a
concealed weapon permit.
ACSA Position: Neutral
Status: Signed by governor.
Latina leaders connect
Palmdale School District’s Eloisa Acevedo, Stacy Wenzel, Marlene Batista and Victor Torres, L-R,
enjoy a chance to share during the CALSA Latina Leadership Network’s 2017 Female Voices in
Leadership event Oct. 21 at University of La Verne. “Building Stronger Connections” was the focus
of the inaugural event that included a well-received keynote address on research in women’s lead-
ership by Margaret Grogran, dean of the College of Educational Studies at Chapman University.
The California Association of Latino Superintendents and Administrators is a community of diverse
educational leaders skilled in addressing the needs of Latino and Latina students and dedicated to
increasing the number of highly effective Latino and Latina administrators. CALSA advocates for the
continued development and placement of Latino and Latina educational leaders who are committed
to quality public education.