(1) Existing law places various requirements on county superintendents of schools and the Superintendent of Public Instruction in reviewing and determining whether a county office of education's adopted budget will allow the county office of education to meet its financial obligations during the fiscal year and, based on current forecasts, for 2 subsequent fiscal years.
This bill would revise certain requirements on county superintendents of schools and the Superintendent regarding determinations of fiscal distress for county offices of education, and would require the Superintendent to provide a written notice of going concern determination to the county board of education and the county superintendent of schools under certain circumstances.
Existing law requires a county superintendent of schools to annually submit a report, at a regularly scheduled November board meeting, to the governing board of each school district in the county, the county board of education, and the county board of supervisors describing the state of schools in the county that meet specified criteria for low performance. Existing law requires the county superintendent of schools, or a designee of the county superintendent of schools, to visit those schools at least annually for purposes of developing that report, and requires at least 25% of those visits to be unannounced.
This bill, for the 2021–22 school year only, would require unannounced visits pursuant to those provisions to only be undertaken at the discretion of the county superintendent of schools in consultation with local health officials and in compliance with any orders or guidance issued by any local or state public health official, and would waive the 25% requirement if the county superintendent of schools, in consultation with local public health officials, determines that unannounced visits are unable to be conducted due to identified health and safety concerns.
(2) Existing law authorizes a school district or charter school to maintain a transitional kindergarten program. Existing law requires, in the 2014–15 school year and each school year thereafter, and as a condition of receipt of apportionments for pupils in a transitional kindergarten program, a child who will have their 5th birthday between September 2 and December 2, to be admitted to a transitional kindergarten program maintained by a school district or charter school. Existing law authorizes, for the 2015–16 school year and each school year thereafter, a school district or charter school to admit a child to a transitional kindergarten program who will have their 5th birthday after December 2 but during that same school year, as provided.
This bill would revise the timespans for those mandatory and optional admittance requirements to be phased in from the 2022–23 school year to the 2025–26 school year, as provided, at which time a school district or charter school, as a condition of receipt of apportionments for pupils in a transitional kindergarten program, would be required to admit to a transitional kindergarten program maintained by the school district or charter school a child who will have their 4th birthday by September 1.
This bill would establish the California Prekindergarten Planning and Implementation Grant Program as a state early learning initiative with the goal of expanding access to classroom-based prekindergarten programs at local educational agencies, defined as school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools. The bill would appropriate $300,000,000 from the General Fund to the State Department of Education for allocation to local educational agencies for grants for the 2021–22 fiscal year. The bill would require the Superintendent to allocate $200,000,000 of that amount to local educational agencies as base grants, enrollment grants, and supplemental grants for specified purposes. The bill would require the Superintendent to award $100,000,000 in competitive grants to local educational agencies to increase the number of highly qualified teachers available to serve in specified capacities.
(3) This bill would enact the California Community School Partnership Act, and would appropriate $2,836,660,000 from the General Fund to the Superintendent to administer the California Community Schools Partnership Program. The bill would require the Superintendent of Public Instruction to award grants on a competitive basis to qualifying entities, as defined, to support the establishment of new, and for the expansion or continuation of existing, community schools at local educational agencies, as provided, and to contract with local educational agencies to create a network of at least 5 regional technical assistance centers to provide support and assistance to local educational agencies and community schools.
(4) The After School Education and Safety Program Act of 2002 establishes the After School Education and Safety Program to serve pupils in kindergarten and grades 1 to 9, inclusive, at participating public elementary, middle, junior high, and charter schools. The act requires first priority enrollment to pupils who are identified by the program as homeless youth, as defined, and pupils who are identified by the program as being in foster care, and 2nd priority enrollment, for programs serving middle and junior high school pupils, to pupils who attend the program daily.
This bill would require pupils who are eligible for free or reduced-price meals to additionally receive first priority enrollment.
Existing law requires a program established under the act to charge family fees, requires a program that charges family fees to waive or reduce the cost of these fees for pupils who are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, and prohibits a program from charging a fee to a family for a child if the program knows that the child is a homeless youth or for a child who the program knows is in foster care.
This bill would instead require a program that charges family fees to waive the cost of these fees for pupils who are eligible for free or reduced-price meals, for a child who is a homeless youth, or for a child who the program knows is in foster care. The bill would also require a program that charges family fees to schedule fees on a sliding scale that considers family income and ability to pay.
(5) Existing law requires the Controller to draw warrants on the State Treasury throughout each year in specified amounts for purposes of apportioning funding to school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools. Existing law, commencing with the 2019–20 fiscal year, requires the warrants scheduled to be drawn in June to instead be drawn in July of the same calendar year.
This bill instead would amend that provision to no longer require that deferral to be conducted after the 2020–21 fiscal year.
Existing law, commencing with the 2020–21 fiscal year, requires specified amounts of warrants scheduled to be drawn in February to instead be drawn in November of the same calendar year, requires specified amounts of warrants scheduled to be drawn in March to instead be drawn in October of the same calendar year, requires specified amounts of warrants scheduled to be drawn in April to instead be drawn in September of the same calendar year, and requires specified amounts of warrants scheduled to be drawn in May to instead be drawn in August of the same calendar year.
This bill instead would only require those deferrals to be conducted for the 2020–21 fiscal year. The bill would require warrants for principal apportionments for the months of February, March, and April of the 2020–21 fiscal year described above to instead be drawn in August 2021, as specified.
(6) The Leroy F. Greene School Facilities Act of 1998 (the Greene Act) requires the State Allocation Board to allocate to applicant school districts, as defined, prescribed per-unhoused-pupil state funding for the construction and modernization of school facilities, including hardship funding, and supplemental funding for site development and acquisition. Existing law authorizes the board to require an audit of expenditure reports submitted by a school district pursuant to the Greene Act and to require repayment of certain funds a school district failed to expend in accordance with the law. Existing law requires a school district to repay the funds within 60 days of the notice requiring repayment unless the board determines that repayment of the full liability within 60 days would constitute a severe financial hardship, as defined by the board, for the school district, in which case the board is required to approve a plan of equal annual payments over a period of up to 5 years.
This bill would expand the maximum time for repayment in the case of severe financial hardship from a period of up to 5 years to a period of up to 20 years. The bill would also expressly include the 2006 State School Facilities Fund and the 2016 State School Facilities Fund within those provisions.
(7) Existing law establishes the Full-Day Kindergarten Facilities Grant Program, under the administration of the State Allocation Board, to provide one-time grants to school districts to construct new school facilities or retrofit existing school facilities for the purpose of providing full-day kindergarten classrooms, as specified. For purposes of the program, existing law specifies that kindergarten includes transitional kindergarten. Commencing with the 2019–20 fiscal year, existing law makes the grant program contingent upon an appropriation by the Legislature.
This bill would change the name of this program to the California Preschool, Transitional Kindergarten, and Full-Day Kindergarten Facilities Grant Program and would expressly add providing California state preschool program and transitional kindergarten classrooms as another purpose of the grants. The bill would make county offices of education eligible to receive grants for preschool facilities under the program. The bill would prohibit a school district from using these funds to purchase or install portable classrooms, as defined. The bill would appropriate $490,000,000 for the program for the 2021–22 fiscal year.
(8) Existing law requires a school district that has been organized for more than three years to be lapsed under certain conditions related to the number of registered electors or average daily attendance of pupils in the school district. Existing law authorizes a school district to also be lapsed when there are no school facilities or sites on which to maintain any school in the school district.
This bill would revise the conditions and procedures for the required lapsation of a school district, would authorize a county board of education to defer the lapsation of a school district under certain conditions, and would additionally authorize a school district to be lapsed upon adoption of a resolution approved by a majority of the members of the governing board of the school district and written concurrence of the county superintendent of schools.
(9) For the 1990–91 fiscal year and each fiscal year thereafter, existing law requires that moneys to be applied by the state for the support of school districts, community college districts, and direct elementary and secondary level instructional services provided by the state be distributed in accordance with certain calculations governing the proration of those moneys among the 3 segments of public education. Existing law makes that provision inapplicable to the 1992–93 to 2020–21 fiscal years, inclusive.
This bill would also make that provision inapplicable to the 2021–22 fiscal year.
(10) The Classroom Instructional Improvement and Accountability Act, an initiative approved by the voters as Proposition 98 at the November 8, 1988, statewide general election, amended the California Constitution to, among other things, set forth a formula for computing the minimum amount of revenues that the state is required to appropriate for the support of school districts and community college districts based on one of 3 tests in any given fiscal year. Commencing with the 2021–22 fiscal year, existing law requires an appropriation to be made from the General Fund in the annual Budget Act for the support of elementary and secondary public schools and community colleges to supplement funding appropriated pursuant to Proposition 98 annually in an amount equal to 1.5% of total General Fund revenues, as calculated pursuant to Proposition 98, until the sum of the supplemental appropriations equals $12,366,107,000.
This bill would repeal the latter provision requiring a supplemental appropriation.
(11) This bill would appropriate $1,500,000,000 from the General Fund to the Superintendent for the Educator Effectiveness Block Grant, which the bill would establish, and would require the Superintendent to apportion those funds to school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and the state special schools to provide professional learning for teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals who work with pupils, and classified staff that interact with pupils.
(12) This bill would appropriate $50,000,000 from the General Fund to the Superintendent to apportion to the Orange County Department of Education to award no less than $30,000,000 as grants to local educational agencies for the purpose of funding schoolwide and districtwide implementation of services or practices aligned to the Multi-tiered Systems of Support framework. The bill would require the Superintendent to establish a process, in consultation with and subject to the approval of the executive director of the state board, to select a local educational agency, a local educational agency in partnership with an institution of higher education or nonprofit educational service provider, or a consortia, to partner with the Orange County Department of Education and the Butte County Office of Education to expand the state's capacity to support local educational agencies' implementation of social-emotional learning, trauma-informed practices, and culturally relevant, affirming, and sustaining practices, and would require no more than $20,000,000 of the $50,000,000 appropriation to be available for these purposes. To the extent the bill would impose additional duties on certain county offices of education, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
(13) This bill would appropriate $547,513,000 from the General Fund to the Superintendent for purposes of the A–G Completion Improvement Grant Program, which the bill would establish, to provide additional supports to local educational agencies to help increase the number of California high school pupils, particularly unduplicated pupils, who graduate high school meeting the A–G subject matter requirements for admission to the University of California and the California State University. For the 2021–22 fiscal year, the bill would require the Superintendent to allocate $300,000,000 as A–G Access Grants, and $100,000,000 as A–G Success Grants to school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools meeting certain requirements to be used for activities that directly support pupil access to, and successful completion of, the A–G course requirements, as prescribed. For the 2021–22 fiscal year, the bill would require the Superintendent to allocate $147,513,000 as A–G Learning Loss Mitigation Grants to be used to allow pupils who receive a grade of "D," "F," or "Fail" in an A–G approved course in the spring semester of 2020 or the 2020–21 school year to retake those A–G courses or to offer credit recovery opportunities to all pupils to ensure pupils are able to graduate high school on time, as prescribed. The bill would require the Superintendent to annually post on the department's internet website in an easily accessible location a list of each local educational agency's and each individual high school's A–G completion rate, as defined.
(14) Existing law establishes a public school financing system that requires state funding for county superintendents of schools, school districts, and charter schools to be calculated pursuant to a local control funding formula, as specified. Existing law requires funding pursuant to the local control funding formula to include, in addition to a base grant, supplemental and concentration grant add-ons that are based on the percentage of pupils who are English learners, foster youth, or eligible for free or reduced-price meals, as specified, served by the county superintendent of schools, school district, or charter school.
This bill, commencing with the 2021–22 fiscal year, would increase the amount of funding received for concentration grant add-ons for school districts and charter schools, as specified.
(15) Under existing law, the local control funding formula uses the numbers of pupils enrolled in a school district or a charter school who are eligible for free or reduced-price meals as part of the calculation of the apportionment of state funds to be received by that school district or charter school pursuant to the formula. Existing law defines "eligible for free or reduced-price meals" for these purposes. Existing law requires each school district and county superintendent of schools maintaining kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive, to provide each needy pupil with one nutritionally adequate free or reduced-price meal during each schoolday.
This bill would adjust the definition of "eligible for free or reduced-price meals" to carry over the number of pupils at the school who were eligible for free or reduced-price meals from the school year in which the school applied to use a federal universal school meal provision, and to use each pupil's eligibility status in the base year to report eligibility for up to each of the following 3 school years. The bill, commencing with the 2022–23 school year, would require a school district or county superintendent of schools maintaining kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive, or charter school to provide 2 nutritiously adequate school meals free of charge during each schoolday to any pupil who requests a meal without consideration of the pupil's eligibility for a federally funded free or reduced-price meal, with a maximum of one free meal for each meal service period. The bill would require the department to reimburse local educational agencies for all nonreimbursed expenses accrued in providing United States Department of Agriculture reimbursable meals, as specified. This provision would be operative only if the Legislature appropriates funds for its purposes. The bill would require the department to develop and adopt regulations to implement this provision, as specified. To the extent that this provision would impose new duties on local educational agencies, it would constitute a state-mandated local program.
(16) Existing law requires certain components of funding for county superintendents of schools, school districts, charter schools, and certain special education programs to be adjusted for inflation in each fiscal year, as specified. Existing law, notwithstanding those specified inflation adjustments, requires those inflation adjustments for the 2020–21 fiscal year to instead be zero.
This bill, when making those specified inflation adjustments for the 2021–22 fiscal year, would require those adjustments to be 2.7% and to be calculated by first assuming that the adjustments for the 2020–21 fiscal year were 2.31% instead of zero.
(17) Existing law requires the local control funding formula, in part, to be based on average daily attendance, as defined. Existing law s