AB 278: High Schools: Dream Resource Center Grant Program.

Existing law authorizes the governing board of a school district to provide a comprehensive educational counseling program for all pupils enrolled in the school district. Existing law provides that educational counseling may include counseling in developing pupil knowledge of financial aid planning for postsecondary education, including, among others, financial aid programs and resources for foster and homeless youth.

This bill would establish the Dream Resource Center Grant Program for the purpose of providing pupils, including undocumented pupils, in grades 9 to 12, inclusive, with specified resources. The bill would require the State Department of Education, in administering the program, to review applications and award grants based off of a tiered point system that prioritizes applications for funding, as provided. The bill would authorize a school district, county office of education, or charter school, including those that have already established a Dream Resource Center at one or more schoolsites, to apply to the department to be eligible to receive a grant, as provided.

The bill would require a local educational agency that receives a grant under the program to use it for creating a Dream Resource Center or for supplementing, but not supplanting, an existing Dream Resource Center, as provided. The bill would require the department, on or before June 1, 2026, to submit a report to the appropriate policy committees of the Legislature detailing the successes, best practices, barriers or constraints, and outcomes of Dream Resource Centers funded with these grants.

The bill would condition the implementation of these provisions on an appropriation by the Legislature for these purposes in the annual Budget Act or other statute.