With new charter school rules official in CA, here’s a roundup of incoming K-12 laws
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2019/10/with-new-charter-school-rules-official.html
By Ricardo Cano,
CalMatters
The most
significant set of revisions to the state’s
charter-school law in more than two decades was signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin
Newsom, putting new curbs on a segment of public schools that has grown over
time, particularly in cities, to enroll more than 600,000 California
kids.
Negotiated over months among lawmakers, charter school advocates and
organized labor, the new laws are expected to make it easier both for local
school boards to deny new charters and for high-performing charter schools to
stay open. Charter schools will have to operate within the boundaries of their
authorizing districts, and charter school teachers will have new credentialing requirements.
The
legislation followed a high-dollar election in which charter schools were a flashpoint between
school reformers and unions anxious to slow the growth of the
largely non-unionized educational sector. But it also addresses school quality and oversight issues that have
cropped up as the number of California charter schools has burgeoned to some 1,300.
The
new laws were celebrated as progress by Newsom and state Superintendent of
Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, who both beat back rivals heavily backed by
wealthy pro-charter donors, and portrayed as a compromise by
the California Charter Schools Association President and CEO Myrna
Castrejón. More restrictive charter proposals – including a cap on charters in California – stalled early in the session. “I’m lovin’ this,” Newsom said as he signed the
bill, but he added that he was “not naive,” and does not assume the charter
debate is over.
Though
the high-profile charter school clash got most of the attention, hundreds of
proposals were introduced this year with potential impact on K-12 education.
Only a fraction made it to Newsom’s desk, as with most
legislation. High-profile bills to lower local parcel tax thresholds and
prohibit schools from hiring teachers through third-party programs such as
Teach For America, for instance, fell short of passage.
A number
of measures that cleared the Legislature remain to be signed or vetoed by
Newsom, who has until Oct. 13 to make a decision. Big proposals that have yet
to be decided would push back school start times for
California middle and high schools, put a $15 billion state bond for education on
the March 2020 ballot, and enhance paid maternity leave protections for
teachers. A second charter-school bill that
would close a loophole some small districts have exploited to authorize
charters far outside their district boundaries also awaits the governor’s
signature.
More
bills, however, have been signed and enacted already. Here are some of the most
notable new California education laws affecting the state’s K-12 and early
childhood pupils and educators.
Check
back at CalMatters.org for
updates on our running tally leading up to the Oct. 13 deadline.
California’s
charter school overhaul
The
laws: Assembly Bill 1505 by Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, Democrat from
Long Beach, Assembly Bill 1507 by Assemblywoman Christy Smith, Democrat from Santa
Clarita, and Senate Bill 126 by Sen. Connie Leyva, Democrat from Chino.
After
months of negotiations and heated debate, new rules are coming for California’s
sector of publicly-funded, independently-operated charter schools. All charter
teachers will be required to hold a state teaching credential, and
local school boards have broader discretion in approving or denying charters,
though charters can still appeal to counties and the state.
Charter schools also will be required to follow the
same open-meeting laws as school districts under a proposal that was among the
first bills Newsom signed as governor. And a loophole will close that had
allowed so-called “far-flung charters” to operate far from the often-tiny school districts that
had authorized — and were being paid to oversee — them.
No more
willful defiance suspensions
The law: SB 419 by Sen. Nancy
Skinner, Democrat from Berkeley.
Largely
cheered by civil rights groups, SB 419 permanently bans California public
schools from suspending students in first through fifth grades for willful
defiance – a justification for suspension and expulsion that advocates for the
bill characterize as too subjective and one that is disproportionately imposed
on black students and LGBTQ youth.
Once
implemented in the 2020-21 school year, the ban on willful defiance suspensions
will be temporarily extended to students in sixth through eighth grade through
2025. The initial version of the bill had called for including high-school
students in the temporary ban on willful defiance suspensions, but was amended
before Newsom signed the bill.
Some
large California districts, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland,
already prohibit willful defiance suspensions to some degree. And suspension
rates for California schools have gone down significantly over the past decade
as the state began to implement suspension curbs in 2015.
Limiting
contact in youth football
The law: AB 1 by Assemblyman Jim
Cooper, Democrat from Elk Grove.
Youth
football programs in California now are now limited to two full-contact
practices per week amid an ongoing public debate over football safety and
mounting concerns that have helped lead to significant dips in participation at
the high-school level.
After
successfully lobbying against a previous proposal that youth football advocates
deemed too extreme because it would have outright banned tackle football at the
youth level, a coalition of coaches and parents went on the offensive and
mobilized behind AB 1.
Unionizing
childcare workers
The law: AB 378 by Assemblywoman
Monique Limón, Democrat from Santa Barbara.
Providers
for children who receive state-subsidized care will now have the right to
organize a union and bargain with the state. Advocates cheered the move because
they believe it will help improve pay and working conditions for
a profession that largely employs women of color.
Advocates
point to this oft-cited research point as reason for more investments in
preschool teachers and childcare providers: More than half of California’s
early childhood workforce relies on public assistance.
Resources
on domestic violence, sexual harassment
The laws: SB 316 by Sen. Susan Rubio,
Democrat from West Covina, and AB 543 by Assemblywoman
Christy Smith, Democrat from Santa Clarita.
Starting
in October 2020, California high schools will be required to print the phone
number for the national domestic violence hotline under SB 316. This follows
another new law implemented this year that requires schools to print the number
for a suicide prevention hotline on the student IDs for pupils in grades 7
through 12.
A
separate new law, AB 543, will also require public high schools in the state to
“prominently and conspicuously display” a poster of a district’s sexual
harassment policy – including steps for reporting sexual harassment accusations
– in every restroom and locker room at a school site.
Stability
for migrant students
The law: AB 1319 by Assemblyman
Joaquin Arambula, Democrat from Fresno.
California’s
100,000-plus migrant students will now be allowed to keep attending their
“school of origin” as opposed to having to enroll in a new school in the event
that their families move to a different residence during the school year.
Though school
districts aren’t obligated to provide transportation under AB 1319, supporters
of the new law say the provision is needed to help bring stability to a student
demographic that research shows is more susceptible to mobility and its ensuing
academic hardships.
More time
for ethnic studies plan
The law: AB 114, a clean-up budget trailer
bill for education
Less a
new law than a technical change to an existing one, AB 114 is nonetheless
significant because it effectively pushes back the state’s timeline for
adopting a model curriculum for ethnic studies by one year.
The
deadline for the State Board of Education to adopt an ethnic studies curriculum
under a 2016 law had been this spring. But state leaders, including the
governor, supported the move to solicit more feedback following a wave of
public criticism that a draft of the curriculum was anti-Semitic and too
politically correct.
Clamping
down on students’ smartphone use
The law: AB 272 by Assemblyman Al
Muratsuchi, Democrat from Torrance.
Local
school boards will now be allowed to ban or limit students’ use of smartphones
while at school except under emergencies or specific circumstances, such as
medical reasons. Though educators and experts note that smartphone use can be
disruptive to classroom instruction, most of the state’s districts already have
policies that address smartphones, according to the California School Boards
Association.
CalMatters.org is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and
politics.
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