February marks the bill introduction deadline for the legislature with 2,124 bills introduced by both houses. In this month of love and hearts, it’s not looking rosie for the state’s budget. The Legislative Analyst Office’s latest fiscal outlook revenue forecast was updated and their forecast is about $24 billion below the Governor’s Budget but we will continue to center our students’ priorities regardless of budget outlook.
Four Bills We Support
We are proud to have four sponsored bills and are grateful to our assembly partners for taking on these important issues.
AB 1947 (Rivas) Professional Development for CSPP Educators
- Early Edge/ Californians Together sponsored – Expands the number of allowable staff training days under a California’s State Preschool Programs (CSPP) contract from two to six.
- Specifies that when a CSPP contractor enrolls an unspecified percentage of Dual Language Learners (DLLs) and opts to provide three or more days of staff training, one of those days must include DLL professional development.
- Deems professional development provided during regular hours of operation to be days of operation to meet the minimum number of days for part-day and full-day CSPP.
- Status: Introduced
AB 2071(Juan Carrillo) Access and Equity for All English Learners
- CABE/ Californians Together sponsored – Provides 25 three-year incentive and support grants to high-EL impact local educational agencies (LEAs) to engage in local planning and implementation efforts to enact the EL Roadmap. The priority focus for these grants is CA districts with the highest percentage or number of enrolled EL students.
- The California Department of Education (CDE) will be directed to convene a Community of Practice of district leaders across the grantee districts for purposes of sharing lessons learned, models and any materials/tools/resources that may be developed during the planning and implementation phases.
- Requires the State Board of Education to create and adopt a “California English Learner Roadmap: Parent Toolkit,” by December 31, 2025, which will be available to LEAs to assist them as they implement the CA EL Roadmap.
- Status: Introduced
AB 2074 ( Muratsuchi and Alvarez) EL Roadmap- Guiding Practice Statewide
- Californians Together/ CABE Sponsored – Tasks CDE with developing a statewide implementation plan for the English Learner Roadmap with input from LEAs, teachers, parents, and other partners.
- The statewide plan must include, but not limited to the following:
- Efforts to build awareness of the EL Roadmap.
- Clear and measurable statewide goals of implementation.
- Alignment and coherence across state initiatives that reflect the EL Roadmap Policy and principles.
- Guidance for LEAs to incorporate and build alignment and coherence at the local level across programs and services.
- Also requires designated staff at CDE to serve as a point of reference and assistance to all stakeholders to ensure the implementation plan that is created gets disseminated to all the school districts.
- Status: Introduced
AB 2268 (Muratsuchi) English Language Proficiency Assessment – Transitional Kindergarten
- Early Edge/ CABE/ Californians Together sponsored – Exempts transitional kindergarten (TK) students from the administration of the English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPAC) for California.
- As progress is made toward universal TK, an increasingly younger population of four-year-olds is required to undergo the assessment to be identified as ELs under state and federal law.
- Research and analysis suggest that the current application of the ELPAC in TK settings is not developmentally appropriate, may not be a valid instrument for assessing language acquisition, and perhaps most importantly, may have unintended long-term consequences on the students TK programs are intended to benefit.
- Status: Introduced
We appreciate your support and partnership. As we get close to our first committee hearing we will be reaching out to have your organization take action to support these pieces of legislation.
And One We Oppose
AB 2222 (Rubio) Science of Reading
We are in strong opposition to AB 2222 (Rubio) Science of Reading. We are concerned about the efficacy and potentially harmful impacts of both the content and the approach this bill brings. California’s literacy policy needs to embrace the full range of a research-based and comprehensive approach that centrally addresses the developmental needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Please read our letter of opposition and our partner CABE’s opposition letter for more information.