Senate Standing Committee on Education

Committee on education will now come to order. As you can see, we are still missing a few of our colleagues, so we're going to start this morning's proceedings as a Subcommitee. There are 18 bills on today's agenda. However, at least one so far. Item number one, SB 895, has been pulled by the author. We have three bills on consent. Those bills are item three, SB 1391. Item number nine, SB 1277. Item number 18, SB 1138.

Witnesses may be asked to limit their testimony to three minutes to ensure the Committee is able to complete today's agenda in a timely fashion. Again, we have no quorum as of yet. Let's begin as a Subcommitee with Senator Wilk's first Bill. He's bringing it down right now. I'll go get in place. Okay. Okay. You'll be in the starting position, and I have an expert witness who is not here because he didn't expect to be here for a good hour. Okay.

And if another author surprises us by appearing, we may go that route. While we are getting started, let me welcome our Internet viewers from far and wide, including Julie from Missouri, who watches her daughter, Amanda do her work. I just go by memory. I don't even know the Bill numbers. When you're staff, you know the Bill numbers. When you're a Member, you don't know any Bill numbers? Cause I used to get mad at my Members.

You don't know the Bill number? Senator, is that true? I don't know my Bill numbers. If I gave you a hint, would it help? What do you think of when you think of a letter? Which one do you want to do first? We can wait. Good morning, Mister Johnson.

But your hair's perfect, so it's. I'm sorry. Did not mean to call you out. All right. For those of us who just joined, specifically Mister Johnson, we're waiting for Senator Wilk's staff to bring him some materials that will allow him to be eloquent. I didn't say that. You did. I did. My office isn't in the lob, so I don't understand why he's not here. Senator, welcome. Why don't you come back to the dais and we'll do this.

I said give me a phone number and we can go now. Yeah, let's do that. So, Senator Grove, welcome. We are going to welcome everybody again to the Senate Committee, education. And we are going to. As our first Bill, we're going to hear item number four on the agenda, SB 1063 from Senator Grove. And welcome. So you are a witness. Please take any seat that feels comfortable to you and you may proceed when ready.

Thank you, Mister chair. First of all, Mister chair, I want to deeply thank you from the bottom of my heart for engagement on this Bill, extraordinarily important to me and some of my constituents, and specifically Ishmit Singh.

I also want to appreciate the work that the Committee has done on this Bill and will be accepting the Committee's amendments which clarify and strengthen the resource information on student ID cards existing law requires schools to print telephone numbers of the national suicide prevention lifeline and the telephone number for the national domestic violence hotline onto student ID cards, grades seven through 12.

As helpful as these numbers are, it's important to give students a greater variety of resources to combat mental health struggles that are prevalent among most of our youth. The Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission reported that in 2022 that one of the one in three high school students report feeling chronically sad or hopeless, and one in six high school students report having considered suicide in the past year.

And half of three quarters of the students have mental health needs that did not receive the needed care that they desired. SB 1063, inspired by the sponsor of this Bill, Ishmeet Singh, would require schools to put a link on their mental health resources website of the county in which the school district is located so that the ID cards for seven through 12 could be more accessible to students. It also makes mental health resources more accessible and comprehensive for students.

By authorizing, but not requiring, high schools to place a QR code on the student ID card that links those students to those resources, students will be able to find the resources in just right for their needs without needing to cold call a phone number on the student ID cards and making it simpler and super accessible. Think about that, colleagues. We have a QR code. The students can just take their phone out.

They can click the QR code and go link to a website and decide what services that they can use or that they felt like they needed. This is a common sense measure and is a much important, needed step towards improving the mental health of our students. Now, I would like to direct your attention to my sponsor of this Bill and our lead witness, Ishmit Singh, as a high school student in the Kern High School District.

Mister Singh, welcome. Good morning. You and I have met before, but I welcome you as a witness. Thanks for being here.

Thank you so much for this opportunity. So, first of all, esteemed Members of the Committee, I'm honored here to be testifying before you today. And a special thanks to Senator Grove and Senator Newman for empowering me to testify for a Bill that I'm very passionate about. So coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a middle schooler going into high school, I struggled with severe video game addiction. And it turns out I wasn't alone as 20% of students my age struggled with mental illnesses.

And to do something about this, I reached out to my local community college district and local high school district. But it turned out that they already had three to four hotlines on the back of student ids. However, there was still a big gap, as 66% of California students who need mental health care don't receive it. So to bridge the gap, I asked my high school counselors and the current High School District what exactly is the missing piece?

And they said that students are hesitant to reach out to the counselors because they're feeling shy or embarrassed. And furthermore, in the age of technology, we want easy access to things. So with this Bill, I hope to give high schools and grades seven to eight as well the option to implement a QR code or a link that goes to a behavioral website. And this website should give instructions on how to handle their distress, but also guides them through what exactly these digits are.

As nobody's first intuition is to memorize or dial a bunch of numbers to handle their distress. They want evident answers in a span of a couple seconds. So that's my mission with this Bill, and thank you so much for this opportunity. If you guys have any questions, I would be honored to answer them.

Thank you for your testimony. Do we have any other witnesses in support? No lead witnesses there. Any other Members of the public here like to express a support position for the Bill? If so, please come forward and state your name. Your position. I'm seeing none. Are there any Members of the public here? Is there a lead witness in opposition? Seeing none. Any witness in opposition elected press position? Seeing none. Let us come back to the deus. Got the thumbs up from Senator Welk.

For my part, I will say, sir, we spoke. I give you credit not only for having a good idea, but being aggressive and resourceful in petitioning your legislative representative to bring this idea to us. It makes eminent good sense to me. I'm glad to support it. We do not yet have a quorum. Will I have. Can I count on you for motion when we. All right, Senator Roe. But Senator Grove, if you'd like to close.

Thank you, Mister chair. And thank you Members, for the opportunity to present this Bill to you. Just respectfully ask for an aye vote because this is an incredible opportunity for our students and it will bridge a gap in the technology age that they use.

Appreciate that. Mister Singa, again, thank you for being here. I want to tell you and everybody else here, just because there wasn't a lot of discussion on the Bill doesn't mean that it is not a good idea. That's proof, in fact, that it is a good idea. And when we have a quorum, we'll take up a vote. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mister chair.

Thank you. I see Senator Padilla here. He was ready for bear when you need him.

Zero, there he is.

There he is. I appreciate that. Very good, Senator Padilla, welcome. We will be presenting SB 1241 and don't know if you have witnesses. Do you have a witness?

I do not.

Do not. Well, proceed and ready, please.

Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, I'm pleased to present SB 1241. I want to start by thanking the committee staff for working with my staff and will be accepting committee amendments. Schools in California are struggling to address, as we know, the crisis of school violence and youth suicide. The last three years have seen the highest incidence of school shootings in over a decade. Additionally, in 2020, suicide was the second leading cause of death among young people.

Making our schools safe and nurturing environments is vital to ensuring that California students can learn and grow. SB 1241, the Safe Students Act, uplifts existing tools, standardizes important protocols and approaches, including appropriate anonymous reporting systems and prevention, and trainings to help students learn about violence prevention and suicide awareness. In addition to professional credential staff. SB 1241 would require the Department of Education to maintain a list of approved evidence-based training with instruction in both suicide awareness and violence prevention.

The bill also requires school districts, county offices of ed, charter schools to enter into an agreement with an anonymous reporting system to give students the ability to report when a peer is struggling. Anonymous reporting systems and evidence-based training programs are available, tools that are supported by a growing body of research.

A study by the American Academy of Pediatrics analyzed the use of one anonymous reporting system and found that in just one state, the system led to over 1000 confirmed mental health interventions, prevented 100 imminent suicide crises, and stopped almost 40 school related violent incidents. Evidence based training programs, such as the Know the Science program provided by Sandy Hook Promise have been reported to increase the willingness of students to report warning signs that they observe and to again prevent violence.

This bill directs school districts to teach young people about identifying the signs that someone may be in crisis and give students the ability to report when a peer may be struggling when we emphasize and promote these programs, we create safer schools and affirm our most sacred of duties to keep our children safe and to provide them an appropriate learning environment. With that, I would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, sir. Any witnesses here in support of the measure? Seeing none. Anyone here who would like to testify in opposition to the measure, please come forward. Welcome, you have three minutes.

Thank you. I won't take them. Good morning, chair andmMembers. My name is Rachel Bhagwat, legislative advocate at ACLU California action. ACLU and two of our partners, the Collective for Liberatory Lawyering as well as the Youth Justice Education Clinic at Loyola Law School, did submit an opposed, unless amended position for this bill.

I want to start by thanking the author's office for accepting some of the Committee amendments or accepting all of the committee amendments, some of which were very in line with what we had asked, particularly removing the section of the bill related to threat assessment, which is a model that isn't shown to be effective and can add additional criminalization and harm for our students.

We, at this time, we haven't been able to see the language of the committee amendments, but we do not think our opposition is fully removed at this time just because it looks like there are still parts of the bill that need a little bit of work around clarifying and removing some of the over-involvement of DOJ and law enforcement agencies in pieces of the bill.

There's a little bit of a conflation of the identification in response to suicidality versus potential mass threats in the bill that could lead to over involvement of law enforcement agencies in DOJ in, for example, developing mental health interventions for students and training, and that which has the risk of taking California in the opposite direction of where we want to go in terms of who should be responding to a young person's mental health crisis.

We also see some places where this bill could encourage over sharing of student data with law enforcement. That could lead to information about a student's demographics, disability status, and other information shared with law enforcement in potentially challenging ways. That said, we look forward to continuing to work with the author's office on strengthening this bill. We do think there are parts of this that could be very helpful for California students, which is why we didn't take a full opposed position.

And, you know, if the bill does move out of this Committee, do look forward to continuing to be in the conversation. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other witnesses in opposition to the measure seeing now? Let's come back to the dais. Questions, comments from my colleagues here? Senator Padilla, let me let you address the two concerns identified by the opposition. One is this question about prospective over-involvement of law enforcement. We have done a bunch of bills in the past years that have emphasized de-escalation, particularly in behavioral health crises. So if you wouldn't mind speaking of that.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. I appreciate that. First, with respect to continuing the dialogue with ACLU, I'm going to just put on the record that we're going to continue the conversation and very willing to work with all parties who have concerns about refining this language and making it stronger and more effective and impactful. I think it's natural that we would sort of psychologically default to the worst case scenarios of gun violence and mass shootings.

When we talk about the incidence of violence in the school and in learning environment. In reality, the vast majority of them are not that.

And we have been well aware and some of the best studies and analysis have showed that having both student bodies age appropriate, appropriately constructed, as well as the professional staff that are on a school site, from supportive staff all the way up to credentialed administrative staff, to understand the proper ways to intervene in potential violence that has the threat of progressing beyond just a conflict between students, conflict resolution all the way up to actual bodily harm in many of its forms, is very appropriate.

So I don't think that the intent here is at all to create a system of automatic and imminent immediate reporting to a law enforcement agency unless that particular immediate circumstance is critical and immediate and acute and calls for such an intervention appropriately. That is not what this bill does, and that's not what the, what the systems that are sought in terms of broadening the curriculum around training, teacher training and staff training and pupil awareness are not designed around a criminal or law enforcement response. And I want to make that clear.

Cool. I mean, you know, that's good to hear. But you'd allow that there may be some additional sort of clarification?

Absolutely.

Okay, good. And you're committed to doing it. Secondly, I guess you've touched on it. Oversharing of data falls into the same case.

Yeah. My only response to that, Mister Chairman, I appreciate that being flagged is that data has to be timely and relevant. That data generally goes to the disposition and the behavior of a student who may be in crisis, I think, and much less to their demographic representation.

And I think we do want to be sensitive to a system of reporting or a system of awareness, whether that's internal conversations among students and their teachers, whether that's internal communications on a school site or beyond or entered into a system of reporting.

Most of that, I think all of us would agree, needs to be focused on the objective observations of someone who is clearly struggling, is in crisis, and may become a problem first and foremost for themselves and their own well being, but then the well being of the learning environment.

Thank you. So I will be supporting the bill today, but I appreciate your commitment to continue to work with opposition to address some of their concerns moving forward. We do not yet have a quorum, so when we do, we'll take a motion and put that to a vote. But I appreciate your testimony. Would you, I guess, would you like to close

When appropriate, I would respectfully request and aye vote and I thank the Chairman and Members.

Certainly. Thank you. Very good. I see Senator Dodd. Oh, Senator Limon, that's. Sorry about that. Welcome. You will be presenting item number five on the agenda, SB 1094.

Thank you, chair and colleagues. SB 1094 promotes civic learning in grades one through eight by requiring instruction in civic engagement or experience with a governmental institution at the local, state or national level, at least once between grades 1 and 6 and once between grades 7 and 8. A 2016 survey revealed that only a quarter of Americans can name all three branches of government, highlighting the need for improved civic education.

Existing laws established in the state seal of civic engagement to encourage the creation of pathways for students to become civically engaged in democratic governmental institutions at the local, state and national levels. Currently, students in grades 11 and 12th can earn a state seal of civic engagement through a variety of activities. To date, over 28,000 seals of civic engagement have been awarded to 11th and 12th graders in our state.

SB 1094 furthers existing law by creating pathways for students in elementary and secondary school to learn about civic engagement. Civic education not only equips students with critical thinking and collaboration skills, but also enhances school attendance and academic achievement while reducing suspension rates. Today with me, we have Doctor Michelle Herczog from the Los Angeles County Office of Education and Dave Gordon, Superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Education, to speak in support of the bill.

Welcome to both of you. Doctor Herczog, Superintendent Gordon, welcome. You can flip a coin, see who gets to go first. Flipped the coin earlier. Please receive.

He'll have the big finish.

You have him as a closer.

Yeah, exactly. Good morning, chair and members. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Doctor Michelle Herczog. I'm the coordinator, three for history, social science at the Los Angeles County Office of Education. I've been in this role for over 20 years. I want to speak briefly, of course, in support of our bill. We know the goal of public education is to create good citizens, citizens. But we need.

Unfortunately, civic education isn't introduced to students as a requirement until that 12th grade, one semester, 1 foot out the door government course. Right? And so, yes, younger students are learning their history, America's history, in the younger grades. But civic education is hugely marginalized or ignored. It's not part of our state accountability system. It's not tested, it's not on the dashboard. So sadly, it's marginalized greatly. There's great examples out there, but they are the exception and not the norm.

If we want young people to embrace our constitutional principles, engage in government institutions in responsible ways, and grow up to be informed and responsible voters, we need to start much earlier. We can't wait until high school to have that happen. We know the benefits of civic education are huge, engaging in these institutions. We know that it builds their understanding, their skills, their attitudes, as we mentioned, increases attendance rates, graduation rates. It makes learning relevant, and it makes it come alive.

We know that it does not, cannot begin in 12th grade. It needs to start with our youngest citizens. And the priority needs to be raised to the importance of other subjects. There's great examples out there. There's lots of power behind this. We need to start with our youngest students, starting in the elementary grades. Sandra Day O'Connor had once said, knowledge about our government is not handed down through the gene pool. Every generation has to learn it, and we have some work to do. So we support Senate Bill 1094, hoping that it will help keep our republic and strengthen our democracy for decades to come. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mister Gordon.

Good morning. And first, I want to thank Senator Limon for taking up this so important issue, and for your committee staff, for all of their assistance in the last couple of weeks. Every bit of data that we have nationally shows us that the civic understanding of our young people is declining. The nation's report card shows a steady decline in civic understanding among young people.

And overall, most young people, based on surveys, do not believe their school careers ended up preparing them for even the most basic functions of a democracy, like how do we register, how do we vote? And as most of our youth often depend on the social media for all of their news, our political system becomes more and more fraught with an inability to work together or often even talk together. And I'm old enough to remember.

I've been a Superintendent for 28 years, and I worked for the State Department of Education for 17 years. I'm old enough to remember President Reagan and Speaker Tip O'Neill. There couldn't have been two more polar opposite personalities or sets of political beliefs. Yet they understood the importance of sitting down together and working through their disagreements so that our nation could move on in a positive way.

So our hope with this very, very simple bill is to begin giving our young people in elementary and middle school a better understanding of how our government is set up for us to live and work together as one nation and to continue to work hard and together towards creating that more perfect union. And I'm so grateful to all of you for considering this measure. It's very important, but it's most important for the folks you're about to hear from now. That's our future. And consider this sort of our gift to them for the future. So thank you. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Appreciate your testimony. Any other witnesses here in the committee hearing would like to testify in support of the bill. So please come forward to the microphone. State your name, your organization and your position.

The future comes up. The present will just me too. Fred Jones. On behalf of the teachers of these programs, California Council for the Social Studies. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jones. Welcome, leaders of the future.

Thank you so much. My name is Anushka Kalyan. I'm a student at the Roseville Joint Union High School District, and I go to Granite Bay High School, and I strongly support this Bill. Thank you so much.

Anushka. Thank you. Next, please.

Hi, my name is Kasch Marquardt, and I go to West Campus High School, and I also support this bill. It is so important for us high schoolers to learn civics so that we don't have to get started as late as I did, which was in sophomore year last year, even before I took a government course. And I had to foster this interest with different.

Thank you. But you did get started way sooner than many of us.

Hello, my name is Haley, and I'm a student at Fowler High School, and I strongly support this bill.

Hello, my name is Asa Chester, and I am a student in the Sanger Unified School District, and I strongly support this bill. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Carrington Williams. I'm a junior at West Campus High School, and I strongly support this bill.

Hello, my name is Bryce Merrill. I am a student at west campus as well in the SUSD school district, and I strongly support this bill.

Hi, my name is Christine Moerland. I'm a homeschool parent. I strongly support this bill. We started educating starting in fifth grade, fourth grade, and I think it's great. And my daughter's actually here to present something later.

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Is anybody here who has the nerve to testify in opposition to this bill? Seeing none. Let's come back to the dais, colleagues. Any comments or questions for the author? Senator Ochoa Bogh?

I just want to thank the author, just out of curiosity, though, because it's my understanding that this can already be done in our schools.

So this would actually allow, it's already done in the high school. So what we're encouraging this to do is do it once in elementary school. Well, do it at some point in elementary school and do it at some point in junior high.

Do we not already do that in?

Some do, but some don't. And so this would be actually a little bit more than can.

So this is more of a mandate for the rest of the schools to be able to do it.

To do it once.

Okay. You know, it's interesting because I completely concur with the comments from our witness this morning with regards to the inability to be able to facilitate conversations between opposing or opposing views based basically. But it's what's interesting to note since coming into the space because I did not have political aspirations. It's kind of interesting how I ended up here.

But one of the things that I have learned since being in office is that even within our school systems, our teachers, Superintendent, schools, school board members don't necessarily understand the difference between the political side and the government side. And it's interesting because even when I have reached out to schools to come and speak in government classes per se, to talk about governance and talk about California governance, there's a lot of hesitation in coming in because they don't want to seem political.

And I thought that's very interesting, that even within enough school district, adults who are in the teaching profession don't understand the difference between governance in the political side of it. So I actually encourage the discussion on getting involved with the local electives and understanding the differences and most importantly, how much we as adults need to start modeling what collaboration, discussion of ideas, rather than working in silos and echo chambers, which has been detrimental to, I think, to a lot of our, our systems currently within our state or within the nation. So I'm grateful to have this forward, and I'm looking, the only concern I do have is will this have a cost to our school districts?

And how do you envision this being facilitated within our school? Because with the budget deficits that we have currently. And as we ask our schools to do more, how are we going to allow them to be able to have the funds to be able to mitigate everything that the state legislature is requiring them to do already and what we plan on having them do moving forward? Thank you.

If you'd like to respond.

Well, I think that that's one of the conversations we'll have. We'll certainly have it if this bill moves forward, you know, in the next Committee. In terms of what that looks like, is it a later implementation date? Is it, you know, some other types of flexibility? But we're certainly open to that. I mean, it's a real issue. So, and I, and actually, here's the folks who are implementing it.

So, yes, it's a good question. I just want to tell you just this week on Monday, I visited two elementary schools in El Segundo that all the fifth graders there are doing civic engagement work. The kids are concerned about water pollution. They're in El Segundo. They're right there by the Hyperion station. They're worried about the plastics in the ocean. And what they learned, to your point exactly, is they just can't have a protest and solve the problem.

There are city ordinances, there are county ordinances that students learn. These are 10 year olds, that, it's complicated. There's different entities that deal with different things, and they learn the system of government as young as 10 years old. The teachers loved it because they integrated it into their science, their english classes, their social studies. In fact, they said, this is not an add on for us. This is what makes our learning come alive and make it relevant. It didn't cost us any money to do this.

It made it exciting. It made it engaging. And the takeaways that these kids expressed were huge. Were huge. I just, now, I didn't realize it's so difficult to solve some of these problems.

Now I know what I think I can do, that I can have some voice and maybe I can pay attention to other issues and know where to go to try to solve these problems. So that's part of the goal of good quality civic engagement, teaching them the systems, how to work through them in responsible, thoughtful, effective ways, not go crazy on us. Right. But just really to learn the system, embrace the principles, try to make our democracy stronger. We can't wait till 12th grade.

These little 10 year olds, they're ready to roll. They know the complexity of this. They're ready to move on when they get older and they look at life in the big picture. Thank you for your question.

And the teaching of these skills is already in the elementary curriculum as adopted by the State Board of Education in the state. So it's a matter of emphasis and letting young people experience exactly what Michelle talked about. This is interesting. It's interesting stuff to get engaged in. When I was a Superintendent in the Elk Grove district, we had the case of take under God out of the pledge of allegiance. And you have to handle this stuff carefully.

So we set up a contest, an essay contest, where our kids in the district were asked to write on either side of the question. And we had the essays read, and we raised money, and we took the kids, the two winners, back to Washington to hear the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court debate. The whole community got involved, and it was an extraordinary learning experience for everybody.

And just to be clear, this does not require a new curriculum that already exists because of prior law. So this is just the emphasis, as was said. So new curriculum wouldn't have to be created for this. It's just that there would be an emphasis, a coordinated emphasis through the district and school.

Very good. So we do have a quorum. So, madam secretart, please call the role to establish a quorum.

[Roll Call]

So, colleagues, any other questions? Comments? Senator Wilk?

I have a comment. I think this is long overdue, because I talked to fifth graders, 8th graders and 12th graders, and it's just something that I think is lacking. And I think having it embedded in the regular curriculum is smart. As this bill moves forward, an amendment I would like to think, I'd like you to consider taking is actually having this kind of training for legislators, because I feel like they don't understand. No, they don't understand they're a co equal branch of the government, and they don't have to get on bended knee to the governor. And I think that would be public policy for all. So I hope you consider that moving forward.

Duly noted. Thank you so much for that input. Okay. So for my part, I am happy to support the bill. I argue probably this doesn't go far enough, and that civics is a thread that should run through every single year of school. And I think with respect to cost, this is more a matter of prioritization than it is of cost.

And even if there is a cost, that cost is more than justified by the ultimate benefits. And I think it's fair to say that civic engagement is a muscle that needs to be exercised, developed in the exercise, constantly. And we're doing it on an ad hoc basis and clearly not doing it well enough. So I'm happy to support the bill. I'd be grateful to be added as a co author moving forward.

Thank you.

We do have a quorum if you'd like to close.

I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. And do I have a motion? Senator Milk. Wilk moves, Senator. Senator. Senator Wilk.

He said milk didn't he?

I did. You're looking unusually pale today.

Oh, my God.

Madam secretary. Please call the role.

File tem five, SB 1094, Limon. Motion is do pass to Senate Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

All right, that measure has four votes. We'll hold it open. But thank you. Thank you, the witnesses. And thank you to the young people who came here today, testify. And I fully expect to see you here every Wednesday moving forward. Next up, we have Senator Rubio. Welcome.

No. Senator Rubio is the first two bills.

All right. So welcome to Senator Rubio, and you will be presenting SB 1056. Your other bill is on the consent calendar.

Thank you.

Proceed when ready.

Good morning, everyone. Well, first of all, thank you, Chair and Members of the Committee, for hearing this bill. And this is a great opportunity to hear how great SB 1056 is for our children. This is legislation that will ensure that children receive critical instruction in their critical early years of learning. Specifically, SB 1056 will require students to complete one year of kindergarten before entering first grade by the year 2026-27. This year, I have collaborated with the Assembly Education Chair.

This is just to highlight how important this topic is. And so he has a companion bill, and we have one in both houses. As an educator for 20 years, I have personally witnessed how early education can have a positive impact on student academic success. And not just academic, but their overall health. You can instantly see when a child is missing kindergarten. For example, as a first grade teacher, children walk in not understanding what school is. They don't know how to hold a pencil.

They're playing with every material that you give them. But even more importantly, they lack self confidence, self esteem, and they don't know how to interact, and they withdraw. And so you see the difference between those that have gone to kinder, they're usually two years ahead of those that did not attend kinder. And they're already talking about projects that they worked on, summer projects, you know, science, things that they did over the summer. So you start seeing the disparity, and the gap only grows exponentially.

And it's really difficult to catch students up at that point. Again, students who do not attend kindergarten have difficulty in first grade. My issue with not mandating kindergarten is that we do have skills that we require children to know as they come into first grade. By way of example, we expect children to know the letters, they have to know how to write a sentence. So then in first grade, we can advance those skills and show them how to write a paragraph.

But yet, you know, we expect them to come with basic skills, and yet we don't mandate that they attend kinder so they can have those skills. Not only does it harm the children, but, as a teacher, I can tell you teachers continue to struggle. They're using a lot of their time for remediation versus advancing skills. And so teachers are exhausted. It's getting harder and harder on them. The workload continues to increase.

And on top of that, the learning loss that was created during the pandemic has made it very difficult. And so this is the best way to support not only our students, but our teachers and parents who don't have the skills to help their child back at home. And to provide a screenshot, in 2020-2021 academic year, kindergarten enrollment had dropped by 14% in LAUSD. That's a decline of 6000 students overall. And so that's just to highlight that we're losing students, not gaining students.

And so, especially in the school system's lowest neighborhoods, the children that often stay home are the ones that need it most, those that come from disadvantaged homes, especially black and brown communities. And so that is critically important because the grade already exists. Kindergarten is already a grade that we accept, but we're not encouraging that small percentage of students that drop off to join. And again, these are the children that, the kids that really need it.

But I want to highlight something that, for me, it's even more important and compelling. I would say, as a teacher and victims' advocate, we need all our students in our classrooms. This is a great opportunity to identify the kids that are already being neglected, the kids that are being abused, mistreated, and it's the opportunity to capture those children and provide services early on. Again, those are critical years for our students.

If we can have them in class, they also are being fed three times a day, which is important. A lot of the time, these are the kids that are left home without food. I know that, as a teacher, in my classroom I always had food for every single grade level. And you always have a handful that will tell you they cannot think or work because their tummy hurts. And as teachers, you always have a lot of food in the classroom, and you feed them before you can teach.

I can only imagine those that are five years old at home, six maybe, and not having any food. So there's other benefits, not just academic benefits, but also just socially, emotionally. We want to make sure that we provide every opportunity for that child to succeed along with their peers. And so we just need to close the gap. And I think that's why this is extremely important.

And many of us come from households that are either from other countries or perhaps, you know, we defer to the educational system to tell us what's important. So if we tell a parent that kindergarten is not mandatory, they take that as to mean it's not important. And they care very much about the education of their children, but they'll keep them home because we're saying it's not an important grade. So with that, I will turn it over to my witnesses, if I may. Joining me today is CTA rep and LAUSD rep. So I'm going to start with... Go ahead, with our teacher here from Elk Grove. You can just testify from there. Yeah.

Welcome, Mr. Lowe. And you each have three minutes. Please proceed.

Good morning. My name is Terri Lowe, and I'm a teacher in Elk Grove Unified School District. I am in my 30th year of teaching and 12th year of teaching kindergarten. You may have heard the saying, all I really know I need to learn... All I really know I learned in kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. And I was a kindergarten student in the 1970s, and kindergarten has changed a lot since then. There's a conception that kindergarten is playtime and recess, crafts, nap for 5 and 6 year olds, but these days it's far from the case.

By third grade, the goal is for every child to be reading on grade level. Kindergarten is when a child gains essential foundational skills that are built on building blocks of success. Not only do children need to know all of their letter names and sounds by the end of kindergarten, but they need to be able to read consonant vowel, consonant words, read 30 sight words, read a complete basic sentence, write two complete sentences with phonetic spelling, capitals, spaces, and correct punctuation.

In math, a student needs to be able to recognize numbers to 20 and be able to add and subtract numbers to 10, along with many other standards related to other subject areas. Without this foundation of learning to read and write in kindergarten, they will not be able to read and write to learn in first grade.

In kindergarten, they also learn social and emotional tools to help with self regulation in order to cope with stress, anxiety, and, in many cases, childhood trauma. They learn how to communicate and socialize and gain understanding that they are part of a school community. They learn what it means to be a student in a school environment. They learn essential expectations that will follow them through their entire school history.

Now, with this perspective, imagine being a first grade student who did not go to kindergarten and trying to figure out the basics without the groundwork. The chances of success have decreased significantly. In order for kindergarten kids to be successful and have a solid foundation, please consider making kindergarten a mandatory start to their educational career. What happens in kindergarten will last a lifetime.

Thank you very much. Ms. Estrada, welcome.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair Newman and Members. My name is Dr. Karla Estrada. I am the Deputy Superintendent of Instruction for Los Angeles Unified School District. It is with great optimism that I stand before you today, actually sit before you today, representing Los Angeles Unified School District as a proud co-sponsor of Senate Bill 1056, which is an equity-driven step towards making kindergarten mandatory in our great State of California.

California has made great investments in early childhood and UTK, which has supported our students academic and social emotional foundations. When you walk into a UTK classroom, it's beautiful to see our students sitting with their teachers, with their educators, and learning about letters, learning about books, learning about stories and journeys that they themselves one day will experience.

They sit across their teachers and kidney tables with their fellow peers, engaging in social interactions that are beautiful, cooperative learning skills that they'll use as they engage in more rigorous learning experiences. This bill represents a cornerstone of California's promise that every child starts their educational journey equipped with the early learning experiences essential for future success.

It is a bold step towards equitable educational policy aiming to bridge the achievement gap that too often divides our students from underserved communities, such as in LAUSD where 86% of our students live in poverty or socioeconomically disadvantaged. Throughout Los Angeles Unified, we continue to see evidence of students benefiting from kindergarten through their performance data at the end of the year with DIBELS assessment and 1st, 2nd, into 3rd grade.

We also see students have demonstrated higher achievement levels as late as into fifth grade just because of the experiences they had in kindergarten. The positive impact of mandatory kindergarten is not confined to the boundaries of LA. Ground breaking research by researchers at UC Irvine has shown that students from states that embrace this policy not only have a higher likelihood of pursuing higher education, they also have more likely to have economic prosperity as adults.

Data shows that this is most significant of an impact on our Latino and black students, underscoring the urgency of improving outcomes for every child, regardless of their background. The conversation around this policy and its benefits also bring to light concerns regarding potential cost implications for the state and average daily attendance, especially this year. However, a closer look at the numbers reveals an opportunity rather than a burden.

We have seen how enrollment starting early on ensures that our families and our students continue to vote with their feet and stay in our school system. It creates a path for them from an academic and social emotional perspective, but also helps families be well informed of the journey they're embarking on in schools. We're seeing the recent decline in total k-12 enrollment. We believe that the resources to welcome these young learners are already in place, safeguarded from Prop 98 funds without necessarily cuts to other valuable programs.

Our hope is to see California join the 18 states that have already recognized this transformative power of early childhood by embracing kindergarten as a mandatory step in every child's academic and personal development. I thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you for your testimony. Are there others in the Committee hearing room like to testify in support of the bill? If so, please come forward. Your name, your organization, your position.

California Charter School Association in support.

Thank you.

Shelly Gupton, California Teachers Association, fifth grade teacher, Elk Grove Education Association, I stand in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Katie Hardeman with California Teachers Association, a co-sponsor of the bill in strong support.

Thank you.

Sarah Lillis with Teach Plus in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Jennifer Baker with the California Retired Teachers Association and the California Association for Bilingual Education in support.

Thank you.

Cristina Salazar with Californians Together in support.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Tristan Brown with CFT, union of educators and classified professionals, here in support.

Thank you.

Xong Lor with the California School Employees Association in support.

Thank you.

Sierra Cook with the San Diego Unified School District in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Dominique Donette with EdVoice in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Martha Alvarez with the LA Unified School District, proud co-sponsor. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any lead witnesses in opposition? Do we have anybody who would like to speak in opposition to the bill? Register and express their opposition to the bill. Seeing none. Let's come back to the dais. Colleagues? Colleague, please proceed.

Thank you. So we spoke on this bill last year, and, you know, I was not in support of it. Without a question of a doubt, I completely understand the benefits of kindergarten. My kids went to kindergarten. But there were some conversations that we had with regards to, if they didn't have the formality or the mandate of coming to kindergarten, how would they be assessed to be able to enter first grade? Right.

If kindergarten, if you have an option to, depending on the parent, whether the parent is doing schooling at home organically or not, there are many parents who want to teach their children in a more, the only way I can think of describing in an organic way, not in an established way, because we also know that we have concerns with regards to assessments. You know, how early is it too early to assess a child? You know, is it kindergarten? Too early? First grade.

I remember when I taught first grade, second grade, and third grade, I taught all three third grades, English language learners. So also from a teacher's perspective and from a personal parent's perspective. You know, I actually taught my kids how to read at home before they entered school, along with preschool. So, you know, very engaged in that part. But there are families out there that want to do it organically.

They don't want their kids in a system per se where they're going to be succumb to the pressures of assessments, to the pressures of, you know, whether they fit in or do not fit in. Although we know that kindergarten is great and some classrooms are phenomenal and schools can provide an optimal environment, but there are parents who choose to do it, you know, in a non-traditional way.

And I think, when we look at the data, when we look at the fact that 95% of students actually attend some sort of kindergarten or a formal kindergarten, whether public or private school, that only lives a very, very small amount of kids who actually do not. So the idea of mandating or just puts in now the fact that the state can now dictate to that parent how, what the child is going to learn, where they're going to go to school.

And it puts a lot of pressure on those families instead of giving them the freedom to choose how they're going to allow their kids to teach before they come into the system where they have to be formally assessed. And that's one of the reasons why I don't support the bill. Not the premise of it as far as the benefits of it. Yes, absolutely wonderful benefits.

But we do have to allow for parents to have those choices and also have those children be children, allow them to have just the freedom to have not the pressures of the world per se or the system per se. But, you know, there are children who are learning very organically in other means. So I'm going to continue not to support the bill as a mandate, not to say that I don't support the principle of encouraging our kids.

And one of the focuses for those kids that do not have parents who know how to teach their kids at home or be involved with an education, I actually am huge support of programs that actually emphasize a culture and a reach to parents and families to teach them. Like, this is what we want to support. This is how you can help your kid to learn at home. This is what you can do to implement, you know, such and such programs at home. That's what I did.

You know, even as a teacher, once I had my kids, I had my fellow mentor teacher come to me, because he had been a parent just nine months prior to me, come and say, hey, I learned of this author of this research. I want to share it with you so that you can do this at home. I did things at home with my infant child up until, you know, they entered school at the age of five.

What we did, parent effective parenting classes, preschool programs that included the parent in that classroom with the child as they did the preschool program. So there are so many other options to prepare the child without having to have this and tell each parent, this is how you're going to do it. So children, you know, the innocence, the magic of what it is to be a child free from any expectation is very, very short, incredibly short.

Before we put them into the system, I think we should allow our parents to have that freedom, support families, support a culture in which we're reaching out our parents and how do they can do this on their own. Allow parents to have the choice of choosing how they would like to organically teach their children. And children are sponges. They learn incredibly fast. There is nothing that a child cannot learn in that year, in kindergarten or in first grade that they cannot.

They have to have extenuate more time to be able to learn. Kids will learn if you teach them, they will learn quickly, unless there's something physiologically, physiologically, developmentally, anyways. And if that is the case, then we do, we do intervene once we learn of that child. Right. But let's allow the kids to have the freedom to be kids before we have expectations and assessments placed on them. Childhood is very, very short and very, very precious.

Colleagues, any other comments, Senator Cortese? I've got a motion from Senator Cortese.

May I address some of the other comments?

Yeah. Well, let me ask you a couple of questions, I'm sure, and then you can address this. So even with mandatory kindergarten, we would still have provisions in California for homeschooling, correct?

Yes, I want to address the option portion piece. Of course, parents voices were extremely important to us, so we spent three years speaking with stakeholders and trying to get input. There's a lot of parents that felt very strongly, as Senator Ochoa Bogh feels. And so we've also included options for parents. You talked about teaching your children at home. Some of the options that we do have is homeschooling.

A parent has the option to keep their child at home and homeschool and then test their children as they're coming into first grade. We also allow the option for private school, charter schools, and also delaying enrollment until six years. It's not a mandate to put your child in school before year five. And so these are options that came through discussions with parents that felt really strongly about options for parents.

But I also want to highlight that, you know, as you were talking about all the activities that you did with your children, this bill really targets those parents that don't have the financial means to go seek out extracurricular activities outside the classroom setting and also lack of time. A lot of parents are low income.

They have to work two jobs, and so they don't have the ability to go out and not only seek extracurricular activities, but it costs money sometimes, and these parents don't have the ability to pay for it. So I get what you're saying, but I think it's also loss. As I look around the room, I don't think any of us attended school as we've transitioned into Common Core standards, that they become critically important, as, you know, they're building blocks.

And so before, I think someone mentioned it was a lot of coloring and a lot of that kind of learning. Now we have very strict guidelines and curriculum that we have to teach. And what you teach in kinder builds on first grade and so on. So once you come into first grade, you already have an experience, a big gap, and it's not as easy as one would think.

We're not doing math and division and all the skills that we learn, parents can no longer teach at home, which is another challenge. You know, I used to have parents calling me and crying because they don't know how to teach their child. And I don't disagree. The way we teach children has changed dramatically. You know, in terms of division, the way we did it, they're doing it very differently. So these skills are fundamental to their success in future years.

So again, it's very difficult to expect a parent to teach at home because we're no longer teaching the way we used to teach. We've gone from California State standards to Common Core standards. And again, it's about 5% of kids that stay at home. These are low income children that parents usually don't have the means to provide, you know, extra services, tutoring, and extracurricular activities. So it's important that we capture that small percentage. Thank you.

Briefly. Go ahead. Senator Cortese has to go.

And I, and without a question, you know, people will be of low socioeconomic means by far. You know, I won't argue that because I haven't looked into the data as to who doesn't choose to go in there. But once again, those families are usually the ones that are looking for resources to be able to go to school.

So maybe the challenge is not the fact that we have to mandate and force them or compel them to put them in kindergarten, but allow them to know that it is available to them, that kindergarten is available to them as low income. Perhaps giving them the opportunity to go to work if they want a place for their kids to be placed. So it's more about reaching out to them and letting them know that this is available to them and that it will be a benefit.

And I can't imagine a person or a family member that knows that the resources are there not to want to choose them, especially if they're low income. People are always looking for resources. And once again, I want to emphasize the fact that this would require an assessment of a child to enter into first grade if we don't mandate it. So once again, we already have concerns with assessments as early as first grade and second grade with regards to formal assessments in assessing our children. So this just makes it a little bit earlier for our students. So anyway.

Appreciate it. So you touched on assessments. Dr. Estrada, if you wouldn't mind speaking to that.

So to clarify, so on the assessments that we talk about are actually formative assessments or they're classroom based assessments, it's really to inform the instruction, next decisions, how do students learn best. So, especially in those early grades, you're really trying to understand the student's interests. You're trying to understand what skill sets they do have. I think the teacher brought up using scissors, how to hold them, fine motor skills, things like that. So we don't get into any kind of formal assessment till third grade.

So just to be clear that it's the assessments that inform instruction, help the teacher know what decisions I need to, how to group kids. It's things like that, that it's more informative rather than an actual formal assessment, like the state assessment. In third grade.

In third grade. So I think we've covered a lot of this. Let me say a couple of things. So it's really striking, and I think Senator Rubio will testify to this, that many of our colleagues, in fact, did not know until she introduced the bill that kindergarten was not mandatory in California. Many of a vast number of the public are not aware.

And to miss Lowe's point, there's kind of the adage that from kindergarten through second grade, you're learning to read, and then from third grade on, you're reading to learn. If you lose one of those years, that is a massive deficit for the student who finds himself behind, often hard to make up. And there's sort of a strangeness to my mind in the current moment in California where we have Prop 98 has established certain core parameters around educational spending.

We have introduced TK over the last couple of years, right. Four year olds. And then we've made really impressive investments, hopefully we can sustain them, in early childhood education. To have a gap in kindergarten is really bizarre when you think about it, and it's actually unusual across most other states. So there is a cost to this. And I generally ask the same question to authors like, did a bill last year. It's the same bill effectively this year. You know, why should we do this again?

What are your, you know, what assurance could you give us that you can find the money and the Governor will sign it? I think to me, this is very important. This is an important next step in ensuring access and equity in education. These deficits compound themselves over time. Dr. Estrada, you know well sort of what those costs are over the course of a child's education. I am glad to support this bill. I'd like to be added as a co-author, and I'm hopeful that, as we move this forward this year, we get this done. Would you like to close?

Yes. Thank you very much. And I appreciate the discussion. And it, you know, I just want to highlight, we're losing students at record numbers. You know, parents are choosing private school in other modes of education, so we're losing the aid in public schools. And, and I also want to point out that because it's not a mandated grade, we're not able to help students.

By way of example, if they show up the first month and they stop showing up, we don't have the ability to reach out and reach out to the parent and see if we can get them back to school. When in first grade, it's a mandated grade, so if they have several absences in a row, then we have the ability to bring them in and find out what's happening in the home, which is not healthy if they disappear from school. Right.

And so that's an opportunity for us to see what's happening in the home. Are they being mistreated? Is there neglect? Again, to me, there's an aspect that perhaps doesn't have a dollar amount and a value, but it's valuable to know if we can help a child that's having trouble at home. But if it's mandated, then we have all the resources at our disposals where we could offer parents. We cannot do that in kinder because it's not mandated. So with that, thank you, and I'll add you as a coauthor, and I hope that...

Appreciate that. And we are done with questions, so we will put that to vote. Thank you to the witnesses. Madam, please call the roll. Well, we don't have a motion. I'm sorry.

Wilk will move it.

Okay. Senator Wilk has moved the bill. And please call the roll.

File item two, SB 1056, Rubio, motion is do pass to Senate Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Current vote count is two to one. We'll leave that open. Next up, we are looking. Senator Dodd, it's happening. You almost weren't ready for it when it finally came around. Good. Welcome. She had another one of consent. So, Senator Dodd, you are presenting SB 1166. Please proceed.

Thank you, mister chair and members. SB 1166 builds upon the legislation this committee approved last year to put in place important data collection relative to discrimination and title ix violations at the California State University system. While discrimination and harassment are unfortunately nothing new to college campuses, investigative journalism, independent reports and a recent state audit revealed systemic mishandling of these cases across the CSU system.

The current gap in data on how colleges handle discrimination in title ix cases means less transparency, accountability or opportunity to address deficiencies in how these colleges carry out these responsibilities. SB 1166 advance is an important piece of the 12 bill legislative package implementing recommendations for reform contained in the Assembly Higher Education Committee's a call to action report. The bill expands on the scope of the current data collected by CSUs to also include data that will evaluate how sex discrimination is addressed on each campus.

Importantly, the bill also extends these requirements to community colleges and requests the UC submit the same report to the legislature. Students, faculty and staff on these campuses are no less deserving of protection against discrimination. I have Terry Wilson, on behalf of the CSU Employees Union, CSUE, and Esperanza Booher, a student representative representing GenUp with me today to speak in support of the bill.

Thank you, sir. Which of the witnesses will proceed? Miss Booher, welcome.

Chairman and members of the committee. Good afternoon. My name is Esperanza Booher. I'm a current student at American River College and I serve as director of organizing for Generation Up. GenUp is an entirely student led advocacy organization focusing on advancing educational equity through the legislative process. I'm honored to be here today to represent GenUp and testify on behalf of SB 1166. As a proud co sponsor of SB 1166, GenUp seeks your support in the fight against sexual violence and harassment on college campuses.

As demonstrated by the call to action audit report of the CSU, the existing Title IX systems at California's higher education institutions are untenable. Public universities and colleges have failed to protect their students, and the consequences are profound. One in four women will experience sexual assault during their undergraduate experience. Despite this astronomical number, only a small fraction of survivors file a report. Faced with arduous and often delayed title IX processes, many students chose to stay silent and continue to.

The reality is that when students don't feel like they can reach out, they don't get the help that they need. Not only is justice denied, but these survivors are also at great risk for long term mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicide. High instances of campus sexual assault and harassment and low reporting prove that college campuses are unable to keep their students safe. And we have had enough.

It is clear that we need legislative solutions, and SB 1166 is the vital first towards change. By extending the CSU reporting requirement to the UC and community college systems, this bill will ensure that legislators and advocates alike have the information they need to make informed policy decisions that will protect students. We cannot move forward in the fight against sexual violence on college campuses without first lifting the veil on the Title IX process.

SB 1166 will empower lawmakers such as yourselves, to hold institutions accountable for putting their students at risk. On behalf of the 4000 associated members of Gen Up, I strongly urge you to stand with California students and vote yes on SB 1166 today.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Mister Wilson, welcome.

Thank you. Good morning mister chair and members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in support of SB 1166 today. I would also like to thank Senator Dodd for authorizing this important bill. My name is Terry Wilson. I'm the Vice President for finance for the California State Union Employees Union, which represents 36,000 non faculty, staff and students at the CSU. In addition to my role with CSUE, I have worked at Fresno State since 2007 and have personal experience with the Title IX system there.

I was a student affairs analyst at Fresno State and had a supervisor who began harassing me in my very first week on the job. He made inappropriate comments towards me, bullied me, threatened me both physically and verbally. Despite my continuous reports of his behavior, he was never formally investigated. I eventually had to accept the demotion to escape his abuse.

The CSU's failure to address my supervisor's behavior derailed my career at Fresno State, and I truly believe that would have been prevented if strong policies had been in place back then. Last year, CSU is the proud sponsor of SB 808 with Senator Dodd, which established desperately needed title ix reporting requirements in the CSU. While recent media has highlighted the failings of title ix systems specifically at the CSU, SB 1166 now provides us with the opportunity to ensure robust title ix transparency across our public educational segments.

The expansion of the reporting requirements through SB 1166 serves to create much needed accountability to our title ix systems and will ensure that students, faculty and staff across all our public higher education institutions are safer and better supported when it comes to handling cases of sexual misconduct. Everyone who steps foot onto a campus deserves the right to live, work and learn in a safe environment, and we believe this bill is an important step towards achieving that. For this reasons, we respectfully request your aye vote today. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for your testimony. Others in the committee hearing would like to testify and support the bill. Please come forward.

Hannah Devine with the Cal State Student Association, which represents the nearly half a million students throughout the CSU system, in strong support.

Thank you. Anybody else?

I'm a student activist with the Ruth Project and working on SB 1378. I strongly agree that we should make title ix safer.

Your name, please?

Penelope Oliver.

Thank you, Miss Oliver. Anybody else? Are there any lead witnesses in opposition? Is there anybody on the committee hearing would like to speak in opposition? Seeing none, let's come back to the dais. I'm glad to support the bill. I think it's a good bill. I appreciate your testimony. I've got a motion from Senator Ochoa Bogh. Senator Dodd, would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Madam Consultant, please call the roll file.

Item six, SB 1166 Dodd, motion is do pass to Senate Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

That bill currently has three votes, and we will leave it open. And now Senator Wilk and I both have to go vote in budget. I don't know if you know that. Did they call? No. You know that? Yeah, they're done. So we're going to recess briefly, and I will run down to 2100 and run back up 1200. Sorry. And we'll be right back.

Patience. As folks may be aware, we had a budget hearing going on, and there are concurrent hearings, and we have the sort of strangeness of two members of this committee chair other committees simultaneously with this committee, which I think most of us would agree makes no sense, but I'm not in charge of anything but this committee. So when Senator Wilk comes back, he'll be back shortly, we will take up his measures. I don't see another author here. Okay. Nobody here. Yeah.

Do you have any snacks? Any snacks?

Something my mom would ask me. There's snacks in that green room next door. Yeah. Or they're, you know. Okay.

I'm just saying snacks always make the time go faster. When I want to sleep [untelligable]

All right, Senator Wilk is back, and so now is your opportunity to present your bills. All right, Senator Wilk, you will be presenting SB 1194 unless you want to switch the order. 1194 it is.

Hopefully, my witness for my other bill is out in the lobby, so.

Fair enough. Whenever you are ready.

All right, well, thank you, Mister chair and Member. SB wrong. 11194. Okay, take two. All right. SB 1194 is a simple measure that requires the California Department of Education to publish information on their website about the Members who were selected for the parent advisory council. This advisory council was formed at the direction of the state Superintendent of instruction, who invited all parents to apply in order to work directly with his office to provide input and feedback on matters affecting you throughout our state. End quote.

In January 2023, applicants began to receive rejection letters, but were not able to find information on those that were selected. Staff.

Sorry to interrupt. So I have to go present another Bill. So this is. You're in good hands. I'm happy to support your Bill and my apologies. Right, so hand the gavel. It's one of these days. You can brief me later. It's kind of going to be better.

Why don't we do dinner tonight? Let's do that.

Okay, good.

I'll buy.

How about Mulvaney's?

Okay, sounds good.

All right, perfect. Staff reached out to CDE to request a timeline for the publication of the Members names, and they said they would expect to release this information by the end of 2023. However, that information is yet to be published, and inquiring parents still don't know who was chosen and no updated timeline has been posted.

This Bill simply requires the CDE to abide by a specific timeline to give those parents certainty that they will have the ability to find out who their voice on the K 12 Education Policy Development Committee is. While advisory councils are not required to disclose Members names. Almost all of them do. In addition to the Members occupation or title, we also, for this purpose, added county, so we can see what the geographic composition of the Committee is.

This Bill simply requires that the information be published, as well as the Members names, county residents, DA DA DA DA. We know of no opposition to the Bill, and I don't have any witnesses with me today because it's a pretty simple Bill. With that, I respectfully ask for your. I vote.

Thank you very much. Now we'll go to any witnesses here in room 2100 in support of SB 1194.

Ash Christensen, Vice President of the California Policy Center, happy to support this bill. We believe in transparency, especially when different advisory councils are made at the state level and appreciate your support. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for coming.

Any other witnesses in support? Seeing none, we'll now continue with. Any witnesses in opposition to SB 1194. Seeing none, we're going to bring it back to the dais, and would you like. I don't have any questions. I'm happy to support the Bill.

Respectfully ask for your. I vote.

Thank you very much, Senator Wilk. And then we'll put it on hold until our Members come back. Senator Min.

Zero, you signed. Come on up. No, you can come all the way up.

You'll be presenting SB 1233?

Yes. You ready?

When you're ready.

Here we go. SB 1233 is an opportunity to address overcrowding in California's animal shelters and stop unnecessary pet euthanizations. SB 1233 establishes a framework for UC Davis and Western University to offer new curriculum for veterinarian students on the high quality, high volume spray neuter technique. This technique allows veterinarians to spray and neuter more animals in a Shorter span of time. While some vets learn this technique later in their careers, there is currently no official course offered by veterinarian schools to teach this more efficient method.

As part of the program, course applicants will practice the technique while performing operations in shelters. Additionally, as more vets become course certified, the number of vets working in shelters who are qualified to perform the procedure will subsequently increase. So the benefits of SB 1233 will extend throughout the entire state. By employing these more efficient methods in a greater number of shelters, pet owners access to Low and no cost spray and neuters will expand dramatically.

We know of no opposition to the Bill, and we have been actively working with the deans of the two schools for months to develop the Bill before you today. With me here today to testify is Doctor Grant Miller, the regulatory Director for the California Veterinarian Medical Association, who is the sponsor of the Bill.

Thank you, Senator Wilk, and thank you very much for your long standing efforts to help address pet problems in California, especially pet overpopulation, which is an issue that all of the stakeholders are working on. And thank you to Members of the Committee for Considering this bill today. We're very proud to sponsor this bill because we view it to be both a short term and long term solution to California's pet overpopulation problem.

As Senator Wilk mentioned, we reached out to the veterinary schools very early on and said, what can we do to try to address this issue? And they were very enthusiastic about the idea of expanding their high quality, high volume spay neuter programs at both of their schools. So Western University in Southern California wants to open a shelter called the North Central Animal Shelter in downtown Los Angeles, which is a veterinary desert where they really need this kind of help.

And then UC Davis wants to expand their program here with the Yolo county animal shelter, and they want to offer these high quality, high volume spay neuter procedures to the public, to people who are socioeconomically challenged, who might not otherwise be able to afford these services. And so we really view this as a win win. We're hoping that the short term solution will create these two epicenters in both parts of the state to expand what the schools are doing.

The long term will be that we're retraining our veterinary population so that we are all skilled in being able to perform these procedures. So, for instance, the students that get out will know how to do these things. They'll have maybe 50 or 75 of these done already by the time they're out of school.

And then for an older guy like me who's been out 20 years and want to repurpose myself, maybe I can go back to the program, learn how to do it, get certified, and maybe take a shift at a shelter on a weekend to be able to help join in the fight. So we really view it as a win win. We hope that you also will see it as one of the possible solutions to combating California's epic pet overpopulation issue. And I thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Doctor Miller, do we have any other witnesses in support of SB 1233?

Dylan Finley, on behalf of the ASPCA, in support.

Barbara Schmitz, on behalf of the San Francisco SPCA, support.

Nicholas Sackett, on behalf of social compassion and legislation, in support.

Next. Nick, do you have any other witnesses seeing? None. We'll now continue with any witnesses in opposition to SB 1233. Seeing none, I'll just have to say, we'll bring you back to the dais. Grateful for the Bill. Thank you very much for bringing this forward. Senator Wilk. I'm in full support of this Bill, and I'm not sure if I'm a co author or not on this Bill.

You should be added to. So how this all came about, and this really actually helps you. The town of Apple Valley, not only the town of Abbott Valley that has a shelter, but my animal rights activists that live there are both very frustrated with what's going on there because the infrastructure is not in place to handle this. So this is great public policy, but it's also to help you, because you inherit Apple Valley on December 5, or whatever it is. So you're welcome.

Thank you, sir. Wilkins Little plug there. I'm very grateful because I am very keenly aware of the issues that we have with overpopulation in our state and the fact that we don't have enough shelters within our state. And it's literally heartbreaking. I'm just surprised we haven't done this already.

You know, that's a great question, a great comment. The veterinary schools do teach this. The trouble at the schools is that only 60% of their students make it into the elective rotation where they're able to do this. Because right now, the schools are working in conjunction with satellite shelters that take students based on their capacity.

The schools would like to expand those programs to ensure that all the students will have the ability to perform these procedures as a core part of what they're doing in their curriculum.

And just for the record, for clarity, I know when I was reading this, one of the questions that I had, because I did not see it and maybe I missed it, but at what year, first of all, how long is veterinary school, just for the record, for the public to be aware? And at what year do you begin practicing these procedures?

So, veterinary school, the standard education is four years. About 90% of the veterinary students will then do an internship in year number five. You don't have to, but most of us do. Your surgical skills are taught in your third year, and you begin doing surgery in the school in year number three. And then you would start doing surgeries on the publix animals in year number four.

Okay, I was just asking because jokingly or not, we were just, you know, commenting within my ledge team as to, you know, these animals can't complain. As to, zero, you botched me up. You didn't do it right. We want to make sure that they are skilled enough to be able to do these practices, but a great support of the Bill, great idea and glad to co author it. And then we'll put it on hold while until we have our Members here.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for coming today. So, Limon, Alvarado. Oh, we have Senator Alvarado-Gil ready to present. Welcome. And you'll be presenting bill SB 1222.

Yes, thank you so much, Madam Chair. I'm here today ready to present Senate Bill 1222, which would declare as legislative policy that all state territory be included in community college district or otherwise given equivalent post secondary educational opportunities. I live in Amador county representing senate district four and 13 other counties, and three of the counties that I represent are not included as a community college district in California.

Some of our most rural communities are receiving the impact of that disparity and the least that we can do is ensure equity and inclusion in every county in California. This bill would require the Legislative Analyst Office to conduct a study evaluating the educational needs and opportunities for Alpine, Amador, Mariposa, Modoc and Sierra counties. Residents within community college districts benefit from an increased attainment efforts, partnerships and outreach these districts provide.

However, the five counties mentioned are not included within the community college district, leaving these residents without access to the same affordable post secondary educational opportunities. Currently at home, I have two young adults of the college age and their only option is to drive an hour and a half to the next community college district outside of our community and outside of our county.

Additionally, rural residents face significantly unique challenges due to their remote geographical locations and low population density, which hinders their access to higher education, workforce development and vocational training. Although educational attainment has risen in rural areas over the years, the rural population still has significantly lower education attainment levels than our urban populations. 40% of people residing in urban areas have at least a bachelor's degree, while only 25% of rural population has that equivalent.

In a time where we are looking at shortages in first responders healthcare professions, teaching, we can no longer accept that five counties in California are not included in this educational attainment. Senate Bill 1222 would attempt to bridge that gap by gathering and analyzing the data that these educational limitations around these educational limitations and allow us as policy makers to develop and implement the effective policy to make this change.

Now filling the gap has been nonprofit organizations and community organizations that see that need for educational attainment and have, on their own, built up their boards, sought out philanthropic options to be able to fill this gap. No longer can we rely on these nonprofit organizations to do the job that the state should be doing for all of our young people. So here to testify today is Mariposa County Supervisor Miles Menetrey and Karen Dickerson with Amandar College Connect. Thank you.

Welcome. Please state your name one more time for the record and then proceed when you're ready.

So I'm actually speaking for Karen today. I'm the Executive Director of Amador College Connect and my name is Rachelle José de Mattos-Saldate. Long name. Thank you, Senator, for allowing us to come and speak today. And thank you, committee members for allowing us as well. We want to share our important work in Amador county and how we can support this bill. Amador College Connect is a nonprofit organization that provides free one to one support services to help students connect to online college classes and regional apprenticeship courses.

Since 2013, we have helped serve over 750 students, many of whom face challenges that a local community college would help eliminate. The mission of Amador College Connect is to provide accessible education opportunities in a supportive environment for career success in Amador County. SB 1222 and its potential funding would greatly expand our abilities to fulfill this vision in Amador county.

With a low socioeconomically disadvantaged demographic approaching 50%, our services provide Amador county residents and surrounding communities the chance for a higher quality of life and better paying careers. We have partnered with our local school district to offer high school students the support needed to earn college and high school credits concurrently, within the broader context of addressing career education and workforce development needs in California, Amador College Connect is a recent recipient of the Eastern Sierra K-16 Education Collaborative grant.

This grant will allow us to streamline equitable pathways from high school to post secondary education and into the workforce. Amador College Connect aligns with the California Jobs First Initiative, which is an integral component of California's broader strategy to prepare students and workers for high paying careers. Amador College Connect also aligns with Governor Newsom's master plan for career education, which will address the pain points that have made it challenging for Californians to learn and get credit for the skills they need for rewarding living wage careers.

The passage of SB 1222 is critical for the continued efforts of bringing post secondary programs and courses to Amador county and its surrounding communities. Our organization's ultimate goal is to establish a local community college in Amador county. We believe that access to higher education and vocational training will lead to economic development and improve longevity for the future of our entire community. We appreciate your consideration of this important bill and thank you for the opportunity to share our mission.

Good morning, Vice Chair good morning Vice Chair Ochoa Bogh and Senator Wilk my name is Miles Menetrey. I'm a Mariposa County Supervisor testifying this morning on behalf of the rural county representative representatives of California. I'm currently the second Vice Chair of RCRC, which is an organization that represents 40 rural counties here in California, including Mariposa. As the senator mentioned, there are five counties in the state, Alpine, Amador, Mariposa, Modoc, and Sierra, that are partially or wholly outside California community college districts.

Community colleges are the entryway for higher education in our state and offer vocational education, dual enrollment opportunities for high schoolers, the foundation for transfer to University, and in some cases, bachelor's degree programs. SB 1222 will require the Legislative Analyst's Office to conduct a study analyzing post secondary education services and opportunities to residents of the five underserved counties.

The goal is to identify the gaps in higher education opportunities in these counties and make recommendations on how to ensure that students in those counties have the same opportunities to participate in both in person and post secondary education programs. All of California's students should have equitable access to higher education opportunities, whether it be youth entering into the adult world, employed individuals looking for a new career, or community members looking for enrichment courses.

SB 1222 gives you guys, the policymakers, a mechanism to better understand the gaps in higher education opportunities in these counties and possible pathways to ensuring all residents have access to the educational tools that can bring economic growth to families, communities. For these reasons, RCRC requests that SB 1222 request your support and ask for your aye vote on this measure today. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much, Mister Menetrey. Perfect. Thank you both for being here. We'll now continue with any witnesses in support of SB 1222 here in room 2100. Seeing none, we'll now continue with any witnesses in opposition to SB 1222. Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the dais.

Why are you looking at me?

You were looking like you were reaching to your.

I was reaching. So I represent, on paper, two urban urban counties, but in reality, a lot of mine is rural. And certainly access to high quality education is definitely a challenge, and somebody's zip code should not be preclude them from being able to access education. And I'm a former community college trustee before I got elected to the State Assembly, and I know miracles happen on community college campuses every day. How did you know the. And so I'm obviously supporting the bill, but how did these counties not get included into a community college district? Why has somebody not done this sooner?

Exactly right. So there's a couple. Hey, I didn't say that.

I said, because he's in Greece, so he can't hear me.

Well, one thing that I want to just point out is that since the defunding of the California Post Secondary Education Commission in 2011, there's no centralized coordinating body for higher education here in the State of California. So that absence has hindered the state's ability to even assess if higher education opportunities even exist, or there's a lack of. So, as you know, our urban communities. We've had movement from urban communities into rural areas. Our populations are different. Even every 10 years, we do different census tracks.

So our assessments on education opportunities has not kept up with that. So we are asking that the LAO office take this into consideration with state studies that they are already doing and expand it to give us the assessments. The other issue here is this is a local control conversation. So we need to bring in our local, our local electeds in these individual counties to ensure that they have that ability to negotiate their tax percentage that they would be putting into this agreement.

We know that we have the will, we have the way, we've got the community coming forward with donations, even around facilities. But we need the state to make that bridge, make that connection happen. So I'm hoping that by this time next year, we will be well on the way to appropriating funds outside of this committee, but ensuring that we can all go to a community college graduation in one of these five counties.

Thank you, Senator Wilk. Thank you, Senator Alvarado. So, seeing no other comments, Senator Alvarado, I'm happy to support the bill. As Senator Wilk mentioned, I'm surprised that we had not done this already. So thank you for bringing this forward. And would you like to close?

Thank you. I respectfully ask for an aye vote when appropriate.

Thank you. And then we'll put it. Oh, do we have a motion?

So moved.

All right, Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item seven SB 1222. Alvarado-Gil motion is do pass to Senate Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Thank you so much.

I'll put this on hold for the rest of the Members when they come back. Thank you very much for being here. zero, Senator Minh, welcome. You'll be presenting item number 12, SB 1378, when you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Committee Members. I would like to start by noting that we'll be accepting the Committee's proposed amendments. SB 1378 would require schools serving grades seven through 12, as well as higher education institutions in the state, to print the Title IX hotline on student ID cards. Facing discrimination, harassment, or assault on campus can lead to isolation among students with nowhere to turn for help.

Ensuring that they have a readily available phone number on their ID cards can empower them to get the help they need. And additionally, in order to guarantee a more streamlined process, students would be directed to their campus's most direct Title IX contact. This Bill only applies to schools that receive federal funding and which are therefore subject to compliance with Title IX. And here to testify in support of the Bill is the person that actually came up with this idea.

She's a senior in high school, Penelope Oliver, organizer with the Ruth project, and I believe, a future matriculant to one of our University California schools. So, Penelope, if you might. Madam Chair, if she might testify, that'd be great.

Absolutely. And welcome. Penelope, I believe you've testified here before, have you?

I have, yeah. And I met with your office. I serve on the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls Youth Advisory Council.

Yes, yes, I think we had. I remember you being here. So welcome. Glad to have you. When you're ready, state your name one more time and where you're presenting and then.

Thank you so much. My name is Penelope Oliver. I'm a youth activist with the Ruth project. I approached Senator Min with this Bill idea. It's inspired after my own experience being sexually harassed on campus at age 15. It was at Sierra College, where I do dual enrollment thanks to going to a charter school. So, essentially, during the incident, my peers and I who were involved looked on the back of our student ID cards. We used our cards for resources, for meals, for discounts. Even.

So, it was almost like a natural instinct, and we didn't find anything there to help us. This went on for a few weeks before this finally was handled by Title IX, once we knew what Title IX was. So essentially, this Bill aims to just inform students of their rights to Title IX to a safe and supportive place. In my case, it was handled. In these three weeks, this student was taken off of campus, and once it came through, he had multiple domestic violence incidents.

So had we known earlier what was available and what resources were there for us, this would have been handled. So my hope for this Bill is that all students know that Title IX and facing discrimination help, they can get help, and help is their right. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Penelope, for your testimony today. We're going to continue with any witnesses in support of SB 1378. Please come forward.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Members Pamela Gibbs, representing the Los Angeles County Office of Education, and we strongly support the Bill.

Good morning. Vice Chair and Members Anna Matthews with the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges in strong support. Thank you. Hi, I'm Christine Moreland.

I'm the mother of her, and I just want. I'm in support, but also it gave. Us a sense of security and closure for that.

Thank you. And mom must be so proud. I know I would be. We have one more.

Tony Oliver, father of Penelope, also in support, as you can imagine, but not.

Just for her, but also for everybody. Else across our state.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Seeing no other witnesses in support, we'll now continue with any witnesses in opposition to SB 1378 in room 2100. Seeing none, we'll bring you back to the dais. Any questions, comments, Senator? Nope. I just have one. I'm in support of the Bill. Just going to question. I know that there's another Bill, another Member who is coming forward with, I believe, a QR code to have the information accessible.

The only concern I have is that as we've been since I've been here, we've been adding quite a bit of numbers, including previous ones that you submitted in there. To a certain point, we're going to run out of space in those cards, in those ID cards. So has there been any conversations with regards to including it all in a QR code?

So I have not. I'm not aware of another Member bringing a Bill, but it has been suggested to us, QR code and a concern around too much information has also been raised. We are open to considering a QR code. The challenge there is that, as you point out, there's only so much real estate on a student card, and a number fits a lot easier than a QR code, which is boxy and takes up space. So that's one concern that's been raised.

Another concern that's been raised with QR codes is that they might not load in an emergency type situation. If you might not have access to sufficient, your signal is not good. So the thought was that this might be a better fix. But again, we're open. The idea here is just to have an available resource to be able to call if you're experiencing, unfortunately, situations that do arise on educational institutions.

Yeah, it's really difficult. And the QR code was new to me. I had not even thought of that. But it was more of a, you know, the college putting all of this information within a QR code so that, you know, at some point, you're going to run out of space. So a QR code would allow all of that additional information to be included into a card. But that poses other challenges. Right. What if they don't have a phone?

What if they don't have, you know, a smartphone or. Yeah, smartphone to be able to do that. So there's challenges to that as well, but just things that we need to kind of be conscious.

I appreciate the question, Madam Chair, and certainly we're open to ideas and whatnot, but I think. We think one additional phone number. Right now, I believe that you are required to have the phone numbers for suicide.

I know.

Suicide and domestic violence prevention. So this would just be a third number. And again, you've seen those student ID cards. There's plenty of room for that. And so we think this is a. A worthwhile fix. And then if down the line, you know, we decide that we want to just accumulate this all into QR code or something like that, maybe that makes sense.

Absolutely. I see an anxious Senator Wilk ready to move the Bill.

I think the parents may also be excited to see the Bill potentially get moved.

I'll move the Bill.

Perfect. Would you like to close Senator Wilk?

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. And, Madam Secretary, if you could please call the roll file.

[Roll call]

Sure. Happy to move. File item eight, SB 1241.

File item eight, SB 1241 Padilla. Motion is do-pass as amended to the Senate Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call].

We'll put that on hold for the rest of the members to vote upon arrival. We're going to go ahead and recess the Senate Education Committee until we find more authors. We're going to reconvene the Senate Committee on Education. We have a member who has arrived. Senator Stern, we welcome you. Would you like to present SB 1283 or SB 1421? Do you have a preference?

Let's go bill order. 1283.

Perfect.

That's all right. My folks are. Yeah, everybody's here. That's great. Okay. Thank you, members. Apologies for my slowed-down process here in the committee at all. This bill has to do with social media in school, and the pervasive use amongst young people necessitates an update to state policy. It dates back to 2019 when we authorized school districts around the state to look at their smartphone policies.

We didn't tell them exactly what to do, but we said you have the authority to adopt standardized policies around smartphone use on campus. Now, we know it's not just about what's, it's not just about the phone itself, but it's about how you use the phone and what you do on the phone.

13-17 year olds report 95% use of social media platforms. That's recent data. And a third say they almost constantly use social media. So constant is becoming the norm. You are Snapchatting at school; you are posting on Instagram at school. You are looking at content, you are putting out content, and more often than not, A, it's not for educational purposes, it doesn't have to do with what you're learning in math or history.

But, B, it can be a real vector for supercharging the kinds of bullying and hate that we're seeing rising everywhere. It's infiltrating our lives, literally, and our young people are suffering as a result. And it's no wonder the US Surgeon General has made repeated reports about the public health crisis we're facing. So we think it's high time that, at least as a state, we make clear to leas that they can adopt a social media policy that they don't have to.

Under this bill, it's not a mandate to say you have to have a social media policy or that you need to ban social media at school or you need to bar students from doing so. And, in fact, I want to make a brief response just to some of the I think there's a few principled pieces of opposition, not much, but a concern that somehow this would necessitate us to go surveil or look at students feeds or get into their phones themselves.

Nothing in this bill violates those privacy rights. And in fact, by adding social media use to this Muratsuchi framework from 2019, we add those guard rails on those rights around the Electronic Communications Privacy Act that requires that no government entity, including a school district, can compel the production or access to electronic device information without a warrant, which we believe is paramount to protecting student privacy. So I want to be clear.

This is not about school districts or teachers or principals monitoring or trying to get into the feeds of their students, but it's simply saying that between students, parents, teachers, administrators, school board members, we need to have some policy. We need to have some handle on this, or at least you need to consider having one. We think that permissive structure is good, especially in a tight budget, no mandate in here. So, hopefully, that has abated any concerns out there.

But we at least want to put this option very clearly on the table. And I, for one, hope that my local school districts get on top of this. It's scary out there. So appreciate the support from a diverse coalition. We've got Pamela Gibbs here with the LA County Office of Education, and I believe Dylan Hoffman is here with TechNet. So, with that, I would just turn it over. Thanks.

Thank you and welcome. Please state your name one more time and who you're representing, and please proceed when you're ready.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good morning and to senators as well. My name is Pamela Gibbs and I'm the Executive Director of Governmental Relations for the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Existing law grants local education agencies the authority to regulate the possession and use of electronic signaling devices, including smartphones, by students while on campus or participating in school-sponsored activities.

Many LEAs, including LACO, have already implemented policies to limit the use or prohibit the use of smartphones during school hours or while under the supervision of school staff. LACO provides education to students in a variety of educational settings, and we also have policies relating to the use of smartphones and mobile communication devices, which we find beneficial to student learning and well-being and are consistent with existing laws in Education Codes 489015 and 489017.

In addition, LACO provides professional development to more than 80 local education agencies on ways to keep students and schools safe, including the development of school safety plans. SB 1283 extends this authority to include the regulation of social media use by students during school hours or while under school supervision. This expansion is crucial in addressing the growing concerns surrounding the misuse of social media platforms, particularly in a school setting. LACO recognizes the importance of providing a safe and conclusive learning environment for all students.

By explicitly prohibiting the use of social media while on school grounds or under school supervision. SB 1283 will help prevent distractions, cyberbullying, and other forms of inappropriate behavior that can negatively impact students' academic performance and well-being. Moreover, SB 1283 would prohibit much needed clarity for leas in addressing instances of harassment, threats, or other misconduct occurring through social media channels during school hours or while students are under school supervision.

This clarity will enable LEAs to take prompt and appropriate action to address incidents such as these and ensure the safety and security of all students and staff. For these reasons, we urge your aye vote on SB 1283.

Thank you. Miss Gibbs.

Is this on? No.

Is it working? Not working. Maybe we need to share.

Maybe pass hers' over.

Thank you very much. Dylan Hoffman on behalf of TechNet and proud support of SB 1283. TechNet is a trade association for the technology and innovation economy here in California and across the nation, and I want to keep my comments very short and very simple. I think students have a lot of distractions when they're at school. We firmly believe social media should not be one of them.

So schools and school districts, and administrators need another tool in order to try to focus students while they're on campus and while they're trying to learn. We're happy to help provide that for us. We're still reviewing the suggested amendment in the committee analysis about the definition of social media. I think there could be a concern about it being overly broad or inclusive.

We have some suggestions about how to narrowly tailor that to avoid some of the principled opposition, but happy to be a partner in this conversation and want to be helpful where we can. So thank you very much, and I hope you can support this bill. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Thank you both for being here today and being witnesses in support of SB 1283. Now, we'll continue with any additional support witnesses here in room 2100.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Tristan Brown with CFT here in support.

Thank you. Any other witnesses in support? See none. We'll now continue with any witnesses in opposition to 1283.

Good morning, Madam Vice Chair and members. My name is Rachel Bhagwat. I'm a legislative advocate at ACLU California Action. We are in opposition to this bill but want to start by saying that we come from a place of deepest respect to the Senator, his intention in this bill, and the primary witnesses in support as well. We do share the Senator's interest in promoting healthy and inclusive school climates and protecting students from potential harms of social media.

We are still in a place where we feel like the approach to this bill, while trying to be very simple; it's a five-word bill, is overly broad and may invite unintended harm, and invites further violations of First Amendment and privacy laws.

I appreciate the Senator bringing up some of these concerns and his initial introduction and wanted to clarify that while in our opposition letter and I can talk more about this, we did raise some concerns about how this may invite violations of Cal ECPA, the Electronic Communications and Privacy Act. We're not saying that this bill in itself violates the First Amendment or violates Cal ECPA. The issue here is that smartphones and social media are fundamentally different.

Smartphones are physical objects, so limiting and prohibiting their use is as simple and noninvasive as requiring students to put them away during class or while under the supervision of a school employee, which I take as being maybe on a school field trip. That's absolutely fine, but how do you write a district policy that allows students to limit or prohibit a student's use, or, I'm sorry, allows schools to limit or prohibit a student's use of social media?

How does an educator know that a student is using social media or what they're saying? I don't believe that the intention of this bill is to be overbroad or to interpret it in the ways that the Senator mentioned in the introduction. But presumably, a permissive bill like this, which could allow a district to write a certain kind of policy, could invite educators to do things that are violations of Cal ECBA.

For example, taking a student's phone and looking through it without their consent, which to see what apps are being used or what is being said. I don't know a lot of educators who have a strong understanding of California's privacy laws, and we fear - I don't think it's good for educators or for students for there to be a more permissive statute that could allow them to accidentally violate privacy laws during this time.

In terms of other monitoring concerns, we know that social media can be used not just on smartphones but on tablets and computers. And so when we think about what does it mean to be under the supervision of a school employee, there is a possibility that some districts and schools could interpret that language to expand the use of monitoring software on school-issued devices in a way that could pick up a lot of student speech, including speech that they reasonably could consider to be private.

And so there's a concern, I mean, there's a disparate impact concern because the young people who are most likely to be using school-issued devices at home for personal activities are going to be your low-income students, your black and brown students who maybe don't have another device in the home. And we've seen, it's not just the monitoring, it's what happens next.

It's this issue we've seen in students we represented where, for example, speech that was set on a video headset while gaming was picked up, and law enforcement was sent to the home that night at 11:00 p.m. Right.

There's just enough, enough intakes in our inbox at ACLU of ways that schools are already probably unintentionally violating First Amendment rights over surveilling, violating privacy laws, and a lack of training and understanding of these issues that we worry that without guardrails, without really thinking through the approach of this bill, that it could invite those violations.

So we do urge your no vote at this time and consideration of alternative approaches to this issue, but do respectfully agree with the premise and the need for this bill and appreciate all of your time. Thank you.

Appreciate your testimony. Is anybody else here in the hearing would like to testify in opposition to the bill? Seeing none, let us come back to the dais. So I'm back. Senator Glazer sends his regards. He's chairing Rev and Tax. But Senator Stern, my understanding is you're accepting the Committee's amendments.

Yes, I would like to accept this amendment.

I appreciate you being explicit in that regard. Colleagues, any questions or comments?

Senator Wilkins, commenting question. So I know you're trying to find the sweet spot on this, and this is definitely, I know from first-hand experience, you know, talking to my students, you know, how damaging this is. One of the arguments the opponents made, which I actually agree with, is that this doesn't go far enough. You should just have the schools confiscate every student's phone when they come in, and there's actually been studies done on that, and the students have performed much better.

I know we'd never get that out. I personally be supportive. I know that you're a very responsible author. You'll continue working with the opposition. So I know you're going to find the right place to land, and I'm happy to support it and move it.

Thank you.

And so, for my part, I'm with you. Right. But I actually visited with a school district, district recently with the superintendent, you know, otherwise very proactive, very progressive. And I asked her, you know, how are you thinking about cell phone use and prospectively banning and so lower-income school district?

And her, really quickly, she said, I wouldn't do it, not because there aren't benefits, but it creates an adverse relationship between staff, faculty, and students that she thought, you know, on balance, would get in the way of sort of the broader goals, which I don't know if that means worth considering. But, you know, this is a thorny, thorny issue.

I'm glad to support the bill today, but, you know, clearly, there is much left to discuss both broadly but also specifically when it comes to, you know, actual policies. Do we have a motion? So, Senator Wilk made the motion. Madam, please call the roll. Oh, I'm sorry. Please close.

Just a brief note in closing just to focus on those committee amendments, and it may help with some of those underlying concerns in the definition of social media. The committee articulated it does not include an electronic service or account used exclusively for educational purposes or primarily to facilitate the creation of school-sponsored publications. So that should hopefully deal with the take-home device or those sorts of disparate impacts. Want to just be clear, we want to keep working on those issues.

Maybe the clean break approach. I mean, look at a gut level; that's what I want to do. But I also think it's important for local school boards to wrestle with this, depending on their circumstances.

And I think the models that I've seen that are very interesting on an enforcement perspective are where students are part of not a formal, but an informal social contract at school, and that you don't create the adversarial relationship where, like, we're watching you, and you're in trouble now, but it's that they collectively agree with each other to say, " We're not going to do this. We're not going to Snapchat while we're at school. We're not going to treat our classmates like this."

And getting that kind of agency in the process from students, I think, is actually powerful because I think once you get students moving collectively to say, "No, we're not going to be defined by how many likes we get," and we're going to sort of try to, you get power in it.

So I'm hoping that school boards explore not just the sort of, you know, that the interventionist model, but something that helps young people take control of their own lives, too, because I honestly think it's becoming an addiction and not actually something enjoyable. It's just something that you have to do, and you're almost inherently compelled through the social pressure. So maybe we can burst that bubble a little bit here, but really appreciate the feedback. Thank you for the support. Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

I appreciate your testimony. Madam Secretary, please call the roll file.

Item 10, SB 1283 Stern. Motion is do-pass as amended. [Roll Call].

That measure has three votes at the moment. We'll leave it open, but it will pass. Thank you, Senator Stern. You have another Bill up, and that is SB 1421.

Yes, at the outset. Mister chair, I just want to note we're accepting the Committee amendments on page seven of the analysis and will be, which will allow sort of a broadened scope, or at least a more articulated scope, to include access to high quality education, instruction and instructional materials. We know that there are some outstanding issues also that have been raised around that, but we feel like it's important to still present this Bill and move it forward at this point.

The establishment, in formal terms of an office of civil rights at the California Department of Education, will hopefully enable some kind of ability to appeal or go through a complaints process where you're not getting the recourse you need in your school district if you're facing civil rights violations. We know the rise in hate is very real.

You know, we've had attacks on everyone from kids, you know, gay kids in the district who are coming out and having people screaming at them as they try to walk onto campus on a quiet little street in North Hollywood, or, you know, a kid in Woodland Hills who's been called a dirty jew for the last three years in her special ed class and then is attacked. And the civil rights dimension to that is sort of swept under.

It's an uncomfortable issue, and most school districts really wish it weren't happening, and it becomes a source of anxiety and even potentially liability. And we know the state's sort of uncomfortable with it, too. No one really wants to be in this position. But the fact is that especially within the Department of Education, it's ultimately their job to ensure that those rights are upheld, just like in our college systems, the same.

And so while these incidents of hate and discrimination are occurring, we want some better recourse for people facing this discrimination. And, you know, it's not just my backyard. It's all over the state and all over the country. So hopefully, this moves the ball forward and happy to answer any questions. Respect Vastrivo.

Very good. We do have a witnessing support, so please proceed. I see you had two, and I only see one more time for you.

Is this working?

It is working. Working well.

That's not working. Thank you. Thank you very much. Senator Stern, good morning. My name is Nancy Appel and I am here on behalf of the Anti Defamation League. We thank Senator Stern and Superintendent Thurmond for leading this effort to close gaps in our laws and protect our K-12 students from hate based harassment.

Founded in 1913 in response to an escalating climate of antisemitism and bigotry, ADL has now become a leading national anti hate organization, striving toward a world in which no group or individual suffers from bias, discrimination, or hate. It's hardly a secret that hate has been on the rise in California for too long. Reflecting a steady increase in recent years, California's total reported hate crimes increased by 20% in 2022, over the prior year. And in just the first six months of its existence,

the California versus hate hotline, which came of a Bill; I'm proud to say that ADL co sponsored, the California versus hate hotline support service; received over 500 reports of targeted hate incidents. The scourge of hate based harassment, and especially antisemitic harassment, has become acute in our K-12 schools. After October 7, we witnessed a shocking spike in the number of K-12 antisemitic incidents. And I'll just add that I've been with ADL for 20 years, since the Bush years.

I have just never experienced anything like this. I just don't even have the words, thank you. According to preliminary ADL data, there was a 55% increase in such incidents in the last quarter of 2023 compared to the same period in 2022. And this comes on the heels of a 49% yearly increase in 2022 over 2021 in the state, according to our data. The problem is not limited to antisemitism, of course.

As the Senator mentioned, in the last several years, we've also seen disturbing rises in other forms of identity based hate, including anti AAPI, anti LGBTQ, anti black, and anti Muslim bias, to name just several of the targeted communities. The CDE's current capacity and infrastructure to serve the impacted student just does not meet the challenge of this moment. The time is now for the Legislature to establish a dedicated office of civil rights within the CDE to better protect and serve the California's K-12 students.

For this reason. For these reasons, ADL is proud to support SB 1421, and I thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else here with us today that would like to testify and support the Bill, seeing none, as do we have opposition. They would like to express their opposition to the measure here. Seeing none. Let's come back to the very small datas. Senator Ochoa Bogh, any questions or comments for the other?

I do. I'm curious. So I have in my notes here that the, there was a state audit report that recommended to create a central office, and it was central office was met by creating a centralized database to track all UCP complaints and appeals. In October 2022, CDE considered the recommendation to be completed and stated that no further further updates would be provided.

But it's my understanding that there's a backlog right now with regards to these, to these complaints, but we haven't seen actual data that shows that there is a backlog. And my question would be, would it necessitate a completely new Department, or do we need to fully fund what we currently have in place in order to actually fully serve the students in our school district in our state?

I think you raise a good point, and I think there's a number of ways to architect this. I think existing law actually, and the existing structures do. I mean, if they were properly funded and prioritized, we could probably have got this done another way and probably sooner than this Bill. So you're not wrong to look at what we can do within the existing framework.

I think the idea here is sort of like how UC and CSU have done it, that once you sort of formalize a structure and put something in place, that in theory, then you're going to build a whole environment, a culture around an office. When you actually hire up the staff, they're not just sort of interchangeable or over the years they could this assignment, and then you shift over to that assignment, that it would provide some consistency and sort of a frame.

But the underlying issue is exactly what you articulated, and it's going to necessitate some lifting from all parties if we're really going to deal with this backlog and take it seriously and take responsibility to state level.

And so the reason I bring that up is because I think especially within the budget that we're currently facing, I think it would be probably less expensive and to be able to fully fund what we currently have. If we already have something in place, then it would be to create a whole new Department or agency in place. I'm going to support your Bill today, but it is something that we need to discuss. If all else. If all else.

I think your Bill is highlighting an issue that we currently have that has not been addressed. And it's going to facilitate the conversations, the higher ups, at the powers that be, to look at the system that is currently failing our students in California. And either way, whether it's, you know, a proposal coming in from another angle in supporting additional funding to fully fund what we currently have, I be in complete support of that.

If your Bill moves forward and, you know, is put in place, I'm in full support of it as well. But I do think ultimately the goal would be to try to do something that is better, not as costly, but actually meet the needs that we are currently not meeting. So thank you for bringing this forward conversation. I'd be happy to move the Bill when.

I appreciate that. Any other comments, questions? So Senator Ochoa Bogh has touched on my concerns. Senator Stern, you and I have talked. You know, I think it's fair to ask, and I think she effectively has, like, you know, what is it about the current universal complaint process that is not working? And, you know, does it necessitate the creation of a new office? Because clearly it's not working. And Miss Appel, I mean, I really do appreciate your testimony.

This is a real problem, but it has been a problem for a while. It's an escalating problem. So unfortunately, we don't have somebody here from CDE to answer, I think, some basic questions. Right? In the absence of an appropriation in this measure, you're facing pretty meaningful costs. And to Senator Ochoa Bogh's point, you know, in a tough budget year.

But, but there's probably a bunch of full time employees that are probably necessary to staff an office for the California Department of Education that has thousands of schools and millions of students. And so that, that is a challenge, I think, that this Bill will incur as it moves forward. But grateful for you having accepted the amendments, that gives us, I think, some clarity and alignment with some of the other offices that have been created. And I'm happy to support the Bill today.

But, you know, caution, you're aware of this. It's going to be kind of an uphill climb from here. We do have a motion from, I think, Senator Ochoa Bogh, you'd like to close. Please proceed.

Thank you. All accurate and well placed comments. And what I'm hoping is that should this Bill keep moving today and go all the way to Fiscal Committee, where there are mountains to climb, let's just say that in analyzing this Bill and scoring it and getting into the details of how you would staff up either a standalone office or in theory, then without that architecture, just getting what the FTEs are going to look like to actually process the backlog.

Hopefully, through that process, we get a little more into those details that sort of haven't been forthcoming since that audit report. So I hope it's a healthy exercise to kind of go through this. And I know we're in policy, but to almost force that budget conversation, too, and see where it goes. I know this is a, it's a climate. It's a tough year, but I just.

I got to go home and talk to families and say, you know, we've run out recourse of, and I appreciate the kind of moment of personal candor from our lead witness here. It is very overwhelming and dispiriting. We're throwing this out there to say, like, hey, maybe this will shake things loose, or something's got to change. It's a problem. So thank you for giving me some room to run here and raise it, and thank you for the acute observations. They're very much appreciated.

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. We do have a motion. Madam Consultant, please call the roll.

File item 11, SB 1421. Stern motion is do passed as amended to Senate Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call].

That measure has four votes. We'll pass that. We'll leave it open for the time being. We're getting toward the end, I think. Senator Cortese, you've got a bill for us. SB 1431. Thank you, Mister Poe, and you may proceed when ready.

Thank you, Mister chair and senators. Appreciate the opportunity to present SB 1431. This bill would give the Cal State University Office of Fire Safety authority over a very specific project, the San Jose State University Spartan Village on the Paseo project. Crucially, the office would be allowed to pursue and direct all efforts associated with fire, panic, or life safety plan checks, permits, inspections, and certificates of occupancy, just in this instance, for this very specific local project.

Through the project, approximately 700 beds will be spread across 264 existing rooms and 11 residential floors of a former hotel tower. Spartan Village on the Paseo will be an undergraduate student housing community for first year and returning students looking for different housing options off campus. This has been a fast moving project because it's a student housing conversion of a major hotel. Unfortunately, the state regulatory system will not be able to move quickly enough for the project to stay on schedule for the fall semester.

Just a few months from now, San Jose State University students will need these, these rooms. Given the current crisis in student housing, we can't afford to wait. California students, as we know, are increasingly unable to access, let alone afford, housing during their academic journeys. This unacceptable reality is that one in 10 students at CSU system wide is experiencing homelessness, according to studies and data that we've received. In fact, the number at San Jose State University, according to the Silicon Valley Pain Index, is currently at 11%.

So San Jose State is no exception to the current situation. Students at San Jose State University face the even greater challenge of going to school in one of the least affordable regions in the United States, if not the most, if not the least affordable region.

The CSU Office of Fire Safety has expertise to oversee activities directly, as evidenced by the existing and ongoing planned transition of overarching authority from the Office of the State Fire marshal to the CSU office of Fire Safety, the CSU already has authority to act as its own building enforcement agency. With us today to testify is Traci and I should have asked how to pronounce your name. Ferdolage? Traci Ferdolage, Senior Assistant Vice President of facilities development and operations at San Jose State University. At the appropriate time, we respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Welcome, Ms. Ferdolage. Thank you for your patience. Please proceed.

Further the opportunity to testify. My name is Traci Ferdolage. I'm the senior associate vice president for facilities development and operations at.

My name is Traci Ferdolage and I'm the senior associate vice president for facilities development and operations at San Jose State University. I want to extend our deepest thanks to Senator Cortese for authoring the bill and his unwavering support for San Jose State University students.

I'm here today to urge your strong support for Senate Bill 1431, which would enable the California State University Office of Fire Safety to perform fire and panic safety oversight for the University's adaptive reuse of a hotel tower into a student housing project known as Spartan Village on the Paseo. The project's location in downtown San Jose offers convenient access to campus and supports efforts to foster a vibrant student community while also helping to revitalize a downtown that has been negatively impacted by the pandemic and economic downturn.

Students across the state face challenges locating affordable housing, this challenge is exacerbated for San Jose State University students who are more likely to come from diverse backgrounds and be a first generation student than when compared to those from other institutions and who also endeavor to achieve their academic goals in one of the least affordable housing markets in the country.

Spartan Village on the Paseo offers the ability to meet student housing needs at a more cost effective and quicker pace than could have been accomplished through a traditional built from the ground up project. Through adaptive reuse of an existing building and funding provided by the state's higher education student housing program, we are able to provide 679 students with a healthy residential experience as well as will begin to offer a new and more affordable housing option.

Senate Bill 1431 streamlines and efficiently uses state and California State University resources during design review, permitting, inspection and other associated processes necessary to safely welcome students this fall. The California State University Office of Fire Safety is qualified and staff to allow successful performance of the duties necessary for the necessary duties required for timely completion. In closing, I urge the committee's support of Senate Bill 1431, which will directly help address the housing challenges facing our students. Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee and for your attention to this matter.

Thank you for your testimony. Is there anybody else with us today that would like to testify in support of the measure? Seeing no one. Is there anybody here would like to testify in opposition to the measure? Also seeing no one. Let's bring it back to the committee. Any questions or comments? I just have one question, Senator Cortese. Basically, I guess two questions. Are you accepting the amendments?

Yes.

Okay. That's the first question. That was easy. The second question, my understanding there was an MOU in place. Why is that not sufficient for your purposes now?

Yeah, I think I'll defer to the witness for a more specific answer, but the MOU that we're talking about in the bill would be one that's put together specifically for this project. This is the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose. It's a very specific project in the heart of the city, a very modern building. And the idea is just to get an MOU in place that isn't dependent on any other MOU. This bill has an urgency on it, and it's just going to need to move very quickly.

Okay. Miss Ferdolage, if you would mind?

Certainly. Yes. There is an existing MOU in place that provides stepped transitions for authority to transfer from the Office of the State fire marshal to the Office of Fire Safety under the California State University. However, that MOU has a number of required steps that were required for the whole system to overtake that permitting inspection and other activities related to the office of the state fire marshal. The timing for that MOU's adoption is not aligned with what the project needs are. Thus the request for the special dispensation.

I understood. Appreciate that. Makes sense to me. Glad to support the bill. Senator Cortese, you'd like to close? I think Senator Wilk was about to make a motion.

Wilk moves the bill.

Wilk moves the bill.

Again, thank you, mister chair, and to your committee for the assistance with the bill. And again, we accept the amendments and appreciated the great question. I actually had the answer to the question here, but I didn't use it. Next time I'll learn to do that.

Well, you wanted to give your witness a chance to shine.

That was really the idea.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you for making me look good. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Very good. Madam Consultant, please call the roll.

File item 17 SB 1431, Cortese. Motion is do pass as amended to senate governmental organization committee. [Roll Call]

All right, that measure has five votes. We will leave it open for the time being. And I think we're down to our last two measures, from our favorite member, Senator Glazer, and to the members of the audience. This is like staying for extra innings in baseball. You get extra credit.

That's even more of a classic argument since we just talked about the Ohani contract in my committee.

Mister chair, if it's okay with you, can I begin with SB 1200?

Certainly.

All right.

Please proceed when ready.

All right, mister chair and members. I want to first thank the staff for working with me on this bill. This is not a new issue. This measure before you extends the California Promise Program, which was established by SB 412 that I authored in 2016. How time flies. SB 1200 will do a number of things. It eliminates the sunset date that was put in place in that original legislation. Number two, it requires the trustees to report annually on the participation rate and the demographics and how it's affecting the graduation initiative per campus.

And finally, it renames the program from the California Promise Program, which has become a very popular framing of other educational initiatives in the state, renames it to the Finish in Four and Through in Two Program. And that eliminates some of the confusion that the name has created. Since the beginning, this California promise program has provided students with the crucial support needed to earn their degree in two or four years. Participating students are given priority registration and provided with academic advisement.

In some cases, they're placed in 2 and 4 year cohorts. The students must complete. This is the requirement on the students. They must complete 30 units within an academic year and adhere to any other requirements mandated by the participating campus. And so far, it's been working pretty well. According to data from the State University, transfer students who enroll in this promise program graduate at a rate 64% higher than the system wide rate. Thank you to the analysis for pointing that out.

And of course, the high graduation rate has made all the more cause for celebration by the fact that it's aimed at students who are underrepresented in our higher education system. The program is limited or has a priority to students who are California residents and are low income, Pell eligible, or first generation students, or from communities that are historically underrepresented in higher education. This bill ensures that the vital support of this program continues to benefit cohorts of students into the future.

And of course, it extends our goal, our important goal of eliminating these longstanding opportunity gaps that still exist today. As members may know, and they've heard me talk about this in committee before, in 2016, the four year graduation rate at the CSU was 19%. That's when we 19% in 2016. Today, I believe it's almost a little over 35%, almost a doubling in these last seven years.

Now, there have been some resources that the state has put in to help the program, but it is one of the really great success stories of an institution without a lot of new money, but a refocus on getting kids to completion has had this significant improvement in graduation rates. That means tens of thousands of students that would normally drop out are getting their degree and getting on a path to economic opportunity.

So it's a real point of pride for me in my service, both as a former trustee and now as a Senator that loves the mission of the state universities. It's really a point of pride to see this progress. It has to continue. There's a lot more progress to be made, and that's the goal of the bill before you. With that, respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. And I see you don't have any witnesses. Or do you? No witness, it says. My paper says no witness. Any. Does anybody here like testify in support of the measure? Please come forward.

Thank you, Mister chair. Good morning, Mister Chair and members Robert Moutrie, California Chamber of Commerce, in support for our workforce's need. Right. For these degrees. So sorry to take that one sentence since there's no witness.

I'd have given you up to three minutes. Mister Moutrie, thank you for that testimony. Everybody. Thanks you for your brevity. Guys. Anybody here like to testify in opposition to the measure? Seeing none back to the dais, I will say, Senator Glazer, you deserve lots of credit for the work that you've done in focusing the system on this issue and then catalyzing the improvements that we've seen. Glad to support it. Looking for a motion if you'd like to close.

Thank you for your consideration and your continued focus on this issue beyond this bill in terms of student completion and success.

So, I got a motion from Senator Ochoa Bogh. Madam sectretary, please call the roll.

File item 15, SB 1200, Glazer. Motion is do pass to Senate Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

All right, that measure currently has five votes. We'll leave it open for the time being. And this brings us to the last bill of the day. That is item number 16, SB 1287. Please, at your leisure.

Great. And I have a couple witnesses we want to invite the students to come forward. Member, this is a very important bill. SB 1287 affirms the role that California public colleges and universities must take to ensure that students can exercise their free speech rights and exchange views respectfully. In recent years, really in recent months and weeks, we've witnessed an alarming trend of escalating harassment, intimidation and violence targeted towards marginalized groups on our campuses.

This obviously threatens the safety and well being of our students, our faculty and staff, threatens the educational process, and it threatens the free exchange of ideas and viewpoints. As an example, two students at UC Berkeley just a month or so ago were forced to seek medical attention after an event featured an Israeli speaker, was boycotted. Protesters, hundreds of them, engaged to try to stop this event. Protesters choked one of the first year Jewish students who was hoping to attend the event.

They broke into the theater where the event was taking place. Students were spat on, called Nazis and dirty Jews. Meanwhile, campus security was clearly overwhelmed and unprepared to protect these Jewish students from this obvious anti semitism. Our colleges have a responsibility to promote free speech while preventing discrimination and harassment. This bill aligns with that responsibility by requiring campuses to Institute policies that explicitly prohibit violence, harassment, intimidation, and discrimination, including interference with free speech and or support for genocide.

SB 1287 also requires universities to develop programs to educate students on how to exchange views respectfully. And finally, the bill requires a report to the legislature annually on their progress in doing these things. By fostering respect, civility, and inclusivity, we create a supportive environment where all members of the University community can thrive. With me today, I have two students to provide their testimony, Gabriel Gaysinsky and Carly Klinger, and they're both students at UC Davis. At the discretion of the chair, we welcome their testimony today.

And welcome to the witnesses. Please proceed.

Hello. All right. Good morning, Members of the Committee. My name is Gabriel Giesinski, and I'm a third year student at UC Davis. I am here to speak about my experience as a Jewish Israeli student on a college campus in California. This past winter, I went on an eight day trip to Israel with other student activists. While there, I spoke to survivors of the October 7 massacres, the families of those still held hostage in Gaza, and stood in the very places where Israelis were raped, butchered, and kidnapped.

During that week, I witnessed an entire nation in mourning and trauma. What happened on October 7 was, and I cannot overstate this, the single most traumatic event in recent Jewish memory. Now, at UC Davis, every day I hear stories from friends about how they've been physically or verbally attacked, excluded from academic spaces, and made to feel unsafe because of their Jewish or Israeli identity. I personally have been consistently harassed in person and on the internet, even prior to October 7, but much more afterward.

I've been called slurs, insulted, and accused of various crimes simply because I am an outspoken and proud Jewish Israeli. Every time I speak up, whether it is by publishing an op ed or voicing my community struggles in a student government meeting. It paints a target on my back. Everywhere on campus, I see hatred in the eyes of my peers and former friends.

Now, I urge you to utilize your positions of authority and influence to protect the Jewish and Israeli students and communities across the State of California. Members of the committee, it is imperative that you support the passage of this proposal. Not only will it curtail the rapid spread of anti-semitism on our campuses, but it will help combat all other forms of discrimination as well.

A clear distinction must be made between legitimate criticism of a government, a political movement, or an insurgent group, and the calls for violence that have been made against some of the state's most vulnerable communities. If this is passed, then it will be the first step, hopefully, of many in creating a safe and welcoming California for Jews, Israelis, Palestinians, and all those affected by the current climate. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your testimony. Welcome, Miss.

Good morning. Is it on? Oh, cool. Good morning, members of the Committee. My name is Carly Klinger, and I'm a third year at UC Davis. I'm here representing Jewish students on our campus. As an openly Jewish student on a UC campus, I have been subjected to monumental amounts of anti semitism before, but especially after October 7. Last year, after white supremacists put up Holocaust denial fires near our campus, UC Davis decided to respond by condemning just white supremacy and not anti semitism.

Only after Jewish students called them out did they redo the post calling anti semitism what it was. Additionally, we had swastikas on dorm buildings, and as I walked through the quad where student groups table one day, I was called a Zio for my Jewish and Israeli identity. Now, after October 7, I can no longer walk through areas where students groups are tabling without being yelled at or called slurs.

I have had to miss class or walk through chants of we don't want a Jewish state in order to get into the building where I can still hear people chanting for the fall of the Jewish homeland where my grandparents escaped to in order to avoid being slaughtered in Germany.

I have sat through countless meetings with administrators, including our chancellor, to respectfully ask for an adherence to policy by students and faculty, or for a change in policy to prevent behavior such as seen at Berkeley, in which Jewish students were assaulted by an angry mob when leaving an event, to take proactive measures to ensure students are better educated than to prohibit a certain class of students from entering a multicultural center, as occurred at UC Santa Barbara, and to create students who are more educated than to say openly that they are proud antisemites next to a group of Jewish students which happened at a student senate meeting in Davis, and to allow faculty to be educated as well to prevent professors from posting anti semitic threats like messages on X, such as we also saw at UC Davis.

This bill aids in the promotion of diversity and inclusion within our higher education institutions. In mandating that public colleges and universities report progress of implementing these measures, it sends a strong message to all students, regardless of their background or beliefs, have the right to express their identities without hindrance and hostility. It is imperative to the empowerment of students who have been hiding their identities out of fear for their safety, to begin to participate as their full selves in University academics and activities.

This bill allows students a voice that is actually listened to and considered in the rooms that hold the decisions about their higher education and their lived experiences. These policies impact the daily lives and well being of these students who who deserve assurance that they are part of the decision making processes.

In conclusion, I urge the committee to support the passage of this proposal in order to move towards more equitable higher education environments for all students, to prevent diverse groups on California campuses from having to file Title VI like the Jewish students at UC Davis did, because we feel so unheard and irrelevant to our Administration and see so much hatred and targeting by our peers. Thank you for your time and consideration.

And thank you both for your testimony. Is anybody else here who would like to testify in support of the measure? Mister Berg, welcome.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, Cliff Berg here. On behalf of JPAC, the Jewish Public Affairs Committee, urging your support, I want to thank Senator Glazer for his leadership in this measure. JPAC, as many of you know, represents over 30 something Jewish organizations in California, many of them statewide, many of them regional. In addition, over 40 Jewish organizations have signed our letter in support of Senator Glazer's bill. We are facing a crisis on our campuses. Jewish students, their families should not feel threatened and unsafe. We need this legislation. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, please.

Good morning. Sabrina Means, with the Capital Advisors group, also on behalf of JPAC and a coalition of more than 40 Jewish organizations in support of SB 1287. Several of those include three AJC chapters, the Anti Defamation League, three Hillel Centers, three Jewish community Relations councils, four Jewish Federation chapters, six Jewish Family Services chapters, six Jewish democratic, regional and national groups, and 14 other coalition members. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else who would like to testify and support? Does anybody here like testify? Opposition to the measure? Seeing none. Let's come back to the dais. Questions, comments from colleagues Senator Cortese.

Yeah, it's for the author. Thank you very much for your leadership with the bill. And I'm supportive of it, and I'd be supportive of it regardless of the answer to this next question. But obviously the testimony and so much of the support is focused on anti semitism, and that's completely understandable under the circumstances, given the testimony we just heard. It seems that the bill's intent is broader than that. In a good way. I would opine trying to get to hate speech in a more general way. Could you respond to that, please?

Senator Cortese, thank you for your question. And yes, indeed, this bill isn't specific to Jewish students. It's against hate and intimidation and violence against all students of all backgrounds. At least it so happens that we're experiencing some very acute crises as it relates to the Jewish community on campuses. But the bill is meant to try to protect all groups, and there's free speech rights from this type of hate, harassment, intimidation and violence.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay. And Senator Smallwood-Cuevas.

And I just wanted to say I'm happy to be a co author on this, on this bill, and thank you for your testimony. You know, this is a, this is a human rights issue. This is about protecting our students, particularly those who are most vulnerable against hate.

Certainly I think about George Floyd and the ways in which many, so many black students had faced violence against the hands of police on campus and expressing concern for the ways in which the rights of black students were abused that went completely unanswered and unaddressed. And it's devastating that we are looking at this bill at this time with such tragedy.

But this is about making sure that our campuses and our students, students are protected against anti blackness, anti semitism, anti islamophobia that exists in so many ways. And so thank you so much to the author for bringing this forward, and I'm happy to support the bill.

For my part. Glad to support the bill. Clearly, there's a need. Right. For clarity around codes of conduct and what is permissible and what's not. There's also, clearly, to my mind, a failure of leadership here. Right. Not by students. Right. And I really appreciate your testimony, but by faculty and others who would otherwise shape the environment in which learning takes place. And that's a harder thing to legislate.

There are, as our analysis notes, some issues of law around this, but that's probably best taken up under the purview of the Judiciary Committee. So happy to support the bill today. Don't know if we have a motion but Senator Wilk. But, Senator Glazer, if you'd like to close.

Thank you to the students for being here. Thank you to the members of the Committee for their Thoughtful remarks. I really appreciate it. Even when we're dealing with divisive issues, all student voices have the right to be heard. None should be silenced. The bill is about the safety of students and safeguarding their free speech rights. This legislation will restore an environment, we hope, of civil discourse on our campuses. And with that, respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. With that, madam consultant, please call the roll.

File item 16, SB 1287, Glazer. Motion is do pass to Senate Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call]

That measure currently has six of us. We'll leave it open for the time being. And I think. Did we do the consent calendar? We did not. We did. All right, so let's reopen the roll for those members who are here now, but we're not here earlier and work our way through it.

On the consent calendar. [Roll Call]

All right, that measure has six votes. We'll leave it open.

[Roll Call]

Thank you, everybody who is still here, who actually works here, so appreciate all your hard work. And with that, the Senate Committee of education is adjourned.