Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Education Finance

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Good morning. We'll start today's hearing, today's budget sub two hearing. We have four items related to Pre K through 12 education and student outcome proposals. We have kind of a brief agenda today. This hearing will cover again four proposals from the January budget that would change the nature of how our fiscal investments could impact students, specifically with a subgroup performance. And of course, this is 10 years after we adopted LCFF.

So it's always time to take a look at how that's working out in our schools throughout California and potentially make some needed tweaks along the way to focus on most important factor, which is our kids, our students, closing the opportunity and achievement gap. So here we are today with these four proposals. So let's begin. Please come forward with the Department of Finance, CDE, LAO. And CCEE. We'll start with DOF and LAO, then CDE. Yes.

Okay, I'm going to start by providing an overview of our accountability proposals, which include the Statewide System of Support and the Local Control and Accountability Plan. And then I'll briefly discuss the Equity Multiplier Proposal, which is the funding piece that will be discussed in more depth during the next panel.

I'm just going to move my mic.

Okay, so, since the inception of the Local Control Funding Formula, or the LCFF and the Related Accountability System, we've engaged in a continuous improvement process to make iterative changes based on experience and feedback. And we've worked hard to support effective implementation while maintaining a commitment to core principles of equity, local engagement and governance.

And in this spirit, and to ensure that all LCFF funding is more transparently and purposefully allocated based on student needs, we've put forth Trailer Bill language amendments that strengthen the ties between the three components of the California accountability system, that's the Local Control and Accountability Plan or the LCAP, the California School Dashboard, and the Statewide System of Support. So we view our accountability amendments as falling within three main categories of changes.

The first category is around making important refinements to the planning and transparency part of the LCAP process. The second is around addressing LCAP goals and actions through a continuous improvement approach, and the third is around strengthening support for LEA's that are struggling with their student outcomes through robust technical assistance. So in the first category, which is around making important refinements to the planning and transparency part of the LCAP process, I want to highlight a few key additions.

We add focused goals which would be required in an LCAP in any instance of an indicator in the lowest performance level, or red on the School Dashboard. That change really focuses the attention specifically on student groups that are struggling, even if just for one year or on one indicator. And the second required goal would be for any LEA that is receiving Equity Multiplier Funding.

In that second instance, the goal has to not only address any student group with a red indicator or the lowest performing, but also any issues with the credentialing and subject matter preparation of its teachers. We also in that first category of changes, we make it clear that the LCAP is to be used to address disparities in student outcomes, using metrics that focus on closing those gaps.

We also require holding a public discussion midyear public discussion on the annual update to improve understanding of the current year implementation and associated gains in student outcomes and to make sure that educational partners have the relevant information to engage in the LCAP development process. We think this would really increase the transparency of the LCAP development so that educational partners are not coming into the annual update without any knowledge of what's been happening in the current year.

We also add long term English learner as a unique student group. On the second category of changes on addressing LCAP goals and actions through a continuous improvement approach. That category consists of a few changes as well. First, we require actions be changed when they're not achieving intended outcomes after a period of three years in the development of an LCAP, an LEA and its educational partners have to set metrics to monitor progress toward meeting their goals.

At a minimum, LCAPs have to include metrics that cover the state priorities. If an action fails to produce the intended goal over a period of three years based on the locally determined metrics, that action would now be deemed ineffective and the required change here is that you would be required to change that action. We also require additional specificity for the measurement of district wide contributing actions.

We establish a more direct and clearer nexus between the continuous improvement processes that are happening through technical assistance and the LCAP. Right now, it's not clear when a district, an LEA is receiving technical assistance through differentiated assistance or other, they don't have to write that in their LCAP. Now this would be a requirement.

Specifically, we tighten the requirements for county offices reviewing and approving district LCAPs, which would raise the bar on LCAP approval for LEAs eligible for differentiated assistance, requiring that they verify that the LCAPs reflect the work underway as part of the assistance process. Our intent here is to check that plans are actually addressing identified student needs by strengthening the requirements in the LCAPs, like with the required focused goals I mentioned, and the work underway through differentiated assistance.

We strengthen LEA's accountability for the funds they receive, ensuring that they serve the students that most need it. The final and third category of Trailer Bill changes is around strengthening support for LEAs struggling with their student outcomes through robust technical assistance. Within that category, we have a few important changes. We strengthen the safety net of the statewide system of support to better respond to ongoing challenges and disparities in student group performance.

For example, if an LEA doesn't submit data through CalPads in time, we want to make sure that they would still be able to receive assistance if they need it. We also establish equity leads within the statewide system of support. Those leads would work in partnership with other existing leads in the system of support, but would bring their expertise in the area to provide more focused assistance on issues related to equity or student outcome disparities.

We also lengthened the differentiated assistance eligibility timeline from the current one to two years, which would allow more of a focus on implementation. We had a recent external evaluation, there was a recent external evaluation of the process, the differentiated assistance process, that found that a two year assistance process would allow the support provided to move beyond root cause analysis and into real implementation.

We also finally, we shift the dashboard reporting timeline to October over a period of four years to allow for earlier insight into the data for LCAP planning and technical assistance. So that concludes the very long Trailer Bill language summary. But in addition to these amendments, we also propose the Governor's Budget also includes 300 million ongoing Proposition 98 funding to establish an equity multiplier add on to the LCFF with the hope of accelerating gains in closing opportunity and outcome gaps.

The funds will be allocated to LEAs with schools serving high concentrations of students eligible for free meals, and I'm going to speak to those specifics when we move to the next issue. But that's just a brief overview. In closing, our proposed refinements to the accountability system seek to leverage the over $80 billion in LCFF funding to better ensure that resources are allocated based on student needs.

Together with the Equity Multiplier Proposal, the proposed changes strengthen the ties between the various components of California's accountability system and ensuring that resources are allocated based on student needs and that related actions and services are effective in closing the persistent opportunity and outcome gaps. That concludes my presentation, but I'm going to take questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good morning. Sara Cortez LAO, I'm going to speak to the system of support chain proposals, and my colleague will speak to the Equity Multiplier and LCAP proposals at issue two. So we think the system of support proposals are an improvement over current practice. Current law doesn't specify when other system of support entities are to provide additional support to districts in differentiated assistance.

While the proposed changes help ensure that LEAs receive support from other entities involved in the assistant, which is particularly important in cases where little, to no improvement has occurred. We do think there needs to be some clarity around the types of support geographic leads will provide once the LEA is in differentiated assistance for three or more years. And there's two specific things we're recommending here. The first is that the assistance be more intensive compared to differentiated assistance provided by the COE.

The second is that the support should take into consideration the strategies that the LEA has already implemented. With regard to the proposed equity leads, we think the role of the equity lead are duplicative of other system of support entities with the added task of providing support to address racial disparities. We question how the support equity leads will provide will be different or more effective than other supports provided through the system of support entities.

I also want to highlight that focusing on racial disparities should be a central part of differentiated assistance since many districts are identified for having performance issues among specific racial subgroups. If the Legislature adopts a proposal to create equity leads, we recommend the state have clearer and narrower objectives for these entities to avoid the duplicative work.

For example, the Legislature could specify that the equity lead is tasked with providing training to COEs to ensure equity is at the center of differentiated assistance and incorporated in all improvement initiatives. The other thing we recommend here is to clarify that all entities within the system of support, not just the equity leads, should support districts in addressing racial disparities, and I'm happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Okay, next speaker at CDE.

Hello chair Members and Members of the community. My name is William McGee. I'm the Director of the Student Achievement and Support Division, present on behalf of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Thank you for the opportunity to present on the System of Support and the collaboration that aids in this endeavor. The System of Support is designed to meet the needs of California schools through three levels of support, level one, which is support for all level two, targeted or differentiated assistance and level three, intensive intervention.

This support is offered to all LEAs and schools. The work of the system of support is organized by 13 lead initiative agencies and three state agencies with specific tasks to building the capacity, support, and resources to ensure that there is a clear point of contact for a school, district or County Office of Education, to seek support responsive to a locally identified need.

The second one is a clear process and responsibility for agencies within the System of Support to work together to connect the school, district, and County Office of Education with relevant resources or avenues for assistance. And three, improve visibility of the resources, expertise, and services available across the state through various agencies and state funded initiatives to support student success. The system of support provides additional assistance in coordination with county offices of education and the CCEE and local educational agencies that need it.

It also intentionally focuses on assisting the receiving LEA to build the necessary capacity to improve student outcomes. Under the Local Control Funding Formula, LEAs, including districts, county offices of education, and charter schools, are eligible for level two targeted differentiated assistance based on their performance on the California School Dashboard. Due to a change in state law, however, charter schools were not eligible for differentiated assistance in 2022. Charter schools will resume eligibility for differentiated assistance with the release of the 2023 dashboard.

Level two targeted differentiated assistance is intended not only to help the LEA address the underlying causes that led to its eligibility for assistance, but also to strengthen the LEA's overall ability to evaluate the effectiveness and strategies and programs, as well as adjust, as appropriate to improve student outcomes. Based on the 2022 dashboard, 617 districts and COEs were eligible for level two support. This support requires a highly coordinated working relationship between the California Department of Education, CCEE, and the State Board of Education.

This is illustrated through continuous communication between agencies as well as open communications to have those not so easy, challenging, but needed conversations that lead to action for support and decision making. The system of support through the geographic leads and lead initiatives have been able to support LEAs in both learning recovery and chronic absenteeism, mostly at the local level.

Exampled efforts include professional development, coaching of LEAs around accelerated learning, work groups, discussions, high quality research and resources, and leverage expertise to share research based and practice based approaches take into account local context support provided to leas through differentiated assistance uses continuous improvement techniques to use local data and empathy, interviews with students and families to surface information, and informs how best to address chronic absenteeism, many times leading to areas of focus and activities in the LCAP and learning continuity and attendance plans.

The CDE is always looking at continuous improvement for our systems. In an effort to provide more effective and tailored support, the CDE differentiated assistance team is visiting county offices of education to learn about the various programs they implement to support students. Through these visits, county offices of education have allowed us to see the positive, effective areas of their program and have been very vulnerable and transparent about where they want to see improvements and growth.

As of now, the CDE is providing differentiated assistance to 11 county Offices of Education, and in most recent years, the CDE has provided support to up to 31 county offices of education. To enhance the effectiveness of support to the COEs, the CDE is looking to increase the support from one full time equivalency to four full time equivalencies. Currently, the CDE is not afforded full time positions to conduct this work.

To address this challenge of CDE staff availability to serve as differentiated assistance providers, the research team recommends that the state provide funding to CDE to provide differentiated assistance to county offices of education. While their recommendation says this funding should be based upon the number of county offices that choose CDE as their provider, CDE staff provides support to county offices in the DA process, just not as the main facilitator in some cases. This requires staffing.

This requires staffing nonetheless, and with the added support proposed in the trailer Bill Language for Education Code 52072.5, this collaborative support with CCEE to provide more intense DA support will also require needed dedicated staff. In closing, we are very excited about the collaborative partnership for the state system of support and all of the agencies. We are eager to continue to improve the areas of growth in the system and happy about the opportunity to bolster what is working well in the system for continuous positive academic improvement. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Final speaker, please.

Yeah. Good morning chair McCarty and Members of the Committee. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Chris Hartley, I'm deputy Executive Director at CCEE. And first I just want to share my gratitude for you having these conversations and important discourse here this morning. It's great to be here with my colleagues that typically see you guys all on Zoom, so hear you all in flesh and blood is perfect. The backup materials you have around CCEE are pretty darn thorough.

And just to capitalize on some of the comments from Mr. McGee, I'll talk a little bit more deeply about universal, targeted and intensive supports that exist within the Statewide System of Support. One of the things that is critical, and it's been mentioned before today, is the work with our state partners and the constant conversations and convenings that we have. And listening to understand where our positions are and how we can best support students is critical to the work.

We work hard to facilitate and coordinate and convene with our partnerships throughout the state, primarily when you think about the lead agencies. So you see in some of your materials descriptions of what Geo leads do, SELPA leads. But it's also important to remember there's a lot of expert lead agencies out there as well. That complement the system of support.

So as state agencies, we get the pleasure of convening these folks to align their services and resources in a way that creates a through line to district to district implementation. So you have giant whole child initiatives that are complex in nature. They involve lots of difficulty around programming, planning, what works best for a school site at a local level, how to use the funding to make all this stuff happen for schools. And we get the honor to help folks with basically three levels of support.

First level of support that we want to talk a little bit more deeply about is universal. Universal support is supports and services that are available to every school district in the State of California, going through county offices of education, who truly serve as the foundation and the backbone for the system of support. When you think about California, we're the most diverse state in the nation, 58 counties. I'm from Humboldt County and drove down yesterday. I counted like eight counties that I went through.

I'm like, my goodness. So the State of California, extremely diverse. You hear the statement, you've been in one county, you've been in one county. So we know that the needs for everybody are very different throughout the state. And a universal approach allows us to provide services and support that are critically accessible. I'm really fortunate to have one of my colleagues here today. I want to introduce Mindy Fattig, who's one of our senior advisors at CCEE.

We ran out of chairs, so I'm going to ask Mindy to speak on the microphone to share an example of a one system collective initiative that we have going on at CCEE at this.

Thank you again, I'm Mindy Fattig, Senior Advisor with CCEE under the Statewide System of Support. And as Chris elaborated on and speaking from Will from CDE as well, It takes a lot of integration. We have a lot of initiatives in California, and again, any new initiatives, we're welcoming new initiatives to the state in our system of support, but we have to do so in an intentional, cohesive way so we're not unintentionally duplicating services for our students and our districts.

So one of the things the CCEE project has convened over the last year is the One System Collective Executive Advisory Board. It's comprised of county office folks, LEA folks, SELPA folks, and our state agency partners. And what that collective is doing is we realize not everyone knows what's out there. And more importantly, equity and access.

Whether you're a small rural county in far Northern California or a large urban, we all need to have the same information and the same way to access those tremendous resources that are happening in the State of California. So we are working collectively at CCEE with our Advisory One System Group to create an initiative inventory for the State of California. And we're going to start at the universal level.

So you as an LEA, you as an Assembly Member, a parent, community Member, can go on this initiative inventory, either search by dashboard, subgroup, or special education indicator and or keywords, and it'll pop up all the universal resources that are provided through the statewide system of support initiatives in California for all of our students to access. So that's one way that we're trying to address the gap in the resources and the knowledge of those resources.

And again, any initiatives that are added onto the system, we have a way to see what's already there and what's already working and highlighting those best practices and those universal resources. So, Chris, I'll turn over you now for targeted, and I'll take questions when time appropriate.

Thank you so much. An example of targeted assistance. We've been out in the field talking to our school leaders, and when we look at the whole child initiatives, we realize they have their scope, they have their goals in mind. But without good leadership at school sites, the ability to implement the whole child initiatives is very difficult. So we want to focus on leadership skills and development, and we targeted small school districts in the State of California.

If you look at a lot of the professional development opportunities available, oftentimes our small school district superintendents and leaders are left out of the loop. And when you're running a small district, you kind of do it all. You're the Superintendent, you're the principal, you might be driving the bus one day, you might be serving meals at lunch. So our attention to give them our support and service is really important to us.

So we started this year a targeted service around a leadership Institute, again, focused on small school district leadership. We've got great attendance in that program. We have our first cohort that's going to finish up here in June, and we'll be starting a second year of it in July, in this summer. And so I just wanted to point that out. That would be a level of, this is targeted support.

So we're giving leadership the type of networking skills and confidence that they need to be able to do their jobs to the best of ability. An area of a higher level of targeted support, but also universal, is the community engagement initiative. I want to talk briefly about that. So the community engagement initiative is in its fourth year. We've also received an opportunity to go to another round, and we're really excited to have a 2.0 version of that.

But the feedback from the field is that our groups are out helping school districts develop professional learning networks and strategies about how to have vulnerable conversations with your school communities and design of your LCAP strategies and your school strategies to best serve the students in your community. I realize that we're short on time, so I appreciate the opportunity to be here, and we'll answer any questions as they come.

Okay, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Let me start with Mr. Muratsuchi, our Education Committee Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I wanted to start off by trying to look at the bigger picture, and I wanted to ask the Legislative Analysts, I was here in 2013 when we passed the Local Control Funding Formula. So that was the LCFF that was passed in 2013. How many years have we been using the LCAP system?

Edgar Cabral with the Legislative Analyst Office. I believe the 2014-15 was the first year where districts were required to create an LCAP itself. So I think we had LCFF was passed. We had a year to develop the template, and the structure since then is when districts have been doing it. So that would probably, I think, eight or nine rounds of LCAPs.

Okay, and then when did dashboards go online?

The dashboard, it's either 2017 or 2018. We can get back to you specifically, but it took several years. The data on the dashboard initially was looking at both actual performance and also looking at change over time. So I think there was a need for a few additional years of data. In addition, in 2014-15 the state shifted to the Smarter Balance Test, the Common Core Line Assessments. And so when LCFF was passed, we knew we were in transition.

So it took a couple of years for the state to have multiple years of data for that.

And then how many years have we had the statewide system of support.

The first year when we funded that state science system of support, like the Differentiated Assistance, the Regional Geographic Leads, SELPA Leads, that started in 2018-19.

Okay, so it's all been staggered over the last 10 years.

Yeah. And so for those, you had essentially two years of funding, and then you had the pandemic, and then now we're sort of. So we barely had a couple of years to sort of get that system up and running.

Okay.

But going back to when the LCFF first mean, California took the lead in the nation in terms of passing this progressive system of providing more funding for low income students, for English language learner students, and for foster kids, when did districts start actually receiving the concentrated dollars under LCFF.

So beginning in 13-14, the state provided additional funding towards LCFF. The main thing in terms of the growth from there, I think it's either 18-19 or 19-20, when the state fully implemented the LCFF rates. In the meantime, the way funding was provided is we looked at how much funding you had received previously, how much you were supposed to receive under LCFF, and then provide additional increases. So at that time, during that transition period, that growth is really dependent on where you were before and after.

And so in General, we had districts that had high shares of low income and English learner students received the biggest increases during that period. But it wasn't always exactly that way because there were some districts that maybe for whatever reason historically had been higher or lower funded and their rates were a little different.

Okay, that was a mouthful, a lot of complications. But basically, we've been giving more money to districts with higher concentrations of low income students, disadvantaged students, for about the last 10 years.

Right now, we would be getting on 10 years since we started transitioning into the LCFF, at least.

Okay, so 10 years, approaching 10 years of LCFF, what data exists to show that we've made progress in closing the achievement gap, especially as it relates to black and Latino students?

So, looking at the data, there's a challenge in looking at the data, because when we enacted LCFF, we were using old standardized tests that we're not using anymore, and then we shifted to the Common Core. And so I think tracking all the way from right before to after is challenging. In General, what we've seen overall is improvements in an achievement. If you're looking at standardized tests, we have not seen significant closing of gaps.

If you look at the statewide, what are looking at, for example, white students, the White-Black achievement gap, for example, has not substantially closed during that period. There have been a number of reports trying to look at more granularly the effects of LCFF. Some of them show positive effects. For example, districts that are above 55% that are low income or EL, that have overall seen greater improvements than those that are below. And 55% is where that concentration threshold is.

But there are some, when you look at the data more detailed, those districts are doing better, but the gains aren't necessarily always with all the subgroups that are there. Oftentimes the subgroups that have performed worse in the past are not seeing the same level of growth.

Okay, so I want to make sure I heard you correctly. So in about 10 years of LCFF, Statewide we haven't made much progress in terms of reducing the achievement gap in terms of the white students versus black students.

That's right.

Okay. But you indicated that there is good evidence that we have made progress with the concentration grant school districts, the districts with the highest levels, highest concentration of poverty.

That's right.

Okay. We've made some progress, but we have clearly more work to go in terms of accomplishing the overall goals of the Local Control Funding Formula. And that's where I come back to all the programs that you're describing. I appreciate that someone made the point that there are so many initiatives that there needs to be coordination to make sure that these statewide efforts are actually translated into the classrooms where it actually makes a difference for kids.

And I'm concerned that it's a lot of, I mean, conceptually it makes sense that, that we, we have support programs for local educational agencies, for local school districts, but I don't hear specifics in terms of how these initiatives actually translate into what happens in the classroom. I was wondering if any of these speakers can address that.

Lina Grant, Department of Finance so I can speak a little bit to that question. I think we share the concern that when we have all of this work that we're requiring and requirements that we are implementing, that it's difficult to ascertain whether there is actual progress being done on the ground at the school site level.

One of the things our proposal tries to do is to address this problem by clarifying in the LCAP requiring that leas as they go through the LCAP development process, that they work with parents and the community members in the development of that process. And that's why we had that mid year update requirement, because we were hearing from different communities that by the time they got the annual update, the LCAP is a very long and already fleshed out document, kind of finished.

And we wanted there to be an iterative process for updating and developing that document. We wanted there to be feedback and input from the community in developing that really important document, because that's how the community learns about what the district is actually doing with the funding that they receive. An LCAP would be held up if the LEA's budget wasn't reflective of the goals that are in the LCAP and vice versa.

So what we're trying to do with these accountability changes is to really tighten our requirements, because it's one thing to just write it down and have it be published annually, like checking the box and saying, here's my annual update. I've conformed my community, but we really want to make it an iterative kind of dialogue with community Members, I think.

William McGee with the California Department of Education. One of the ways I believe in listening to your question that you can see what's happening in the classroom is, as Chris mentioned, with the initiatives and professional development, when differentiated assistance is being provided along with the County Office of Education, then you can see how they're working with their LEA, and then you can also see how the LEA is working with individual school sites.

One of the things that we did was our team took some of West Ed's recommendations to strengthen differentiated assistance. And we've been visiting the county offices, as I mentioned. And when we did visit, there were a whole bunch of us as adults crying in the room because we visited an educational facility where the children were incarcerated.

And so what we were able to do was see evidence of the work from differentiated assistants and what was happening in that classroom with the way the children were speaking and things of that nature. One of the things that standardized test scores don't always show is the progress that children are making in other areas, such as communication, mental health, social, emotional, and things of that nature. So to answer your question, that is one way you can see it.

We do know that there is still work to be done.

Yeah. And I would just add value to that. When you take a look at the tremendous amount of expertise that exists across the system of support between all these leaders and experts in Geo Leads and SELPA leads and all the different agencies out serving students, the critical nature is how does a district and a school access those services.

So when you hear Mindy Fattig talk about things like the One System Collective, how we're aligning and making districts aware of how they can access the services and supports that meet their needs in a local context, that's one way we can demystify the system of support so that it increases accessibility and proves cohesion.

Okay. Again, I appreciate the concept. My, Mr. McGee, you talked about how there was training.

For

LEAs to deal with, to provide greater support for educators and educating incarcerated or formerly incarcerated students. Can you talk about, just so I can get a better idea, who provided what training to which school district and how did that translate into what actually happened in the classroom? One example.

Okay, that's a big question. I mean, we would have to go into some detail on that. For instance, we visited, I believe it was a county office that was right down the street from here. And so what we did through the California Superintendents Association, they supported us with saying, hey, we would like you guys to visit so you can actually see, learn about the programs. And so to answer your question, I would have to see who that county office is receiving differentiated assistance from.

And then we could then dig deeper into what was going on, the professional development and what strategies that they use, that we can then see the evidence in the classroom. So along with what Chris stated, aligning the initiatives, aligning the support, we can really dig deep into that and then see what was happening. For instance, I believe we provided differentiated assistance to 31 county offices in previous years.

This was before my time at CDE, and a number of those county offices were able to exit differentiated assistance based on the criteria they were identified for. So in that instance, that was California Department of Education supporting the state system of support and delivering that differentiated assistance where we saw those improvements. And then the last comment I think I'll make before I go on mute is we're also asking those LEAs, what is it that they're doing? Will you share your best practices? What went well?

Where can we improve? So that way we can bolster those type of efforts and see more of the increase in academic achievement for children.

All right, sounds like there's data, then, that specific districts received the support and they were able to move out of the substandard performance that was being displayed on the dashboard, is that what you're saying?

Correct. For the indicators that they were identified for, they were no longer eligible for differentiated assistance. For those indicators, they made improvement.

Okay.

All right. Well, that's the kind of data that I would be interested in focusing on, to making sure that these programs are actually making a difference. So thank you very much.

Yeah. Maybe to follow up on, Mr. Muratsuchi, I kind of put this in my head, in addition to the construction of the capital in my head right now, it's about to go down behind us. Of things that we do outside of school districts to help them succeed or monitor them. We have ThickMat, which is easier with counting. Like, are you running out of money? When will you go bankrupt? When do you need us to take over?

That's kind of a similar effort outside of CDE school districts. This is a little bit different. It's hard to pinpoint. And some of this in the laundry list honestly gives me a headache, too, in addition to what we're hearing behind us, because I can't understand what this all means. A lot of gobbledygook. No disrespect to the people doing this tremendous amount of work.

I guess the question is, do we have any examples where this actually works in helping districts improve academic success for the cohort of students that we're trying to help. So what evidence do we have that this is? Can you point to an example like, hey, we found this district down know northern Orange County and we did x, Y and Z and this is working now?

Chris Hardly with the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence. I could speak to a couple of examples from the Community Engagement Initiative where we have strong district partnerships that have gone over several years now and they are monitoring their data closely with regards to student engagement and student achievement. The program is a peer led opportunity for districts to not only learn along with their peers at the CCE, but also from each other, where they develop problems of practice specific to their student needs.

And we've had a great partnership with Anaheim School District in Southern California where they've recently shared their experience with the CEI Initiative and how it helped them to really have vulnerable conversations with their community Members, their parents, and incorporate student leadership into the voice and how that shapes their LCAP, which is directly related to LCFF funding that you mentioned earlier, and that they've been tracking progress with regards to the community engagement and that by understanding more clearly what the community needs are, by creating a safe space for parents to feel more comfortable sharing their feelings and their thoughts in their school setting, they're seeing marketed results from that.

So there's great opportunities for to come back. Be happy to do that with very specific examples of how the rubber is hitting the road. I think that's what you're asking. What truly is the through line between this concept at the state to what's happening at a school site? We can definitely highlight those examples in a more detailed.

Yes, I just threw out there northern Orange County. You did pick northern Orange County district, but what specifically changed there? Like, what did you see? How do we help? What changed?

As far as exact student achievement? I'd have to pull on that for.

Any district, any of our thousand districts. Can you give us examples of how this effort, it sounds good, but I just want to paint a picture for us how it actually works. Can anybody give an example?

I do have a colleague that would like to share the work around direct technical assistance. If I could call Stephanie Gregson, that'd be great.

Good morning.

Stephanie Gregson, deputy Executive Director at CCEE. I lead the teaching, learning and leading center that provides direct technical assistance to those most struggling districts across the state. I can give you a prime example of a school, district, and two schools here in Sacramento around student progress. It's what we call the intensive assistance model.

So we have a model for two schools, and actually 17 across the state, but two specifically here in Sac City Unified School District, Elder Creek and Harkness Elementary, where we are focused in on providing instructional coaches in English language development, literacy, mathematics, leadership, assessment, and professional learning communities. These staff are identifying essential standards for their students. They are looking at every single student and how they're progressing towards those essential standards by having common formative assessments.

Already in six months, we have seen student progress go from their beginning of year to their middle of year assessments. Every single student has grown substantially, whereas they were flatlined previous to this intensive support. So that is one very specific example that we have of two local schools, but we have this intensive assistance model in 17 schools across the state.

Sure. Mr. Muratsuchi.

Ma'am. So I'm just curious. You said intensive support for those two particular elementary schools. What does that actually mean?

So what does it mean? It's a very intense process, and it's really about taking common sense and making it common practice.

Okay.

Intense common sense, common practice. What does that actually mean?

Okay, so every single grade level. So every teacher in every grade level looks at the Common Core state standards for their grade level. They identify which are the essential standards that kindergartens need to know and understand to be successful. They articulate that conversation with first grade teachers, okay, I'm a kindergarten teacher. How do I make sure that my student is going to be successful in first grade? Let's have a conversation with first grade teachers.

They say, I need my first graders to come in knowing this, this, and this. Okay, so they have articulation from TK all the way through 6th grade because we're focusing on elementary schools about the essential standards that a TK needs to go in to be successful all the way through 6th grade. So there is a through line of those essential standards. Then they create common formative assessments for those essential standards. They measure student progress every four to six weeks at the max.

Sometimes it's Shorter, depending on the lessons and those essential standards. And they determine at that moment in time whether the student has learned it or has not. And then they ask themselves, what are we going to do if they have learned it? What are we going to do if they have not learned it? And they differentiate the instruction based on if a student has learned it, and if a student has not, then they reassess.

So they are constantly assessing and checking for understanding with their students on an ongoing basis. But it's based on every single student's individual progress on that essential standard.

So it's CCEE staff that meets with each one of those teachers to go over the content standards to make sure that they're doing these follow up assessment tests.

We have a partnership with the school district and coaches that do this work with us. Yes. Because we are a small agency, and this is a large initiative.

All right, thank you.

Okay. Thank you. We will hold this issue open and move on to the next item, the LCFF multiplier proposal.

...

We have DOF, then LAO, then CDE.

Yes. Thank you. Lina Grant with the Department of Finance. So in the previous panel, I provided an overview of the accountability proposals included in the Governor's Budget, which include changes to the LCAP, or the Local Control and Accountability Plan, and the statewide systems of support. To accompany the changes that were discussed previously, the Governor's Budget includes 300 million ongoing Proposition 98 funding to establish an equity multiplier add-on to the Local Control Funding Formula, or LCFF, to accelerate gains in closing opportunity and outcome gaps.

Beginning in the 24-25 fiscal year, the amount appropriated will be adjusted by a cost of living adjustment. These funds will be allocated to local educational agencies with schools serving high concentrations of students eligible for free meals. Specifically, funding would be generated by schools with 90% or more free meal eligibility for elementary and middle schools and 85% or more free meal eligibility for high schools.

Under this proposal, LEAs with eligible schools will receive significant additional resources and would be required to use the funding on services and supports that directly benefit the eligible schools.

As mentioned during the prior panel, an LEA that has a school site that meets the thresholds for funding under the LCFF equity multiplier would have to develop focused goals within the LCAB that address any underlying issues in the credentialing and subject matter preparation of the school's educators, if that's applicable, and an LEA would also be required to create a focused goal if any student group at the LEA is in the lowest performance level on one or more state indicators on the California school dashboard.

So, although the equity multiplier proposal does include an additional 300 million in ongoing funding for eligible schools, it is worth reiterating that our proposed refinements to the accountability system that were discussed during the previous panel seek to leverage the over 80 billion in the Local Control Funding Formula funding to better ensure that resources are allocated based on student needs.

With the addition of this equity multiplier funding, the proposal recognizes that beyond the 13.4 billion that's estimated to be provided in supplemental and concentration grant funds in 23-24, school sites that serve high concentrations of low income families need additional resources regardless of district-wide demographics. This concludes my presentation and I'm happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Good morning Mr. Chair and Members. Michael Alferes with the Legislative Analyst Office. Our detailed analysis is included as a hearing agenda attachment and our high level comments are included in your agenda starting on page 11. I'll keep my comments here at a high level. So, regarding the equity multiplier proposal, we think that the Administration has identified a key issue. We think that bringing more attention to school sites and subgroups is warranted.

However, we don't think that the key issue here is a lack of funding to address the achievement gaps. We are recommending the Legislature reject the $300 million in funding for the equity multiplier and instead consider options to increase transparency. Sorry. Our funding is spread across our school sites. The 300 million proposed is relatively small compared with the estimated 13 billion that the state is providing in 22-23 in supplemental and concentration grants.

We estimate that 98% of equity multiplier fund schools are in districts that receive concentration grants, meaning 55% of more of their students are English learners, low income students, or foster youth. Since districts are already expected to use their concentration and supplemental grant funding to target these schools, it's not necessarily clear what this funding will address that couldn't be addressed with the supplemental concentration grant funding.

So rather than provide additional funding, we think that the state can take steps to provide greater transparency regarding how school districts spend their funding across school sites. Ensuring consistency in fiscal reporting across districts can be challenging. So, instead of using spending data to increase transparency, we're recommending focusing on how staff are allocated across school sites, since most school spending is related to staff compensation. Specifically, we recommend the state require districts to publicly report three data points for each of their schools outside of their LCAPs.

One, the share of teachers that are fully credentialed and properly assigned, two, the share of teachers with less than three years of experience, and three, the student to teacher ratios for each of their school sites. This is all information that districts collect in some way, shape or form, but is not in a format that is easily accessible for families to look at and compare between schools within their districts.

Having this information will help give the public in the state a good sense of how total funding is spread across schools, not just supplemental and concentration grant funding, and whether a district has significant disparities in staffing across their school sites. Regarding the proposed LCAP changes, we found them to be positive as they encourage districts to bring greater attention to lower performing schools and subgroups. We are recommending the Legislature adopt all of the proposed LCAP changes with just a few modifications.

One particular recommendation that I'll highlight here is regarding the focus goals. As proposed, the focus goals for equity multiplier schools are the only ones that are required to review whether there might be any staffing disparities and take actions to address them. Not the focus goals for school sites or districts that have subgroups in the lowest performance indicator on any of the state dashboard. We are recommending that this requirement to review staffing disparities be applied to all focus schools, not just the ones for equity multiplier schools.

We also have minor recommendations for the mid year LCAP update and ways to make LCAP documents shorter. Lastly, on this piece, we think that clarity is needed on whether spending supplemental concentration grant funding on low performing racial groups is allowable under current law. In our conversations with districts and county offices of education, we found differing opinions on whether or not this was allowable under current law.

We do think that supporting funding activities to support low performing racial subgroups is consistent with the intent of LCFF and reducing the racial achievement gaps, and at this point, we do not think that statutory changes are required to make this allowable and rather that the state can clarify this by issuing specific guidance on this issue. That concludes our comments and happy to answer any questions at appropriate time.

Thank you. Okay. Finally, let's hear from CDE.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Blake Johnson from the California Department of Education on behalf of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurman. CDE, the California Department of Education, is committed to accelerating learning gains and closing opportunity gaps for our Black students, American Indian students, homeless youth, and students with disabilities, which have a chronic absenteeism rate of over 40% compared with the state rate of 30%. Many of these students also fall into high need schools in our state.

This important proposal will create a new supplemental grant to the LCFF, funding the state's poorest schools and targeting racial disparities statewide. These dollars can help close the achievement gap in our Black, American Indian, and students with disabilities, and students that have the lowest performing student outcomes. Key to this proposal is the ongoing funding. Over the last few years, the state has launched several budget programs with the goal of enhancing outcomes for diverse student populations.

However, these programs use one-time funding, which poses a significant obstacle to effective long term planning. We continue to support programs that deliver ongoing funding to LEAs, which will allow them to focus consistent assistance to students in lower performance subgroups. We know that factors such as low graduation rates, chronic absenteeism, and high suspension rates can lead to lower academic performances. As a result, we must prioritize funding for our highest need schools to help our highest need students succeed.

The equity multiplier proposal also establishes an accountability framework that will ensure that LEAs must demonstrate their commitment to using these funds effectively to improve the academic performance of their students. The Governor's Budget also proposes several changes to the LCAP, including focused goals for schools receiving these funds and specific requirements in the system of support aimed at addressing the needs of low performing LEAs, schools, and student subgroups.

CDE is conceptually supportive of the proposed changes and is working with the Department of Finance and the legislative partners to make sure these modifications are implementable and practical for our districts. It is imperative that we deliver the intent of equitable educational opportunity through the LCFF. This 300 $1.0 million investment is a good start in providing additional funding to our lowest performing student groups. To deliver on the promises made, we must address the inequities that exist and close the opportunity gap.

The Superintendent places equity and an opportunity for all students at the center of his agenda, and this aligns with that charge. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. I know we have a few questions on this, but before I have my question, just overall I support this proposal. Been working with Dr. Weber's plural on these for several years. So I think five years ago was the first proposal, and I think the notion was there's a lingering achievement, frankly, and opportunity gap in a subset of students, even with LCFF and even with our massive increases that were lingering and very problematic.

And so want to focus on what we can do with Prop 209 and making sure we can address African American student achievement issues throughout California. We were able to get one-time money and we were going to come back after a couple of years. And then of course, the pandemic hit. It's hard to do a lot with one-time money. You can't have ongoing programs. And so I think that this is something that we can get our hands around, that it's ongoing.

And so I know some people would like to have more. I think we have to live in the real world, that we have a fiscal reality. This is the only proposal in the budget that's new this year. Of all the proposals in the budget, this is the only one that is ongoing in a new proposal in K-12. And we have to deal with the reality of the limitations on the law and Prop 209 and targeting money.

So I think this gets us as far as we can. And I know I'm coordinating with our current Assemblymember, Dr. Akilah Weber, and she's in support of this as well. I just have one overall, just kind of. Oh, boy. Have no idea. Is that glass that broke up there?

Yeah.

Maybe we should have people move to the other side. Yeah. Take a little one minute break.

We don't think it was falling glass so that's the good news, but the bad news, I have no idea what it was, but the show goes on. So I guess the point I was making is that five or so years ago, when LCFF roughly, for concentration populations, was about 15,000 per student, the idea that Dr. Weber put forward is if we could just get a little bit more for these students, we can get more success for them, right?

So we wanted to get roughly from like another $1,000 or so per student. And then five years later, we increased LCFF by 35%. So those same students are now getting $18,000. And the argument again is we just want 1000 more per student, and then we will have an outcome that we think will make a difference. And so I think the concept of LCFF is the one that's clear, is that some students need more resources and support to get them to success.

In all communities across California, we have haves and have not districts. But so much of these issues are outside of the classroom. Families and kids growing up in intergenerational poverty and just underresourced communities. And so we can do our best in the K-12 setting. But just chasing this additional thousand in perpetuity, what is that going to get us? Right? And so I'm not sure if there's an answer to that. If anybody wants to take a stab at that? Go ahead.

Lena Grant, Department of Finance. So I agree with both of your points that most of the funding is coming through the LCFF. That's $80 billion. And so our accountability changes are trying to better leverage that to target those funds to those supplemental and concentration grant generating students, the 13.4 billion estimated in 23-24, as you had said.

And so our amendments are aiming to really refine and make sure that those funds are going to the students that need them. Our additional investment in the 300 million ongoing is recognizing that those high need schools do need more. And so the formula in trailer Bill is tighter than either the supplemental concentration grant, it's a higher threshold using free meal eligibility rather than free and reduced price meal eligibility. And we chose to focus on free meals as a proxy to address student need.

We think there is some stability in that method of funding that LEAs could actually count on. And just as a reminder, that eligibility criteria we established is just to be used for generating the funds. When it comes to using the funds, it can be used more broadly to serve the entire population of students. Hopefully. I helped answer your question a little bit.

A little bit. And I don't think there's a satisfactory answer for that. It's just a quest for more. It's kind of like there's two siblings. Like, I want more presents than my little brother. You don't know what it is that you want. You just want more than this person. Because I deserve more because it would help me more and help. And so at what point do we have a concrete endpoint of what we're trying to gain from that for California?

And that leads me to my next point, is if there's a concentration of, let's say, a subgroup, low achieving African American students in a school, you can direct resources more if, let's say it's a 50% population. But what happens if that subgroup is in a school where there's 5%? How do we ensure that those dollars impact the student that we're trying to help the most in that school or in that classroom?

This is kind of a little bit covered in the first issue, where we require that any disparities in student group performance are addressed in the LCAP. And so the LCAP has a direct tie to the LEA's budget. And so we feel that by requiring that be really spelled out and made clear in the LCAP, how is that LEA targeting that population, that student group that's underperforming with the funds that they're receiving?

We feel that that would kind of move the needle more than it is right now, which is, there is a requirement already to improve or increase services for those students. But now we're really making that a clear connection with, if you're receiving, for example, differentiated assistance, making that a clear connection in the LCAP.

Okay. And then as far as the- I know we're talking about two things here, the multiplier and then the LCAP proposal. LAO, you testified that you do support the LCAP changes.

Yes.

Can you walk through that again?

So we found the LCAP changes all to be positive. We're recommending adopting all of the LCAP changes. All of the changes are on page 10 of the agenda. There's the mid year update that Ms. Grant had referenced earlier that districts would have to report on their LCAPs in February, as opposed to, currently, they only do it once a year, I believe, in the fall. And then also the focus goals, which we have a recommendation that currently has proposed only the equity multiplier schools.

Well, I'll take a step back. There's focus goals for any school district that has a subgroup and the lowest performance on the dashboard or for specific school sites that have performance in the red for subgroups. And then there's equity multiplier focus goals. And both of them are meant to address kind of how our district is going to plan around providing additional support to those student groups. But only the focus goals for the equity multiplier schools specifically require reviewing and addressing any staffing disparities.

So that's what we're recommending, that that be applied also to the focus goals for the schools that are identified as lowest performing. And then this is in conjunction with our other recommendation to require school districts to report the three data points I mentioned, the number of teachers that have less than three years of experience, the teacher credentialing and properly assigned, and then the student to teacher ratios.

That would allow districts to plan more, or these are data points that are already collected, but it would allow as part of the stakeholder engagement process for parents and families to see all the data points at once and see how teachers are allocated across the school sites.

If there's one school site in particular that has high turnover and a lot of teachers have less than three years of experience, and districts would have to develop a plan on how they're going to provide additional support to that school site through the focus schools process. All the other recommendations are just to adopt the LCAP changes.

We also have, LCAPs are 100 to 200 pages oftentimes, and the length and complexity of the LCAPs, we have heard from stakeholders and LEAs that this can make it hard to engage families.

And so we also have some recommendations specific to just maybe considering ways to maybe move some expenditure data to an online format that can allow parents to see specific expenditure data and have an interactive kind of interface to be able to see the level of data that they want, versus, currently, there's dozens and dozens of pages in a text based format of how districts are expending their funds.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Muratsuchi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, let's see.

...

I think the point has been made that we've had 10 years of a Local Control Funding Formula. We provide concentration and supplemental grants to the highest poverty districts. And so this proposal is essentially to go beyond our current commitment to provide more funding for high poverty districts. It's kind of like a super super concentration grant?

That's correct.

Okay. But the super, super concentration grant is going? Where is that page?

Oh, here.

Page 11 of the analysis. We estimate that the $300 million for the equity multiplier will be allocated to about 800 school sites, which is going to translate to about $860 per student. This compares with the estimated $13 billion that is going for the concentration as well as supplemental grant funding. So again, my line of questioning of how exactly is that money, additional super super concentration grant going to translate into making a difference in the classroom and with the student.

I know that this proposal is different in that it's directly targeting at the school site level. Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay. What programs do you envision that this super super concentration grant is going to lead to at a school site level? Because I know that with 80% of school district budgets going to staff salaries and benefits, how is this going to be different?

Lina Grant Department of Finance so in our Trailer Bill section that describes the equity multiplier allocation, specifically, we set the minimum grant amount to 50,000 per LEA. And that's just a minimum. This is an ongoing source of funding. We hope that using the free meal eligibility threshold creates a kind of more predictable source of funds for a lot of LEAs that receive this so they could plan for future years if they were future recipients of funds.

I mean, when you, when you put it this way, you know, 860 per student versus the 34 per student, it does seem like a drop in the bucket. And we think it can be really meaningful with 50,000 is just to supplement already existing work that's being done at the school site level. And we wish it was more, but given the fiscal conditions that were the climate that we're in right now, we wanted to just include some meaningful amount. And we think 50,000 is a meaningful minimum.

Okay. But again, what kind of academic or student support is that going to translate into?

Yeah, we leave it open in our Trailer Bill the exact activities that would be deemed to directly benefit the school site so that that can be developed. We imagine guidance around that would be developed by the CDE in conjunction with LEAs and county offices. But we prioritize equity leads to work with the recipients of Equity Multiplier Funding so they could be on the equity leads component of our proposal, activities where they receive as suggested in the agenda.

The LEO had suggested providing kind of equity specific training to the county offices of education that they can then implement into when they review LCAPs for their districts and likewise receive training themselves for developing their own LCAPs.

Okay, I guess I'm just concerned that we're not just throwing money at a problem to make it look like we're doubling down on equity. Are there restrictions or are there some kind of requirements to make sure that the high concentration, these super super concentration grants are not just going to be used for, I don't know, field trips to museums as compared to literacy coaches or tutors in these highest poverty district, highest poverty school sites.

Yeah. So the addition of the focused goals I think will really answer your question to make sure that those funds are being used to address the disparities that are occurring at that school, whether they be racial or any other subgroup disparities. So as a reminder, the required focused goals would be required for any student group at the LEA that has one or more indicators in the lowest performance level.

And also if an LEA is receiving Equity Multiplier Funding, they would also be required in that instance to generate a focused goal. And the goal has to not only address any student group with a red indicator, which is the lowest performance, but also any issues with the credentialing and subject matter preparation of its teachers.

Okay. And finally, I wanted to turn to the LAO. I love your recommendation about focusing on LEAs to publicly report for each of their schools the share of teachers that are fully credentialed and properly assigned, share of teachers with their experience levels and the student teacher ratio. Because my understanding is that the overwhelming research in terms of how best to close the achievement gap and to make a difference is to get the best teachers in the classroom.

And I hear over and over again that the highest poverty districts have the least experienced, least qualified, or the highest proportion of unqualified teachers. I want to respect all the dedicated teachers that are currently teaching in the highest poverty school sites, but the research that I'm aware of seems to be that that has got to be one of the most important ways that we can make a difference to close the achievement gap.

Wanted to see if Department of Finance had any response or thoughts as to the LAO's recommendation for that transparency measure to try to get more fully credentialed, experienced teachers in the highest poverty school sites.

Department of Finance we agree with the LAO. We think that making that information more transparent and publicly available would certainly benefit policymakers and LEAs on the ground. I think currently the CDE has developed the teaching assignment outcome monitoring report, I think it was last year, and that breaks down the percent of fully credentialed and properly assigned teachers across the state, including by subject and school site within an LEA. I believe the LAO's recommendation is to make that more easily accessible and publicly available.

So we think that that's kind of the case for a lot of things in our system. We have them. We just need to actually make them implement, reflect the work that we're doing and to take that data that's available and reflect it back in the work on the ground.

To make it more transparent.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Alvarez.

Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. I think I'll start off with just expressing sort of my approach to this just generally and then get into some questions. I think first and foremost, additional resources to students, in particular, not LEAs, but students that need additional assistance in any shape or form is the right approach, and that's why I'm very interested in the Equity Multiplier.

One of the things, though, that I'm concerned about is aligned to Mr. Muratsuchi's comments, which is what exactly are we going to get for this? And I understand that there are some focus goals which I'm going to get into in a second.

But I think one of the things that I've come to understand a little bit better in the last couple of months in hearings, particularly in this Committee, is there have been a lot of additional resources that have been given to schools over the last several years, and rightly so. We were in a difficult situation, but I'm not so sure that the accountability part is as strong as it could be.

And so going into this, as the chair said, new program, the only new program in education, I think we need to be really clear about what the expectations are with this funding. And that's what my questioning is around. It's not that it shouldn't go, but it's how are we going to be specific about what we're actually going to accomplish? First and foremost, I think the fact that we already have concentrated funds that are going to low income students and English language learner students is good.

But the fact that a lot of that money doesn't make it to the student, but it stays at the LEA level is to me a big concern. The money needs to get to the student and to the school site. And so when we have what is estimated to be only 55% of this concentrated funding getting to the student and the other 45% staying at the district.

I have concerns with that, and so going forward, I want to see how we're going to actually reach the dollars so that the students can get the help that they need. So my first question, maybe we'll start with this one, is related to the focus goals, which I think I've understood more, and I appreciate the administration's briefing yesterday on this. Let me just understand this completely clearly.

The focus goals are going to be required of only the schools that will be receiving the Equity Multiplier Funding, is that correct?

It also would be required of any, the Department of Finance would be required of any LEA with a red indicator on the dashboard. So two instances. One would be required equity multiplier funding recipient. The other would be if they had a lowest performing or red on the dashboard.

But am I understanding that it would only be focus goal at the school site level of its Equity Multiplier dollars as opposed to the other indicators? Focus goals for the other indicators?

Amber Alexander with the Department of Finance a lot of the specificity around the focus goals does depend on the local context and certainly the funding stream. The LCFF Equity Multiplier Funding is more school site focused, as you mentioned, in terms of the more broader requirement for focused goals. In the event that a student group is performing low on the dashboard, that goal could be at the LEA level, so long as it's focused on that particular student group that's in that low performance category.

So it would depend, I think, on how the LEA chose to frame that focus goal, but it could go either way. They could choose to develop a more targeted goal as part of their discussions. They could also do a more district wide goal so long as it addressed that student group.

Thank you for clarifying that. So that gets to my almost initial point, which is, again, we are allowing the LEA to sort of set goals that perhaps are more General and are not directly tied to student performance.

And I think I would request that as language comes back on what we're doing as it relates to changes with focused goals in the LCAPs, that we, in addition to the Equity Multiplier sites and the funding that goes out through that, that all the other focus goals that are more aligned with the performance and the Red Zone, that we also include focused goals at the school site.

I'd like to see that come back again to focus those resources and the attention on making sure that the students needs are being met. As it relates to the shortening of the LCAP, which is really an interesting concept that the LAO has brought up. Is there a way, has there been any conversation around using the California Dashboard to maybe publish just the goals and maybe not all the financial data?

Because I know that's quite lengthy and I appreciate, again, the Administration sent me an LCAP from a couple of districts, and they are very lengthy, very detailed, and even for someone who knows how to read these documents, it takes a while to find the goals, which is, I think, really what parents are looking for and the community is looking for, like what are we doing to get better? As opposed to what are all the dollars and where it's all going.

That seems to be important information, but it doesn't get to, I think, the question of the community and the parents. Have you looked at that yet? Is that a possibility that could come forward to us?

Amber Alexander with the Department of Finance. I think what you've seen over the last 10 years since the implementation of the LCFF is a very iterative process. When the LCAP first came out, there was not an executive summary type document. So you saw that change in response to a lot of the concerns that were raised about the length and the lack of transparency in some LCAPs.

You've also seen changes on the dashboard itself in terms of displays to try and highlight and make it a little bit more user friendly as folks are going out and talking to their communities about the resources. We're certainly open to additional changes that folks have. We've heard from many in the field on equity coalition and ed-coalition over the years as we've tried to refine. And I think that's what you see reflected in the proposal.

You've also seen changes like a budget overview for parents to try and make that information a bit more digestible as folks are going out. I think on the flip side, too, you also see folks that are asking for more of that budget information to come into the LCAP or Dashboard displays so that they can more easily track dollars. So I think it's a balance, but we're open to suggestions. If folks have thoughts on other ways we can make it more transparent.

I would ask the LAO's office, obviously working with the Department too, maybe identify some suggestions for us on how we can provide the overview, which I think is what most of the community is looking for. And if someone's looking really looking for the budget and the dollars obviously provide that as well in a link. But that shouldn't be the main focus of these reports. It really should be what are we trying to accomplish? What are the goals and how are we going to measure those goals?

I would appreciate that. Now, on the equity multiplier, have you considered, more specifically the focus goals, would they come at the end of year one of implementation, or would they become at the front end of implementation?

Amber Alexander with the Department of Finance. We are trying to make sure that that change falls naturally within the LCAP cycle, knowing that it is a continuous process that districts are involved in.

Currently, as drafted, it would come at the front end, so they'd be looking back at the Dashboard performance, most recently this 2022 Dashboard that was just released, looking at the student group performance there and making a focused goal to the extent that they receive the Equity Multiplier Funding for any student group that's in that Low performance category.

Just to clarify, so you're going to request that the school site submit the focus goals prior to receiving the funding?

No, I may have misunderstood your question. So the funding will come out this presumably July, August, depending on when the allocations roll out, as those LCAPs are then developed and approved in October, we would anticipate at this point that those focus goals would be included in that LCAP that's adopted in October, September, October.

I'm going to express some concern about that, because at that point they've already received the funding and might not be actually addressing the focus goals that need to be addressed. So I'll just express the concern. I don't know. There's a way around that, but I certainly would rather have them commit to goals before receiving the funding.

I also would hope that the language that we're going to approve if this goes forward and gets approved, ensures that prior year focus goals don't just take place or aren't used as the future going focus goals. I mean, I think the whole point of the focus goals, as I've learned, thanks to a lot of your feedback, is to address the concerns that are already happening at the school site.

So I don't know if it's your intent to allow schools to use equity multiplier for prior year focus goals in the case that some schools have those, or if they have to be new focused goals. Do you know what the answer to that would be?

I think that's something we're open to conversations on. It's not that specific in the language as proposed, but we do anticipate, because of the three year cycle for the LCAP, there is going to be a bit of a look back once this does get implemented this first year obviously, there's no year necessarily to look back to since the funding will just go out this summer.

But knowing that it is ongoing, we would anticipate it being more of a cycle typical to the LCAP development cycle, where there's a continuous refinement. And then we also have the proposal as part of the package where to the extent that an action that's articulated in a focused goal or any goal in the LCAP is not effective, that the LEA is looking back and making a change there. So that would naturally require that as well.

Thank you. So I'll end where I started. I agree. I think. I think with where Mr. Muratsuchi was going, which is ensuring that additional dollars get used for actual additional supports not in place of, and that they actually have some associated goals on the front end that will be measured and that we will see improvement.

So I'd ask the LAO's office, as this moves forward, to help us with some input on how to do that, on how to ensure that the focus goals are also applied at a school site for the lower performance disparities that exist that are part of the proposal. But it's at the LEA level. I like to see that at the school site level, and then also the Shorter or the more publicly friendly accessible data on what those goals are on the California Dashboard.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the questions on this item, Ms. Cervantes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to my colleagues for your comments over this item. This is obviously a momentous proposal. We have not seen changes for the Local Control Funding Formula since the program's inception a decade ago under Governor Brown. I recognize the goal of this Administration in which you are attempting to pursue and making the distribution of LCFF monies more equitable, and I thank you for that. And so many of us up here wear multiple hats, if you will.

And as chair of the Latino Legislative Caucus, I am deeply invested in the impacts of this multiplier proposal on how this would impact our Latino students across our state. I do want to just take a few weeks to really take a deeper dive on this and just really examine it further.

But I do want to reserve my ability to just make further suggested changes, perhaps to this proposal based on how it would affect students of color, but really appreciate the opportunity to just dialogue and have this conversation, which is much needed and long awaited. Thank you.

Thank you. We will hold this issue open, come back later in the budget process. Issue number three, special education. DOF, LAO, CDE.

Thank you. Begin with DOF.

Good morning, Chair McCarty and Members. Liz Mai, Department of Finance the administration has been committed to special education reform over the last four years, supporting funding and programmatic improvements that increase budgetary transparency, improved services provided to students and parents and promoted inclusive local planning and cohesion between special education and general education.

Building upon these efforts, the Governor's Budget proposes stabilizing current special education local plan area, or SELPA membership by extending the moratorium on the creation of new single district SELPA's by two years increasing fiscal transparency by requiring the California Department of Education to post each SELPA's annual local plan, including their governance, budget and service plans, on its website, and limiting the amount of additional funding that SELPA's are allowed to retain for nondirect student services before allocating special education based funding to their member local educational agencies.

That last proposal functionally directs SELPA to, at a minimum, allocate the total amount of funding to its member LEA's that it did in 22-23 adjusted for the cost of living adjustment in 23-24. We have received feedback from some in the field who have run simulations and have found that because of their specific case of severe declining enrollment or allocation methodology, they will be unable to comply with the proposed changes.

We have been performing data runs for different scenarios in anticipation of addressing these concerns as we head into may revise. That concludes my presentation, and I'm happy to take questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. LAO.

Sara Cortez, LAO. We recommend rejecting the SELPA funding cap, which is the first proposal described on page 16 of your agenda. Some SELPA's wouldn't be able to comply with this requirement as proposed. Specifically, SELPA's with declining attendance that set aside relatively small shares of funding for SELPA level services, and we also question the rationale for this proposal. If the Legislature is interested in creating a requirement regarding how much SELPA members receive from their SELPA's, we suggest modifying the proposal. That concludes my remarks. Thank you.

Specific learning disability.

Okay. Thank you. CDE

Good morning. Chair and Members Heather Calomese, on behalf of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, the California Department of Education appreciates the continued commitment by the administration and Legislature to special education and the significant investments made to encourage conversations across the state regarding governance, funding, and accountability. The recent investments for special education has brought about much needed relief in a long journey towards one system for all students and improved outcomes for students with disabilities.

The commitment to ensure fair and equitable systems that truly serve students with disabilities across the state is astounding and unprecedented. While there is no magic solution to addressing the deep systemic issues that special education faces, we know that the significant resources that have been devoted across the state are having a positive impact on improving how we support students, families, and communities within a highly complex system and an extremely challenging times. And we also know that there is more work to do.

This year's budget proposals firmly centers issues that surfaced in the 2021 special education governance and accountability study. In short, it focused on accountability is aligned to the funding structures. It also addressed the less than desirable outcomes for students with disabilities with an IEP in California and along removing those barriers and also supporting the accountability structures established by the Local Control Funding Formula and then also increasing transparency for parents and other educational partners across the state.

Students with an IEP are included in and explicitly addressed through California's general education governance and accountability structures. However, California also has separate and overlapping special education governance and accountability structures. In regards to the administrative cap, due to the variance in selfish structures across the state, the CDE would need to further determine the impact of the current proposal regarding the cap on fees. To address the declining enrollment the CDE does believe an adjustment factor might help minimize the impact of programs.

However, the CDE also believes that additional data collection and analysis is needed to fully determine the impact of the cap on fees, which could be captured in the local plan development process in the coming year.

The CDE wants to reiterate its commitment to working collaboratively along with this issue with our educational partners to better understand the relationship between SEA, SELPA, COE and LEA, and the proposal provides an opportunity for deep and meaningful interrogation of the current system, which is something CDE has already initiated through our multiple projects as well.

In addition to the adjustment factor for declining enrollment, the CDE also believes an additional consideration should be given to a multi year proposal instead of a timeframe of one year, which will allow further analysis and study, and the longer timeframe will allow CDE better opportunities to both align general education and special education funding opportunities to better support students as well. Thank you. This concludes my remarks and I am happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Mr. Muratsuchi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to have some questions for the LAO again to provide the big picture on page 15 of the Committee analysis, the analysis discusses how California's model for paying for special education services has been that, according to the legislative analysts analysis, that state and federal funding specifically for special education covers about one third of the cost of special education, with local school districts having to make up the rest of the two thirds from funds that are not specifically designated for special education. Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay. And I know as a former school board member, every school board member always talks about the unfunded federal mandate. Federal government, Congress patted themselves on the back by passing the individuals with Disabilities Education act. But in terms of the Federal Government actually funding all of the obligations that came out of the IDEA, do you know what the current percentage is of the Federal Government covering for the actual costs of the IDEA?

Edgar Cabral, LAO. I think it's somewhere around 10 to 12%.

10 to 12%.

We can get you the exact number.

Okay, so that's why every time I talk with a special education advocate, I always tell them, number one, go talk to your Member of Congress to increase that federal funding, because they're only paying 10% to 12% of the obligation that they created through the IDEA.

But going back to what we can do at the state level and what we are doing at the state level, am I correct in understanding that the special education funding is currently and recently changed to be based at the local education agency level in terms of the number of special education students?

Yes, I believe you're referring to changes that were implemented in the last budget cycle.

Does that mean that I represent Torrance Unified School District, that their special education funding coming from the state is based on the actual number of special education students at the district level?

No, it's still based on a census model. It's just the calculations are at the LEA rather than the SELPA level.

So what does that mean in terms of the census based funding? Based on the total number of students.

In the school. It's not specifically the special education population, but it's overarching in the school district. What is the associated ADA.

Okay, so it's basically the ADA determines the special education funding.

Yes, that's correct. Not specifically the special education students identified.

Is there data indicating any significant differences in special education student enrollment across school districts?

I think you're referring to there's more identified students while we have declining enrollment. Is that what you're referring to?

No. Actually, even without declining enrollment, are there differences in terms of the percentage of special education students district by district?

So what you're referring to is rising identification of special education students.

Okay, so you're probably correctly encouraging me to focus on identified special education students, since we know that they're probably unidentified students out there. But are there differences in the percentages of identified special education students from district to district? Like, for example, sticking with Torrance Unified School District, Torrance Unified apparently has a reputation among families with special education students that they attract families to move to Torrance Unified because they provide more special education support services compared to neighboring school districts.

Is the LAO aware of any data showing that kind of- again, are there districts that have a higher percentage of identified special education students?

Edgar Cabral with LAO there are differences. We haven't looked at it more recently, but looking at a few years ago, there's variation across the state. We haven't done an analysis to tell you what the factors are or what the reasons are for that, but that is something that there is some variation that exists across the state.

And the variations that you have historically identified, how big are those variations?

We would have to get back to you on those exact variations in terms of how much they are. In some cases, with so many small districts, sometimes you have these big ranges, in part because you have a lot of small school districts where you just have outliers, both on the high end and on the low end.

Sure. Okay. I'd appreciate it if the LAO can follow up with that information. Thank you.

I think. Did you want to answer? It looked like you were attempting to engage there.

Well, I think just in general, in terms of sort of the rising percentage across the state. Over the past 10 years, the State of California served roughly 9.9% students with disabilities. We're now up at roughly a little over 12%. So we do have a rising number of students with disabilities, yet a declining overall student population. Disability categories range from LEA to LEA, and that's just due to a variety of factors.

However, we do have a spread of disabilities across the state that sort of mimic national trends as well.

And if I may, Mr. Chair, just to follow up, can you identify the highest growing categories of special education?

Sure. Specific learning disability is our largest category. So roughly 37% of students in California have an identified specific learning disability, followed by a speech language impairment with 20%, autism, which is a fast rising category at 15%, and then other health impairment, which is a general sort of dependent upon sort of student and IEP team decision at 13% as well.

Where does dyslexia fall among those categories?

And that was the first.

That's the largest. Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Okay. Can we go back to the issues a few years ago with the equalization? Is that a settled issue now with the school districts having unequal special ed funding?

So you're referring to the rates per ADA for each SELPA, correct?

Yeah. Maybe the LAO wants to engage in them.

I think, by and large, there were significant increases that increased funding. I think we were at $820 per ADA in this current year. That essentially brought all of the districts, all of the SELPA's who were funded at lower rates up. I think there are now just a handful of districts who had, for historical reasons, SELPA rates much higher than that. But the vast majority of SELPA's are funded at that $820 per ADA rate.

Yeah. So I haven't heard from districts, not here today, asking that we address it. So it's a settled issue. But as far as the issue that Mr. Muratsuchi noted that declining student enrollment California, but an increased number of students being identified as far as needing special education. So does that lead to an overall increase in the number or still a decrease?

No, because it is a census based model. The allocation is going to be based on that declining enrollment ADA because there's a higher number of identified special education students that's not generating the funding here.

So you said that, like, 12% now of students that are identified in special ed. Is that average for America? Is that about normal?

For a state as large as California? That's about average.

And do we still think there are a lot of undiagnosed students?

Potentially. I think, you know, one of the two factors that we're keeping an eye on is one, the sort of impacts of COVID in students, in terms of students that had Covid and have had long Covid or symptoms like that. And again, sort of the growing mental health concerns that our students are facing as well could potentially lead to identification and also support through systems such as multi tier systems supports as well.

And then how about the screening proposals? Has that made a difference in identifying students and having the increase to 12%.

In terms of the dyslexia screeners?

Yeah, just any screen. We've had early education screening tools.

Yeah. Ideally, these screeners are meant to address early and often so that students in special education is actually avoided and that they are addressing their gaps in their education early on in their educational cycle. And then I think for us, these screeners are still under development. And so I think implementation will be key in terms of the applicable use so that they don't result in an increased identification as well. So, again, something we're watching out for.

And then lastly, it's a bill, not a budget proposal. And we don't debate bills here. We debate ideas. But it could come becoming, is this proposal for increased screening for dyslexia? What would that mean as far as the impact on special ed needs in California?

The impact potentially could be appropriate services and supports being identified for students earlier on so they're able to address gaps rather than having them be identified in the later years when content gets difficult and developmentally, students are at different spaces and places. And so I think it's meant to, again, identify students to get them the services faster. It's also meant to identify students and get them services, perhaps through a multi tier system of support as well.

So again, not a fast track to special education, but really to address learning gaps and differences early on in the student's lifecycle.

Okay, thank you. That's it for me. Other questions Committee Members? Seeing none. We'll hold this issue open. Last item, universal meals and kitchen proposal. And then just an announcement, after that, we'll hear public comment. We'll do as much as we can. We may break for the democratic caucus during the lunch hour. Finance, LAO, CDE.

Thank you Mr. Chair and Members. Alex Schope, Department of Finance. The Governor's Budget includes an increase of 75,008,000 to reflect an 8.13% cost of living adjustment and a decrease of 36,803,000 to reflect updated fall meal estimates for the state meal program, for a total increase of 38,205,000 for the program. This increases the total appropriation for state reimbursement to 1.45 billion prop 98 General Fund for 23-24

The state reimbursement rate in 23-24 will be $96.78 per meal served, which is an increase of over $0.07 from the 22-23 rate of $89.50. The total reimbursement per meal, including federal reimbursement, is estimated to be around 541 for lunch and 403 for breakfast. The Governor's Budget also maintains the $650,000,000 estimate for the 2022 budget for universal meals. However, due to timing, we only had actual meal data through August when doing these projections.

We continued to work closely with the Department of Education and are currently reviewing spring projections. We intend to further refine the budget for the state meal program based on updated trends for both 22-23 and 23-24 as part of the May revision. Lastly, the budget also proposes to set aside 15 million of the 600 million appropriated for the 2022 Kitchen Infrastructure and Training program to promote single use waste reduction in school cafeterias through the purchase and installation of commercial dishwashers.

While dishwashers are already an allowable use, we do acknowledge that LEA's may need to prioritize infrastructure funding for other purposes. We believe that utilizing existing funds to provide a focus on and to promote the use of dishwashers will help to transition schools to reusable food serviceware for their meals and will not only help to reduce waste, but also litter and hauling costs for schools, especially with the increase in meals served with the implementation of universal free breakfast and lunch for all students. That concludes my remarks and happy to take questions at the appropriate times.

Thank you. LAO.

Sara Cortez, LAO. We recommend rejecting the proposal to redirect 15 million from the 22-23 kitchen infrastructure funding to instead provide grants for LEA's to purchase or install commercial dishwashers. We find the proposed modifications are unnecessary given LEA's can already use the kitchen infrastructure funds to purchase and install commercial dishwashers. And rejecting the proposal allows LEA's to determine what upgrades their kitchens need rather than setting aside funds for one specific purpose.

We further question whether providing funding for commercial dishwashers is an effective way to achieve the administration's goal of reducing single use plastic. Many alternatives exist for LEA's to reduce single use plastic in school nutrition programs. For example, rather than using single use plastic trays to serve food, an alternative is an LEA could instead use compostable trays. If the Legislature is interested in reducing single use plastic, it could direct CBE to provide guidance to LEA's on effective strategies for reducing single use plastic in school nutrition programs. And that concludes my remarks and I'm happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Kim Franzell on behalf of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. The Department of Education appreciates the continued investment in the California Universal Meals program. This program is key to transforming our California school systems and a vital element to a student's overall educational experience and success. Universal Meals support equitable opportunities for all of our 5.8 million public school students so that they are able to receive a nutritious breakfast and lunch each and every school day without stigma.

School meals account for approximately a third to a half of a student's daily caloric and nutritional needs and far too many of our children, this is the healthiest meal that they are receiving in a day. We were happy to see a return from the pandemic, about 99% of pre pandemic meal participation and we are estimating that in this coming school year, we are estimating 818,000,000 breakfast and lunches to be served this year and you can compare that to pre pandemic where we were serving 820,000,000 meals.

The ongoing investment in California Universal Meals affords students the ability to better learn, thrive, and to have greater access to school meals all of which add up to lifelong healthy habits.

Schools rely heavily on the adequate meal reimbursement to keep their meal programs financially viable, especially as we're continuing to see the high cost of foods, staffing shortages and I just recently heard of examples where a school wanted to do more scratch baking, but they couldn't get the flour or the leavening agents or the distributor was charging a pretty substantial fee just to deliver those foods to their school.

In August of 2022, the Nutrition Policy Institute published their study on the benefits and challenges of providing universal meals in California. Food service directors, and whether they were from large, small, rural, urban communities, reported that the minimum reimbursement rate necessary to provide meals and to meet the federal nutrition standards and appeal to the likes of students on average was $3.39 for breakfast and $5.08 for lunch.

The California Department of Education is working very closely with the Department of Finance on the Universal Meals funding level projections and the trends, and I'll focus on some of the trends in a moment. And the administration has conveyed to us their intent to ensure that Universal Meals program remains whole and financially viable for our schools through the May revise.

We appreciate this commitment to the Prop 98 funding so schools can receive this much needed state reimbursement to fully compensate them for the breakfast and lunch each and every school day. So I want to spend a few minutes on some of the trends that we're seeing. The pandemic really has revealed just how important food insecurity and access to nutritious foods is in our school communities.

And so we're seeing four trends as a result, we believe of the pandemic and with the implementation of the new California Universal Meals program, trend number one is more schools are now offering meals when school is not in session. So for example, if you look at the winter break and we compare December of 2018 to December of 2022, back in December of 2018, 528 summer seamless meals were served in the State of California. Just 528.

Fast forward to December of 2022 where we served over 23,362 summer seamless meals during the break in December. So we are seeing, and again, I believe this is firmly from the pandemic, the need to offer meals when school is in session, before school, after school, and when school is on break. Trend number two that we're seeing is that there's been just a much greater increase in the number of school nutrition meals being claimed at the paid category. It's double to what that was in the pandemic.

Trend number 3, 88 percent increase in the federal community eligibility provision compared to the pandemic, this is a direct result of California Universal Meals now requiring all school sites with an identified student percentage of 40% to apply for a federal provision. And in the past, some of these schools that were just right at that threshold maybe didn't feel that they could do that because of the financial impact it would have on their own General Fund.

But with universal meals and now the state, through the Prop 98 funding, paying the difference between the federal free rate and the paid, we are seeing that increase. And then trend number four is regarding schools that are not on a provision, not on community eligibility. They are still federally mandated to collect meal applications for the meal programs, and they are reporting that households are not returning those applications for the meal programs.

And I think, again, this can be very much attributed to three years of a federal pandemic where we had federal waivers that were meal applications were not required, and so now kind of helping families reeducate them to the importance of the meal applications as we return to normal federal mandates that do require the collection of meal applications. And we're seeing this play out in statistics as well.

The federal verification report that we send to USDA, the Department of Education, has seen a 78% decrease in the number of meal applications submitted this year. Again, we're seeing a rise in community eligibility where there's no meal applications, but also directly impacted by the lower number of meal applications. So the Department of Education, we're doing a lot to support and help our schools with strategies on collecting mill applications and promoting best practices. A few of those I'm happy to share.

Predominantly, it's as easy as predominantly displaying the meal application on the district's website, including the meal application in back to school and in registration forms, and having conversations at the teacher parent conferences. Online registration some districts have kind of had hard edits where a family can't move forward with their school registration until they complete the meal application. And then really important is the monthly direct certification matches. Federally, it's a three times a year, but we really do encourage all families to do that three times.

For schools to do that monthly. Those are just a few examples, but certainly also working with parent associations and groups and school educators to discuss the benefit of the meal applications beyond the school meal program, so many educational funding purposes, but also for the family, there is discounts in advanced placement testing, waivers to college application fees, and discounts to high speed Internet. So also, I think it's not just about access to meals, it's about the quality of meals that we're seeing.

So the Department of Education is incredibly appreciative of the $850,000,000 in school meal grants since 2021. And many of our school cafeterias and kitchens are very, very outdated. They have very outdated plumbing, wiring. They need more equipment. They need larger spaces to afford universal meals. And so we are seeing them take advantage. For the 2022 Kitchen Infrastructure funding. We've had 1,010 LEA's opt into those fundings and 518 opt into the freshly prepared meals.

And the list of types of items that they are buying are, there's a wide variety because they know their needs more than we do. They know the specific, nuanced, do they need wiring or service agreements? So they really do appreciate the flexibility in this funding that they have. And then finally, the final topic on nutrition that the Department of Education would like to share is what we're doing to help schools navigate the federal meal requirements with the expanded learning opportunities.

The federal meal programs have lots of requirements. And the school nutrition programs, the national school lunch school breakfast program must be tied to a school day. So what we're doing to help support schools kind of figure this out, what meals to offer with expanded learning, it really comes down to the timing. So in a traditional school year, they can offer the school breakfast program to expanded learning students simply by adjusting the timing of their meal service.

Or they could offer second chance breakfast or breakfast after the bell. They can opt into the school snack program for the students for after school. And then some schools are exploring alternative lunch schedules that would allow them to serve both the students and then those that are going on to expanded learning after school and when school is not in session, the expanded learning opportunities, the summer meal programs would be an option.

And to participate in the summer meal programs, schools do have to meet a federal area eligibility requirement of at least 50% of the students in the community must be eligible for free or reduced price meals. The other option is the child and adult care food program that is now administered by the Department of Social Services, and there is an area eligibility requirement for that as well.

So in closing, the federal meal programs have many regulations and many rules, and the Department of Education absolutely values the collaboration with the Administration, the Legislature, and our school nutrition professionals in this historic time and journey of implementing universal meals and expanded learning opportunities. And we look forward to working closely together to perfect that. And then just finally, May 5 is National School Lunch Hero Day. And so I would invite everyone to please go have a lunch at your school.

I know our schools and the food service directors would love to have you there. So thank you. This concludes my remarks, and I, along with Sarah Neville-Morgan and Corey Kahn, are available to answer questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. I think this is one of the best things that we did in California last few years as far as school funding, making universal school meals. You know, a lot of people pushed on this. I want to recognize our member, Luz Rivas. This is her bill a couple years ago to make it a reality. And so California is leading the way. This was somewhat quiet as far as we had universal after school program, universal pre k, universal transitional kindergarten, community schools. And this too.

Just want to know, is it working? Do we have enough resources to make it work across California? So if you can give me a brief answer to that. Is it working?

Yes, it is working.

Okay. And what do we need to do to continue to make it work and make it thrive?

Well, we are working with the administration on just kind of right sizing the Prop 98 money just to make sure that we can fully fund Universal Meals so that we're not having to prorate our LEA's if there isn't sufficient funding. Because I think we want to make sure that schools are compensated so that they are able to provide high quality, not just a meal, but high quality breakfast and lunch.

So what have been some of the challenges so far to implement Universal?

Certainly collection of the meal applications. So a school that is on standard meal counting and claiming, and if you think about it, universal free meal-

Why do we collect still if its universal?

It's a federal requirement. It's a federal requirement. So as we see more schools going on to community eligibility, that number of meal applications will come down. But for those schools that are above that 40% threshold, they are still required to collect meal applications.

But I just want to note that our kids at home love our school meals here at Sac City, and in large part because about five years ago before this, they passed a bond and did this amazing school kitchen, and they're able to do more. I'm not sure it's 100% scratch, but pretty healthier food and good options there. Do they eat it? Yes, they do eat it. They come home, that's their meal they'd like most during the day I think.

This whole notion about the kitchens and the dishwashers, why are we picking winners and losers? Why don't we just give money to school districts and they decide if they need to have upgrade their kitchen to have a central kitchen or if they want to have a dishwasher to reduce plastic waste.

Alex Schope, Department of Finance. So the administration sees this as an opportunity, I think, to more intentionally promote sustainability single use waste reduction in the school cafeteria space. Dishwashers are already in allowable use that LEA's can choose as part of the kitchen infrastructure funding. But I think we do want to acknowledge, given the strong demand for this funding, that many LEA's likely have several priorities and needs as to use this funding.

I see where you're going with that. I think we have maybe a different idea and approach. If we want to be intentional about waste, why don't we just say no single use containers and give an end date for that? And so school districts will have to either have compostable things or have a dishwasher to wash them. So I think that's the better approach and we'll think about doing that in our version.

It's just have a clarity that no more single use containers for school meals, I think, and that way we don't have to say take money and put only for dishwashers. We can just use it for kitchen infrastructure and allow school districts to focus on that. Yeah. No other questions for me. Mr. Muratsuchi.

Thank you. I just wanted to ask, I wasn't involved in the discussions when the Universal Meal program for all was established. I certainly strongly support Universal Meals for kids that actually need it. But I've heard from my daughter's school and from others that there are some schools where frankly, I don't think the kids need it. They live in middle to affluent income communities, and I'm hearing that a lot of food is going to waste.

I'm wondering if there is any discussion or any consideration about, especially given that we're using limited Proposition 98 dollars, why not just give it to the kids that need it and not give it to all school districts? I don't see the point of giving free meals in affluent school districts.

I have an answer, but engage, too, if anybody wants to.

And then, as CDE mentioned earlier, there's some stigma associated with free meal for certain students. That if it's not available to everybody, there could be a stigma related to those who are getting the free meal. So those are kind of two things at the top of my head that were discussed at some of the discussions that when this was passed, I don't know if CDE has more to elaborate or if Department of Finance.

What I will say, and this is the dietitian, public health nutritionist in me. The studies confirmed that across the board, it does not matter the economics.

That when meals are served for free, more students are participating and actually in the paid category. And I think it's many times, if you even think about breakfast, if families are trying to get to work, get the kids to school, they may not be eating breakfast. And so we want them to be ready to learn, and we want them to be able to thrive and to concentrate and to succeed in school.

And sometimes that goes beyond income levels. There are different reasons why a child may not have access to a nutritious breakfast or lunch. And I would just say that we want that equity for all students to be able to have that.

I support thriving kids. Can't study on an empty stomach. But I'm hearing, as a dietitian, I'm hearing kids are throwing away their apples and eating the pizzas. And I'm not sure if we're addressing that. But anyway, thank you very much.

Thank you. Well, I think even before universal, there was a lot of waste. We can ask some of the kids in the audience if they liked pizzas versus the apples over the years.

And I think the bigger issue is that in some way, the schools, so many of the kids were free lunch anyway. It cost more money to take money from the kids who's paying and do the paperwork and just have it all universal. And I know that, my understanding is they don't make a meal for every kid who's at the school. Like our elementary middle school, down where our kids goes,1200 students at Sutter Middle School, 2 miles from here.

And they based upon their meals like a census, traditionally, how many kids take food, whether they're in this universal approach or before, just in general. But I think that leads to another issue. Is that having more composting of our food scraps. So now that's the law of California as a whole in the first place.

I did want to note that I did hear this week there's a big national debate right now about the food standards, and some of these states are saying they don't want to have more nutritious foods and more apples and less chips on the tray. And California has been leading the way in that anyway. So just hats off to us for making that a priority. Mr. Fong.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And thank you for the presentation here on the universal meals and kitchen infrastructure grant program. Just a quick question on page 19 of the agenda says that $15 million for dishwashers would require reducing existing LEA award calculations.

Can somebody clarify what that actually means? And would LEAs get a reduction in order to fund dishwashers?

So the 15 million, because this funding will come out of the existing kitchen infrastructure and training grant program.

I believe at the time, the Department is holding back 15 million from one of the pots of funding involved with that. And that is all proportional funding. So I think that would be reduced or is being held back, I guess, proportionally as far as those grants going out.

So just for my clarification, it'll be from the kitchen infrastructure grant program versus any reductions?

Yes, sorry. It would be from the kitchen infrastructure and training grant program, from the freshly prepared meals pot of funding, which is funding that goes out to schools that attest to serving a certain threshold of meals prepared freshly on site by the beginning of the 23-24 school year.

Okay, thank you so much.

Okay, thank you. We'll hold this issue open. Now, we will begin with public comment, so please line up in the front for public comment.

Please begin. Please keep your comments to 1 minute or less, 60 seconds or less. Thank you.

Good morning. Lindsay Tornatore, on behalf of the California county superintendents. I would like to respond to the chair and Assembly Muratsuchi's question about evidence of closing the achievement gap at the student level. We have many examples of student improvement, but one particular comes from a district in Fresno County. In 2018, they were identified on the dashboard for low graduation rate for student experiencing homelessness. The county office pushed in to provide technical assistance through data analysis.

Interviews with students and families realized no clear pathway for those students and also need more strategic support from school counselors. Increased that support, cleared the pathway. They went from 32% to 68% grad rate in one year, decided the work was still not done, elected to voluntarily continue with their support and now they are at 82% plus. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Erin Apte with Public Advocates. We strongly support the Governor's proposals to strengthen the LCFF accountability system. The LCFF Equity Coalition submitted a letter with detailed comments. We also have a budget alert highlighting some key recommendations. Public Advocates of the ACLU of Southern California also published a report last month with findings and recommendations from our review of over 72 LCAPs to strengthen the LCAP and the system of support.

We believe that requiring all LEAs to create focus goals for low performing student groups at the district or school level has the potential to be the most transformative of the accountability improvements. We support the expansion of the focus goals to address school level performance and appreciate the explicit language on using focus goals to address racial, socioeconomic, and other disparities and opportunities and outcomes. However, we see room for improvement.

We agree with the LAO in recommending that all districts with low performing schools or student groups address underlying teacher credentialing and subject matter preparation issues through focused goals. We know that educator effectiveness is the most important school based indicator of academic performance and success. We would also like to see more robust and targeted efforts to address Black student achievement, a clear emphasis on closing racial and ethnic performance gaps, strengthen community engagement and increased accountability.

Thank you.

I look forward to working with you. Thank you.

Thank you. And just, again, I know a lot of people want to talk and we're going to have to shut it down, so keep your comments to 60 seconds or less so we can make sure everybody has a chance to participate. Thank you.

Yes. Good morning. Michelle Mckay Underwood on behalf of the Coalition for Adequate Funding for Special Education. We thank the Newsom Administration for recognizing the issue of declining funding and declining enrollment in their proposal to force funds from SELPAs to the member LEAs. A couple of local data points: the Sacramento County SELPA will be experiencing about a half $1.0 million decline. So will San Juan.

The SELPA in Assemblymember Muratsuchi's area will be experiencing about a $3 million decline, so they just won't be able to comply. We also philosophically feel like there shouldn't be this insertion within the local plan and those member LEAs making decisions about how to use those spare state and federal dollars. We know that there aren't enough with my last couple of seconds, if I can address the issue that you raised, Chair McCarty, about equalization, we're very grateful for the increases that have got us there.

We do, because of the increasing percentage of students with disabilities, would seek a rebenching of our current per ADA amount up to a $1,000. We see a lot of increased identification statewide, and we think that's appropriate when a budget allows. Thank you.

Thank you.

Elizabeth Esquivel with the California Association of School Business Officials. We have a no position on the LCFF equity multiplier, but we do appreciate the Governor, the intent of the Governor and the Legislature to provide ongoing dollars to help close the opportunity gap.

But given that the narrow scope of the school site eligibility based on the free meals, we understand that there's only 600 to 800 school sites that will be eligible for this, and therefore we recommend there be a different threshold and criteria that focuses on the gaps in student performance. We also appreciate the cost of living adjustment that's being applied to the LCFF to special education and school nutrition.

We agree with the LAO's recommendation on rejecting the proposal on the commercial dishwashers that's found on page 19 of the agenda. And CASBO will actually be working on an assessment to determine if there are appropriate state funds to keep the school nutrition universal meal programs ongoing and making it sustainable. So we'll be working on that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, good morning. My name is Romel Antoine, a member of the Black in School Coalition. The Black in School Coalition is a 17-member organization that consists of civil rights, education, and faith based groups focused on equity and education for California's Black students. The Governor's Equity Multiplier is in direct response to AB 2774, a Bill that sought to add the state's lowest performing subgroup not already generating supplemental or concentration funding, which is currently Black students.

That Bill enjoyed unanimous bipartisan support in the Assembly and the Senate, but was shelved at the governor's request under promise of a compromise. In that compromise, the Equity Multiplier was created to address California's historic underfunding of its Black students. Yet only 5% of the funding as proposed gets to these students.

The Coalition has put forward an alternative that would get 90% of the Equity Multiplier to a student group where 70% don't currently read and write on grade level and 84% don't currently do math on grade level. This isn't the case of if we would just get a little more, we would see a little more since this issue was introduced in 2018, this specific group of unfunded students, again unfunded students, has continued to decline in academic performance, outpacing any of their peer groups. Consider our proposal. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Dr. Margaret Fortune with the Black in School Coalition. We have a support, if amended, position on this item, the Equity Multiplier. We'd like the Committee to consider directing the 300 million in the Governor's Equity Multiplier funding to student groups who are below the state average on two or more of the state indicators on the California school dashboard. That would increase the per pupil funding from $713 under the Governor's proposal to $3,318 per student on an ongoing basis to the students in California with the greatest academic needs.

Thank you.

My name is Christina Laster, Western Regional Education Director of the National Action Network, NAN. Our motto is no justice, no peace. California has been not leading the way with regards to its treatment of Black children and families. I want to point out that not many Black students actually attend the low income schools that are the focus of the governor's Equity Multiplier. Only 5% of the students in these schools are Black. That's why the Equity Multiplier should focus on the lowest performing student groups.

We recommend student groups who are below the state average on two or more state indicators on the California Schools Dashboard that would put the student groups that are in the most academic needs as target of our focus, not because of their race, but because of their performance.

Hello. My name is Joette Spencer Campbell. I'm the Education Chair for San Bernardino NAACP. I support the alternative proposal through the Black Coalition. Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Dr. Ramona Bishop. I am the visionary and CEO of ELITE Public Schools, a school uniquely designed to eliminate the opportunity gap for Black and brown students. I certainly appreciate those members that are still sitting here. It was nice to see an advocate for Latino students that stated that. Our goal today is to make sure that you consider the alternative proposal for the Equity Multiplier, which will address the needs not only of the students that are standing here, but not parlay poverty into being underperforming.

Black students in this state deserve your care. They deserve our attention, and they deserve our best. Thank you.

My name is Debra Watkins. I am the founder and Executive Director of A Black Education Network. After graduating from the Stanford Teacher Education program in 1977, I started working in the largest high school district in Silicon Valley. Black students were doing poorly then, and organizations had to be established to bring attention to their plight.

In 2001, when I established the California alliance of African American Educators, now called A Black Education Network, it was because the majority of our children are still not being served. 70% of black students do not read or write at grade level, and 84% are not at grade level in math. The equity multiplier does not allocate funds for the 80,000 black students who do not attend the schools. I support the Black in School Coalition's alternative to the Equity Multiplier, and I hope you do as well.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Dr. Tecoy Porter. I am the President of the National Action Network, Sacramento chapter. While we appreciate the Governor's plan to address the ongoing opportunity gap, we ask that you consider the Black in School proposal, in which we are a part of that Coalition. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman. I'm Brian Rivas, speaking on behalf of the Education Trust West. We support the alternative Equity Multiplier that's been developed by the Black in School Coalition. And the reason is we ran the numbers on the Governor's proposal, and although well intentioned, a very small percentage of the money would actually reach Black students. I think it's somewhere around 5 and 7%.

We think the Black in School Coalition alternative is a more effective approach at addressing Black student achievement, and we see it as consistent and in alignment with the state system of support that identifies LEAs for additional support based on subgroup performance. That's what the alternative Equity Multiplier would do. And so, for those reasons, we're in support of the Black in School Coalition proposal.

Kimberly Rosenberger with SEIU. We're appreciative of the COLA attached to school nutrition, as well as to special education. We have concerns with the staggering cost of special education not being met, especially when there's no consideration for the cost of needs. Additionally, we are supportive of investments, short term costs for long term payoff. We're seeing schools expand the number of meals they're providing.

There's a push for it to be fresh, to be made on site, and we think those investments do provide cost savings over the long term. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Yolande Beckles, and I'm Board President of the National Association of African American Parents and Youth, based in Los Angeles. We're here to support the Black School Coalition on equity because California's education systems, like many governmental institutions, has never been developed to serve Black students. The tough truth is that they still don't.

Only 30% of our students exceeded English or met the proficiency level, and in math, only 15%. We believe that this Equity Multiplier does not address the needs of the lowest performing children, which happen to be in this country, Black children. And we are asking you to rethink the Governor's proposal and to support the alternative that's being put forward today by the Black School Coalition. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Bertha Gaffney Gorman. I'm on the board of the Sacramento chapter of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. And we support the comments and the proposals were presented by the Black in School Coalition. Thank you.

Good morning. Josefina Ramirez Notsinneh with Children Now. We recommend that the Legislature reject the Governor's Equity Multiplier and instead include provisions that meet the underlying goals of AB 2774 to provide funding that supports student groups with the lowest performance levels.

The language is found in the letter that we submitted to the Committee. While we appreciate the additional $300 million, the Equity Multiplier falls far short of addressing the unique needs and barriers facing our lowest performing students, which currently are and have been for decades, students who identify as Black. As proposed, the equity multiplier would only reach 7% of Black students attending California's public schools.

The remaining 93% of Black students who have historically and consistently struggled the most won't receive any additional support because they attend schools that the Equity Multiplier will not fund. We hope that this Committee, as well as the entire Budget Committee will support this language to support our Black students. Thank you.

Brendan Twohig on behalf of EdVoice. We support the proposed Equity Multiplier. In addition to the targeted funding, we appreciate the requirement that funds actually be spent at individual schools, which will help ensure they maximize their impact on the intended students. We do want to highlight that while we are highly supportive of the Equity Multiplier proposal, we also believe that more needs to be done to meaningfully address the crisis of opportunity that exists for California's Black students.

We support the governor's proposed improvements for the LCAPs as well as the statewide system of support. And we provided a letter to the Committee detailing our perspective on all these proposals. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Good morning. I am Dr. Alicia Montgomery, lifelong educator, change maker, and the proud CEO of Center for Powerful Public Schools and a member of the Black in School Coalition. Having served the State of California's public education system for over 36 years, I have yet to witness Black students anywhere else but at the bottom of every single success indicator students can have. The Governor's Proposed Multiplier was an opportunity to change that, and it does not. So we support totally the Black in School Coalition's alternative multiplier. Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Pamela Gibbs, representing the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Thank you for the opportunity to respond to today's agenda. We support the Administration's intent behind the Equity Multiplier proposal specifically to close the persistent achievement and opportunity gap for the lowest performing subgroup in California, Black students. We believe that LEAs and school sites must have the tools and resources necessary to close this gap.

We know dramatic interventions are necessary and therefore request the state to expand its investments in resources provided by county offices of education and others to address the needs of these students. Evidence shows that improvement of the lowest performing subgroups results in the improvement of all students. And so we urge your support and considered changes as we continue to deliberate this issue. On item three for special education, I align myself with the comments by the Coalition for Adequate Funding for Special Education. Thank you very much, and we're happy to work with you as you continue to deliberate on these items. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Camila Stewart. I'm a student and I support the Black in School Coalition. Don't forget about me. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Allie Joshua and I support the In Black School Coalition. Don't forget about me.

Good morning. My name is Alexis McConico. I am a student and I support the Black in School Coalition. Don't forget about me.

Good morning or afternoon. My name is Bishop Davis. I'm a student and I support the Black in Coalition. Don't forget about me.

Good morning. My name is Carlos. I'm a student and I support the Black in School Coalition. Don't forget about me.

Good morning. My name is Enrique. I am a student and I support the Black School Coalition. Don't forget about me.

Good morning. My name is Andre, and now I'm a student and I support the Black in School Coalition. Don't forget about me.

Good morning. My name is Daniela Perez Diaz and I'm a student and I support the Black in School Coalition. Don't forget about me.

Good morning. My name is Naraya. I'm a student and I support the Black in School Coalition.

Hi, my name is Gigi. I present the Black School policy. Don't forget about me.

Good morning. My name is Avery Mcintosh. I'm a student and I support the Black in School coalition. Don't forget about me.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members and staff. Jeff Vaca, representing the Riverside County Office of Education. Just a quick comment, and I'll follow up with some comments in writing. You had a lot of conversation today about transparency and the usefulness of the LCAP, the way it's evolved. And I don't know that anyone would argue at this point that it's a user friendly document.

I think we have a little bit of a concern with the proposal for focused goals because we think that's going to clutter the LCAP even further. We think that there may be some ways to achieve the goals behind the proposal using some of the mechanisms that are now in place, including the single plan for student achievement or school plan for student achievement, that I'll spell out in more detail with written comments. We're supportive of the intent.

It's just the mechanics and the structure of the proposal itself. Will it help move the ball forward with respect to student achievement? Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Moderator, please proceed with the public comment online.

Very good. Ladies and gentlemen on the phone lines, if you would like to make a public comment, you may press one, then zero on your telephone keypad. You will hear acknowledgment that your line has been placed into the queue. You may remove yourself from the queue by depressing the 1-0 key once again. And our first question is from line 24. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Chair McCarthy and Members. My name is Liz Fenton, representing the office of Kat Taylor on the school nutrition item. Thank you for your leadership and strong commitment to continuing the progress that has been made in school nutrition programs with the 1.4 billion in ongoing funding for School Meals for All and the state meal reimbursement.

In addition to fully supporting the ongoing funding for the School Meals for All program, we support, including an additional 600 million for necessary kitchen infrastructure and training and 100 million for fresh and nutritious meals supported by the School Nutrition Best Practices Fund, which are key to successfully implementing California school meals for all programs. Thank you very much.

Our next comment is from line 26. Please go ahead.

Hello. Good afternoon, Chair McCarty and Members. My name is Abby Halperin with the Center for Ecoliteracy. Thank you for your leadership and strong commitment to continuing the progress that has been made in school nutrition programs with the 1.4 billion in ongoing funding for School Meals for All and the state meal reimbursement.

In addition to ensuring that these ongoing needs are fully funded, I'm in support of the Assembly, including an additional 60 million for kitchen infrastructure and training, 100 million for the school Nutrition Best Practices Fund, and 1.3 million for the evaluation of School Meals for All, which are key to protecting the progress that has been made in successfully implementing California's School Meals for All program.

The Center for Ecoliteracy works with a network of over 100 public school districts across the state as part of our California Food for California Kids initiative. We've heard from these nutrition directors that the state investment will help realize the full potential of school meals to nourish our students, support local farmers, and benefit the planet. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next comment is from line five. You may go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee Members. My name is Casey Allen. I live in Redblock in Northern California. I'm the parent of a student with deaf and hard of hearing. I'm calling to voice my concerns in opposition to the Governor's budget proposal of a cap in SELPA funding. We live in a very rural area in the far north part of the state.

Our SELPA operates almost all of the special education services for our county, including deaf and hard of hearing services. If the SELPA board did not pool their money together to operate this program, my child would not have access to a program that has taught her ASL, provided her with an interpreter, and given her access to deaf peers, which has greatly built her confidence and encouraged her to wear her assistive hearing devices.

She is currently in a regional program, fully inclusive with access to all of that due to my SELPA. If they did not have this, our child would get limited access to this level of support or would have to live outside her community and go to the school for the deaf close to 300 miles away from her family and community. That's unfair and not in the best interest of students with disabilities in these areas.

The SELPA cap would have unintended consequences and harm my child and other students in my SELPA and any other SELPAs who've pooled their money to service their students. Please oppose this harmful proposal and seek alternatives.

Next we go to line number 12. You may go ahead.

Good afternoon. Scott Turner, Executive Director of East San Gabriel Valley SELPA. I want to align my comments with the LAO rejecting the SELPA funding cap proposal. Under unanimous approval of our superintendents council, we coordinate specialized programs and supports with over 100 classrooms and itinerant services available for students with disabilities. Additionally, we provide direct leadership of transportation services for over 900 students. When our SELPA initially saw the budget proposal on nondirect services, we had no concerns due to the overwhelming direct nature of our services.

However, the trailer Bill provided no clarity on direct versus indirect services and instead seems to make assumptions that all SELPA services are indirect and should be capped. For SELPAs like ours experiencing severe declining enrollment, we cannot meet this new requirement by over $9 million. Even with the declining enrollment adjustment, the proposal would not allow for growth of services and supports or cover other increases for staff, that again are providing direct services under the unanimous approval of our Superintendent's council. Thank you for the thoughtful consideration of these impacts.

Next we go to comment from line number 6. You may go ahead.

Good morning, Chair McCarty and Subcommitee Members. I'm Patrick McGrew, and I support the Davis, Espardo, Washington, Winters and Woodland school districts and the Yolo County Office of Education. In terms of the proposed budget for special education, we support the COLA for special education, and we are in strong opposition to the SELPA administrative fee cap.

The SELPA administrative fee cap would nullify Yolo County's local plan, which we carefully developed with input and approval from our parents, staff, and superintendents to meet the unique needs of our districts and all of our students in Yolo County. We strongly support the LAO's recommendation to reject this trailer Bill language that would create unnecessary financial shortfalls and does nothing to help students. If enacted as written, the current proposal would create a $1.1 million deficit for Yolo County based on our most recent estimates. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Next we go to line 16. You may go ahead.

My name is Aaron Benton. Good morning. I'm the Director of Butte County SELPA. Mr. McCarty and Mr. Muratsuchi and Committee Members, you're very much on the right track, so please keep asking the hard and sometimes unpopular questions. Our students and families are counting on you to do that. There is a clear absence of evidence that the LCFF concept has succeeded in reducing the achievement gap over the last decade.

While persistent gaps exist in achievement for students with disabilities, the Administration and CDE would have you believe the self restructure is somehow to blame for this. And if districts just got all their own special ed dollars, it would all be better. Please continue to ask questions like: why is this proposal being brought? Who's bringing it, and what are their education credentials? Who's been consulted? Is it just a simple funding shift or would it significantly impact student programs? What would happen to economies of scale?

Would students be more or less likely to receive high quality programs and services? And why is this in trailer Bill language? And is that due process for our families? Won't it be harder for you to make sound decisions without input from parents, students, and superintendents? The LAO gets this one right. Please check out our latest SELPA podcast for factual and actual information. Thank you.

Next we go to line 11. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Chair and Members. My name is Veronica Coates, assistant superintendent of the Tehama County SELPA, representing 17 LEAs and over 1600 students with disabilities. I am calling to ask that you oppose the recommendation to impose a SELPA funding cap. Our SELPA provides the vast majority of direct special education services. I question what problem is trying to be solved, especially with recent reforms such as the direct distribution of early intervention and arms dollars.

There is evidence that those reforms have had very harmful, unintended consequences. Just yesterday, one of my LEAs requested the SELPA take back their early intervention dollars to pool our funding for economy of scale. Our LEAs have already voted to flow all earns dollars back to the SELPA. Analyzing if these reforms worked is the first step before issuing more harmful policies. These policies limit access to students and are being done through budget acts proposed by entities who have zero knowledge about actual special education service models.

I support the LAO's analysis and urge you to oppose this harmful proposal. This is your chance to ensure the checks and balances of our legislative body actually work. Don't forget about our students with disabilities and the unique needs of each county in SELPA. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we go to a comment from line 21. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair McCarty and Subcommitee Members. My name is Dina Parker and I'm an assistant superintendent representing the Beverly Hills, Culver City, and Santa Monica-Malibu Unified school districts. We support the COLA for special education, but we must strongly oppose the Administration's proposal to obstruct the relationship between our districts and our SELPA and essentially removing our ability for local control. Our SELPA provides much needed regionalized and direct services.

We will face an over $1 million deficit and this proposal lacks clarity or support for school districts. We support the LAO's recommendation to reject the trailer Bill language that would force funds from SELPAs to LEAs regardless of existing local plans, declining enrollment, funding, salary and benefit increases, and other local needs. Thank you.

And our last comment comes from line 25. Go ahead, please.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee Members. My name is Mark Path. I live in Chico, California, in Northern California. I'm a parent of a student with a disability. I'm calling to voice my concerns in opposition to the Governor's budget proposal of a cap in SELPA funding, as well as my plea to reconsider sending educationally related mental health service funding directly to LEA.

My child has needs that require mental health services, and I have seen firsthand what has happened when the model is taken away from the SELPA and given to the LEAs. The access to quality service goes down as there are less resources available. I urge you to consider pausing the new requirement and studying if it really is a need. Additionally, I urge you to oppose the SELPA funding cap. Our SELPA provides high quality services, training and support directly to students and families.

Some of their services are students with the most intense emotional needs. The SELPA cap would harm students and families in the SELPA and other SELPA with models of strong support and service. Please oppose this harmful proposal and seek alternatives. Please consider pausing earned as it is not a good idea and is already harming our most valuable students with mental health needs and discriminatory of those students with these vulnerabilities. Thank you for your patience and listening.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the testimony. With that, we will adjourn.