Assembly Standing Committee on Higher Education

Good afternoon. The Assembly Higher Education Committee is called to order. Welcome to the Assembly Higher Education Committee's first of weekly hearings this month. Whether you're here in person or watching virtually, I extend a warm welcome to you all. I will now go over some key elements of the structure of today's hearing. Please note that while this hearing will not have phone testimony, we are accepting written testimony through the position letter portal on the Committee's website at www.

Dot ahed.Assembly.ca.Gov. Bills will be taken up in sign in order authors, you can please sign in at the sergeant's desk in room 437. Additionally, please note that the guideline for bills heard in this Committee is to allow for testimony from two lead witnesses in support and two lead witnesses in opposition to speak for no more than two minutes each.

Stakeholder groups and entities that are neither in support nor in opposition will be allowed to give testimony for no more than two minutes when a call for tweeners if a measure has more than two entities in the tweener category, only two will be allowed to speak for two minutes each for Members of the Committee.

Members, if you would like to respond to a roll call, ask a question and provide a comment, please be sure to activate your mic and speak into your mic for authors of Bill is up today. Authors. Each Member presenting today will provide an opening statement and a closing statement. As previously stated, your two lead witnesses will each have two minutes to provide testimony.

And then in terms of today's actual hearing, please note that Assembly Member Miguel Santiago will be presenting file item number four, Assembly Bill 2070, on behalf of Assembly Member Sabrina Cervantes. Additionally, we have 12 measures on the agenda today. And once we have quorum, we'll take up the consent calendar and Members on the Committee. We have five Members right now. Doctor Jackson, come in and establish quorum. Thank you so much, Doctor Jackson. And then we'll take up the consent calendar at the time.

The consent calendar items as far as follows. File item number three. file item 6, 7, and 8. So we'll start. zero, perfect, let's. Madam Secretary, please call the roll. Thank you, Doctor Jackson. Thank you Assemblymember Boerner, we're going to call the establish quorum. Please establish a quorum here.

[Roll Call]

Doctor Jackson, thank you so much. Appreciate it. All right, perfect. We have four items on consent. Thank you. We have a motion a second. So we'll do the consent. I'm sorry, so we don't have quorum, but we have quorum,

Okay. Thank you so much. At this time, we'll take up the consent calendar. I know it's a very busy day in committees and appreciate Members of the Committee and all the authors for the flexibility. We have four measures on consent. File item number three. Assembly Bill 2044, authored by Assembler Phil Chen, file item number six. Assembly Bill 2184 authored by Assembly Member Lori Davies, file number seven. Assembly Bill 2275 authored by myself, and file item number eight, AB 2305, authored by myself. With that, we have a motion. A second roll call. Please.

[Roll Call]

That measure has five eyes, and we'll keep the row open for additional Members to sign on. Thank you so much. Now we'll go through the bills and author sign in order. The first author was somewhere in Santiago, but I don't see him. Is this someone Birdman? So we have a summoner, Eloise Gomez Reyes. Welcome. Presenting item number two, Assembly Bill 2033, community colleges electronic benefits transfer cards. Welcome. Summoner, Gomez Reyes. Motion a second.

Thank you, Mister chair and Members. AB 2033 basically does two things. We know that student hunger on our campuses is a serious problem. The California Student Aid Commission has a report that shows that between $400,000 and $750,000 of California's postsecondary students are eligible for Calfresh. However, only 127,000 students receive these benefits. AB 2033, the EBT Access for student Empowerment or Ease Act, will do two things.

One is that it will require our community colleges and CSUs and request that our UCs have at least one vendor on campus that accepts EBT. The second is that they will also provide the resources. And this is when they provide information to the students. They let them know what the resources are on other EBT vendors within a 25 miles radius from the campus.

This is a link, and when the students come in, it is provided in the written literature that they receive the link that shows what this is. We need to make sure that our students do have access to the very benefits they've already qualified for Calfresh, they have their EBT card. We need our campuses to provide this. Also. Many CSUs and UC campuses have basic needs centers and these basic needs centers also have coordinators. So this will codify the existence of these centers and the coordinators.

With us to testify here today in support of the Bill are Robert Alexander, a student from San Bernardino Valley College and Vice President of regional affairs for the student Senate for California Community colleges, and heather Willoughby, a recent graduate of UC Santa Cruz, a student parent and an EBT advocate.

Welcome. Thank you.

Good afternoon chair and Members. My name is Robert Alexander. I'm the Vice President of regional affairs for the student Senate of California Community Colleges. The SSCCC Student Center for California Colleges represents 116 community colleges and over 2 million students. The voices of the students one of the okay most common student eligibility for SNAP benefits one of the top reasons issues the students face today is food insecurities. It is not easy to access food in mills on campuses.

Sometimes if you only have EBP benefits and you're Low income, meals are student success. If you are hungry and you're starving, you cannot think about a test. You think about hunger, your food, it affects your grades, it affects your success in college. It is very significant. Student access to EBT benefits and SNAP benefits on campus will be a significant role to play for students not having to leave campus. And that's very significant.

I have a story of a student leader that was on my campus, a college, a student Senate college President at crafting Hills College within our district, and he went sofa to sofa, lived in a car. He couldn't relocate, move around due to he's afraid that he would have enough gas to get back to campus to utilize food. That was really significant to him. He struggled with it. Being a single father of two children. I struggled when I first initiated into college trying to support them.

I looked at the factors of do I drive home on days that I was lower on gas? Do I eat out where that dollar goes? I had EBT. Obviously EBT was not so accessible and it would have made a big difference. I know for myself and many college students. As I said before, food insecurity is a big thing for college students.

The SSCCCC is very proud to sponsor this Bill because it's not only going to give access to snap benefits to students that already are entitled to them, but it's going to give them access to the food on campuses. Not only that, it's going to broaden the food items on campuses for students that can't afford it. They're going to have more nutritious meals as well. Yes. I would like to thank the chair and the Members for your time. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

And sorry, I don't know all the niceties of how to announce myself or such but...

Introduce yourself and your comments.

My name is Heather Willoughby, and I am here in support of this Bill. My experience as a student parent going back to school as a, you know, a student that had stopped out and left my degree for 20 years and decided to come back to it when I became a solo parent, I had a lot of struggles with food on campus. One of my biggest struggles was actually the fact that I lived in a studio with my daughter.

And so it made making meals very difficult because oftentimes I wouldn't be able to do dishes or anything because basically it would wake my child. It was still in the same room. So I really relied heavily on a lot of the services that were provided by the University in childcare. She was able to have breakfast, lunch, and snacks. And so oftentimes I focused on just getting her to school and maybe not my own food needs as much.

Also, she was a very finicky toddler, so sometimes I would try to feed her and she'd be like, no. And I'd be like, I don't have any more money to get more food. But more to the point, we've done a lot of buildup of basic needs stuff. It's been really amazing and really incredible. But sometimes when I go to get a box of cereal at a food pantry, I also am not getting a thing of milk.

Not being able to utilize EBT on campus really kind of like, creates that vacuum of, like, I have more time poverty now because now I have to get in my car and go down to the store, which is, you know, some of us are in food deserts. If we are not getting our food on campus, it creates a kind of snowball effect where I'm losing more time with my family and I'm losing more time with my studies.

So I'm really deeply in support of this Bill because it's something that I've been working super with hard to make sure it happens.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses in support in the hearing room there? Witnesses, please come up to the mic.

AJ Johnson with California competes higher education for a strong economy and support. Thank you.

Stephanie Goldman, on behalf of the student Senate for California Community College is proud to sponsor this Bill.

Good afternoon. Parshan Khosravi with uAspire. We are also proud to be a co sponsor on this Bill. And thank you to the Member for introducing it.

Good afternoon. Daniela Rodriguez with the California Student Commission in support.

Hi, my name is Crystal Bale and I'm a UCSC student, parent, undergrad student, and I'm in support.

Hello. Good afternoon, Wendy Brill-Wynkoop, President of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, proud co sponsor. And thank you, Assemblymember Reyes for this Bill.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses in opposition in the hearing room? Are there tweeners in the hearing room? Colleagues, any questions or comments? All right, yes, I'm sorry.

Can I do a quick tweener?

Yes, go ahead.

Hi. Just a very quick comment. Maggie White with California State University. We don't yet have a position, but just want to thank the author, her hardworking staff, and the sponsors for their work on this important topic. Thank you.

Thank you so much, colleagues. Any questions or comments? Seeing none. Assembly member would you like to close.

Thank you. I do want to thank my witnesses for being here. It's important to hear from the students and what their struggles are. Food insecurity is a serious issue on campus and this is just one way to address it. And with that, I would respectfully ask for your aye vote when you have a quorum.

Thank you so much. Thank you Assembly member Reyes, for bringing this very important measure forward and providing resources to address student basic needs is so critical and should be a basic tenet of campus culture. I appreciate your author's willingness and thoughtful consideration for expanding previously successful legislation for our California community colleges, now expanding it to the CSU and UC as cited analysis.

I urge to continue in conversations with the CSU and UC to ensure the implementation of this measure will now result in the reduction of staff overseeing the basic needs resources program. And with that, I look forward to supporting a measure here today. And we actually established quorum earlier. So we'll take a roll call and then we'll add on afterwards. So, Madam Secretary, if you can call the roll please.

File item number two. AB 2033. The motion is do pass to the Human Services Committee. [Roll call].

That measure has five eyes. And we'll keep the roll open for additional Members. Add on. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, I'd like to welcome Assemblymember Berman with item number 11, Assembly Bill 240, 2458 welcome.

So we're going to follow up one good student parent bill with another one. I would like to begin by thanking Committee staff for their work on this Bill. I will be accepting the Committee's amendments described in the analysis. Thank you very much. I'm proud to continue to highlight and author legislation to make higher education attainable for student parents for student parents, the cost of college is one of the biggest barriers to accessing and completing their higher education.

While student parents have additional childcare expenses, these costs are not currently accounted for in a college's estimate of a student parents cost of attendance. Federal regulations already allow financial aid administrators to adjust the student's cost of attendance to to include the expenses incurred for dependent care. However, this process is not well understood by student parents or consistently applied across institutions, resulting in unnecessary burdens on both students and financial aid administrators.

AB 2458 would ensure that student parents obtain the financial aid they are eligible to receive by taking into account their child care expenses. This Bill would also require institutions to uniformly collect and report student parent data to support their success, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote. And I am proud to be joined today by two witnesses, crystal Balle, a student parent at UC Santa Cruz, and AJ Johnson, policy director at California Competes.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Good afternoon. I'm Crystal Balle, a student parent from Sacramento working on my BA at UC Santa Cruz. My journey to higher education is rooted in my children and breaking barriers. I support AB 2458 as it aligns with my experiences as a Low income student parent of color. Parenthood and studies have been hard. I wake up, I take care of my kids, do schoolwork, my internships, manage the household, take my children to their sports, childcare.

To afford everything, I had to work 16 hours weekend shifts as a freelance CNA. This is exhausting. Having to balance all this left me struggling with my academics and my children. My true cost of attendance is more than doubled compared to my non parenting peers. To meet the basic needs of myself and my children.

Getting financial aid is daunting at a point where I consider part time study or dropping out because I couldn't figure out how to make ends meet as a full time student, even though I knew this path was the path to economic freedom. However, thanks to the support of various programs, I secured a cost of attendance adjustment and dependent care allowance that raised my annual aid. This tailored support allowed me to pursue my education and prioritize my children at the same time.

I urge you to consider AB 2458 a bill that would remove hours of systemic struggle and also allow student parents to focus on what really matters, being a parent and studying AB 2458 with streamline access to benefits that student parents already have and are eligible for. We're not asking for anything new or additional. We're asking for student parent expenses to be treated the same way we treat other student expenses like housing, food and transportation. I urge you to support AB 2845. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Good afternoon. Chair and members of the committee, I'm AJ Johnson. With California Competes higher education for a strong economy. This critical legislation aims to empower student parents on their journey through higher education and into family sustaining careers. There are approximately 300,000 undergraduate student parents in California right now. 61% are first generation students and 70% are students of color. So this is an important equity conversation for us today.

AB 2458 streamlines cost of attendance adjustments for student parents, ensuring they receive the financial aid they're actually entitled to under federal financial aid rules and this is necessary support. It also improves data collection to better inform decision making and provide tailored service. As Crystal mentioned, by addressing these financial barriers and enhancing data collection, AB 2458 will boost student parent success. It'll improve multigenerational outcomes for their children and promote equitable opportunities in our state. I urge your support for this bill and for California families. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses and support in the hearing room?

We rolled deep.

Juliette Terry, on behalf of the Child Care Resource Center, in support.

Good afternoon. Melissa Barda, on behalf of the Education Trust, West, proud co sponsor and supporter and thank you to Assemblymember Berman for authoring.

Hi all. My name is Valerie Johnson with the Campaign for College Opportunity, in support.

Hi Carol Gonzalez here on behalf of Long Beach Community College District, in strong support. Thank you Assemblymember Berman.

Hi, Mary Washington with the Cal State Student Association, in support.

Robert Alexander with the Student Center for California Community Colleges, in support.

My name is Kayleigh Byrd. I'm a student parent from UC Davis and I'm in strong support of this bill for the impact for student parents and the positive impact for their children as well.

Bella Kern, on behalf of Michelson Center for Public Policy, in support.

Patty Garcia, a student parent at UC Davis, in support.

Behalf of Imaginable Futures, proudly in support of this bill.

Hi, I'm a student parent at Sacramento State and I am in support.

Hi, my name is Denise Mendez. I am a student parent at UC Berkeley and I'm in strong support of this Bill. Go bear.

Hi, my name is Paulina Rojas. I'm from UC Davis and I heavily support this bill. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Heather Willoughby and I'm a former graduate of UC Santa Cruz and student parent and I was also the student parent president when I was there and I am in definite support of this.

Hello again Parshan with you aspire. We are proud to be co sponsored and support. Thank you for introducing it and respectfully, we love the birds but go ant eaters.

This is good competition.

David Neben on behalf of Tikas, the Institute for College Access and Success, in support.

Thank you Mr Chair and members. Tony Rice representing United LA, proud co sponsor the bill. Thank you.

Hello. Andrew Avila on behalf of Early Edge California and early learning, education and care organization, in support, thank you.

Himalay Takar, I represent graduate students at UC Davis, in support. Thank you.

Kevin Ezna, Coalition California Welfare Rights Organization, strong support. Thanks.

I wish all my bills had that much support.

There you go, Mr Berman. Thank you so much to all the witnesses support are there witnesses in opposition in the hearing room? Are there tweeners in the hearing room? Colleagues, any questions or comments? Assemblymember Boerner

I really want to thank you for bringing this forward. I read it in preparation for today and both my staff and I said, why am I not the author of this bill?

How about joint joint author?

I'll be happy to be a joint author. It's really an excellent Boerner and Berman, why haven't we done that before?

It's a law firm in the making.

I'm not a lawyer. That's fine. I can play one. But thank you. It's great. And I think I already moved it, but thank you. And I can't imagine I have kids and I went to college. I can't imagine doing both at once. You're a superhero. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any further questions or comments from colleagues? Seeing none, Assemblymember would like to close.

Thank you so much to Crystal and AJ for being witnesses today. Thank you to everybody for supporting it. I want to give a big shout out to my ledge Director Alan Green, who's not here today but who's been a leader on a lot of these efforts and respectly ask for an aye vote.

Thank you so much Assemblymember Berman, for bringing this, I mean, Berman for being this very important measure to an author, to AAssemblymember Berman but thank you Assemblymember Berman, for bringing this very important measure forward. We knew that we needed to continue to do more to support our student parents.

Thank you to all the witnesses here today as well, and your measure today before, but to build upon the great work that you have championed on behalf of student parents and we're grateful for your leadership there and look forward to supporting your measure here today. With that, Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item number 11. The motion AB 2458. The motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. [Roll Call]

That measure has six ayes. It's out. And we'll keep the roll open for additional members. Hat on. Thank you so much.

Thank you everybody.

Thank you. And Assemblymember Wilson, welcome. And before we do that, let's take up the consent calendar. I know it's a very busy day committee and we have the consent calendar before us and we'd like to add have members who'd like to add on. To add on, please. Madam Secretary, if you can call the row on the consent calendar, please file.

Item number three, AB 20044 do pass to the Appropriations Committee. File item number six, AB 2184 do pass to the Appropriations Committee. File item number seven, AB 2275 do pass to the Appropriations Committee. File item number eight, AB 2305 do pass to the Appropriations Committee. Jackson? Jackson aye.

The consent calendar is out and we'll keep the roll open for additional Members to add on. Thank you so much. Welcome Assemblymember Wilson, presenting item number nine. Assembly Bill 2349 welcome. We have a motion. Second.

Awesome. I love bipartisan support. I will keep it brief then. Thank you, Mister Chair. Thank you Members. Thank you for the early motion. And second, you know, this is a wonderful Bill. AB 2349 it's a Bill that formalizes the Calbridge program, offering a complete pathway for diverse STEM students in California's public universities to achieve PhDs and diversify the state's STEM University professoriate and technological workforce.

Now, California science and technology industries are a major economic driver of the state's economy, generating over a half a trillion of economic activity annually. However, due to the lack of diversity in these industries, the state grossly underutilizes its talent. Only 15% of California's 1.5 million tech workers are black or Latino, and only 26% are women.

Launched in 2014, Cal Bridge was created as an inter segmental bridge between the California State University, University of California, and California community colleges systems to tackle the persistent underrepresentation in California STEM workforce success in significantly increasing the participation of underrepresented groups and STEM PhDs and holds the potential to transform the state's higher education professoriate and tech industry leadership. The Calbridge program offers financial support, intensive mentoring, professional development and research opportunities, giving students through their educational journey from undergraduate to post, excuse me, to post doctoral levels.

Now, by diversifying the STEM professoriate, Calbridge not only increases representation, but also inspires more students from traditionally excluded groups to pursue STEM majors, fostering a more inclusive and supportive academic environment for students. The program has grown from five scholars in the first year to almost 70 Calbridge scholars accepted just this year. Now, Calbridge scholars have a 70% acceptance rate to PhD programs with their first application, a statistic that is unmatched anywhere else in the country. Truly, California is a leader.

With the program's earliest participants now earning their degrees and joining California's public University faculty, they set an inspirational path for future scholars who will see themselves represented in this new generation of leadership. Now, along with this legislation, I have also put forward a budget request letter to sustain the Calbridge program, supporting a scholar from undergraduate through their PhD to faculty or tech workforce job takes between nine and to 10 years. We encourage our state to continue to investing in the Calbridge program's continued success.

Please note, despite putting in that budget letter, that should not stop anyone from voting on this Bill today. It still can happen without the success of the budget. In short, AB 2349 would allow the Calbridge scholars to continue to thrive and pursue their education at scale. We anticipate this program will support up to 2000 diverse PhDs and 300 diverse faculty Members per decade in STEM disciplines. Like I said, continue it with California being the leader.

Now, I have two witnesses here with me today, Gibor Basri, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at UC Berkeley and senior advisor to the Calbridge program, and Katy Rodriguez Wimberly, assistant Professor at CSU, Sam Bernardino, and former Calbridge scholar.

Thank you so much and welcome.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you. Part of what I was going to say. The Assembly Member has already said very well, so I won't take up your time with that, except to remind you that California's STEM workforce is a very important part of the economy, and we're basically leaving half of the California population on the table. And that's probably not a good idea in today's world.

One way to increase that representation, that utilization of the talent pool, would be to have a more diverse faculty teaching those students, because it's well known that students are more likely to pursue especially a difficult career in STEM if there's somebody there that seems like a role model or represents them. To give you my personal experience, for most of my career, I was the only black Professor in the entire division of mathematical and physical Sciences at UC Berkeley out of more than 100 faculty Members.

20 years ago, I was on a task force looking at faculty diversity, and we found that the entire UC system had fewer than one black Professor in those fields per campus. 20 years later, after a lot of efforts, the UC system has fewer than two black professors in all those fields out of more than 1000 faculty Members.

In the same way, representation among Hispanic professors is at an equally low percentage of the available talent pool because the states student population, high school population, is now half Hispanic and of course, women are another half of the population who are significantly underrepresented in the STEM area. The master plan for California Higher Education provides pathways for students from all backgrounds to potentially succeed.

The Calbridge program recruits students from community colleges and the CSU system who show interest and talent in STEM fields and engages them as college juniors. As mentioned, a stunning 70% of them are accepted into excellent PhD programs after they get their undergraduate degree. With the state's help in the past few years, the program now also shepherds students through their doctoral work, positioning them for postdoctoral and faculty positions and also positions as leaders in the STEM workforce.

Calbridge has been in existence for a decade, and that is about the length of time that it takes for a student to go from college junior to leader or Professor in the workforce. And two scholars from our first cohorts are already faculty members in the University system, one of whom is about to speak. So our pathway is now full of students at all levels here, and it would really be an enormous shame and loss if this program were to suddenly evaporate and lose that entire pathway.

The Bill would make the program a real thing, and of course, we keep fighting for funding to keep this sustained. This is really the only way we're going to make progress on this problem, which has been resistant to progress for several decades. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Thank you all for the opportunity to speak on my path as an alumni of the first cohort of Calbridge scholars. 10 years ago, I was an undergrad physics major at Cal State Long Beach. I had a whole lot of passion, astronomical dreams, but little direction, and no familial, familial or cultural knowledge to learn how to become an astronomer, mixed ethnicity Latina from a very large family I knew.

All I knew in high school was that I would have to financially support myself, and what I wanted to do was to continue to lift my family up as the generations did before me, through career achievement, social mobility, and reaching my always very grand dreams. I started adulthood by joining the army reserves and going to community college to support myself. I was just on this winding path to try to find a career that I could be passionate about.

In my mid twenties, I finally transferred to Cal State Long Beach. I was equally thrilled to have found this really exciting career path and terrified because I was the very first person in my family to do so. Calbridge took a chance on me. I was one of the first five scholars at monthly workshops. For the first time in my life, I communed with people that not only looked like me, that grew up like me, but also had the same passions as I did.

And thanks to previous California State funding, this feeling, this community of women, of people of color, we're just nerds. We still have this healing place for over the hundred scholars that this program is supporting. Last summer, in fact, we had the inaugural Calbridge Summer Institute for Calbridge alumni that are now in PhD programs across the country. And we. There was literal tears many times because of how special this community we have built is for us.

The strength we give one another and really the paths that we're creating for ourselves and for the folks that are coming up behind us. Calbridge really just creates trailblazers. We're excellent scientists, professors, laboratory researchers, people who care deeply not only about their science, but about doing work to create change in academia, to improve STEM in California.

We need your support by codifying our program into legislation to enable us and future generations to lift up communities of color and other underserved communities, along with just California as a whole. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses and support in the hearing room?

Bryan Ha with the California Faculty Association. We have an official support position as of yesterday.

Hello, Wendy Brill-Wynkoop, President of the Faculty Association of the California Community Colleges, in support. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses in opposition in the hearing room? Are there tweeners in the hearing room? Colleagues, any questions or comments? I think we have a motion second already? Yes, Senator would you like to close.

Thank you. Just like to remind everyone that this is a grassroots, faculty driven effort that has no formal existence. And we always like to look at is there data for things? This has existed for 10 years and has, and the data is present, and so legislation would formalize its existence and facilitate long term funding. With that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you so much, Senator Wilson, for bringing this very important measure forward. I believe that by codifying the Cal bridge program, it shows the Legislature's ongoing commitment to really seeing more diverse STEM faculty on our campuses. And the Legislature and this Committee has held oversight hearings in the past few years of various campuses as to look at how we can continue to diversify our faculty ranks and acknowledge the lack of diversity that was even more dire in STEM disciplines.

Today's Bill will continue to look at continue to increase diverse STEM experts in STEM related public and private sector roles. And with that, I look forward to supporting a measure here today. Thank you, Madam Secretary please call the roll.

File item number nine, AB 2349. The motion is due pass to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

That measure has six ayes. It's out. And we'll leave the row open for additional Members out on. Thank you so much. Next up is who signed in first. Fang Assemblymember Vince Fong. Welcome. Presenting item number one, early and middle college, high school and college programs, College of Career Access Partnerships. Welcome. We have a motion and a second. Welcome.

Thank you, Mister Chair, Members. With both Fongs in the same room, we can definitively prove that we are different individuals.

Thank you, sir.

First, I would like to thank the Chair and Committee staff for working with me on amendments to ensure the bill accomplishes our goal of helping California students. For many high school students, attending college is only made possible through community colleges, which begins with allowing students to enroll both in high school and college courses. Higher education unlocks economic and financial mobility, especially for disadvantaged students.

Many schools have realized the benefits providing higher education opportunities and have stepped up by partnering together with their local colleges to expand dual enrollment. Dual enrollment programs are tried and true ways to open more doors to California students. Students and administrators in the Central Valley are often faced with issues of funding, scheduling, and the sheer distance between school sites. This bill, AB 2019, helps remedy these problems so students can take full advantage of educational opportunities.

This bill seeks to aid students who wish to take full advantage of early and middle college programs that use the "school within a school" model, meaning that high school students can take community college classes on their own traditional high school campus, often in a smaller cohort of students whose schedules are strategically arranged to allow for substantial college credits to be earned.

Whether they are taking community college courses on a community college campus or at their own local high school, students who show initiative to achieve higher education goals should be given the opportunity. I am joined by Carlos Rojas with the Kern County Superintendent of Schools and Doctor April Moore with the Sierra Sands Unified School District.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Thank you, Chair and Committee Members, for the opportunity to give comment on AB 2019. So I'm Carlos Rojas with the Kern County Superintendent School's Office. According to a study by the Public Policy Institute of California in 2021, dual enrollment participation and outcomes vary across racial and ethnic groups. In general, black and Latino students are underrepresented in dual enrollment programs, and overall, black and Latino students have lower dual enrollment grade point averages and earn fewer units than students and other student groups.

Promoting dual enrollment participation success among historically underrepresented groups is vital and is key and is exactly what AB 2019 aims to do. In 2023, 4 of the nine California Exemplary Dual Enrollment Award recipients were located in Kern County, all of which have a high concentration of Latino students and students of poverty who have historically been underrepresented in dual enrollment programs. In these schools, it makes sense to have a school-wide, comprehensive dual enrollment program.

However, at schools where students who have been historically underrepresented make up a smaller percentage of the student population, AB 2019 would create a system in which underrepresented students in those schools could also benefit from the dual enrollment while adhering to the same instructional minute requirements currently in statute for early and middle college high schools through participation in early and middle college programs or schools within the school.

California Ed Code 11302 defines early colleges as small, autonomous schools that blend high school and college into a coherent educational program. AB 2019 codifies the programs already in existence and simply provides the same instructional minute flexibility for all students participating in these dual enrollment programs.

Thank you so much, April Moore, Superintendent of Sierra Sands Unified School District and happy to speak on this bill. As Carlos mentioned, existing programs, they're already in place. They've been in place for over a decade, and they're finding success. So building off of those models and with the budget trailer or the Budget Act of 22-23 funding the dual enrollment grants that are currently round one has been received, and round two was just applied for last month.

Over 50% of the grantees that applied for the middle college early college grants are planning to start or expand programs such as these. However, they're expecting to have the same flexibility that these programs have been implementing, and it's important for us to codify that as well.

So, for example, my district in Sierra Sands, we're planning to start in consultation with and partnership with Cerro Coso Community College, a middle college program on the campus of our college. It'll be a school within a school, part of one of our existing schools on the campus. And this bill and flexibility provided is going to be critical for us and for our students to be able to take substantial college classes while getting the high school support.

In your own public hearing on November 6 on the State of dual enrollment in California, a question was asked on what are the barriers for dual enrollment expansion on the K 12 side of the house? Unfortunately, I and my colleagues weren't aware of the hearing and time to be with you in person, but wanted to share.

This is one of those barriers, the instructional minute requirement that we're trying to address in this bill to remove that so that our schools and programs can expand and serve more students. We are joined in the audience by the California Coalition of Early and Middle Colleges Executive Director and the Board President. So Melissa Madigan is the Executive Director. Board President is James Espinoza. He's also a principal of a middle college high school in San Bernardino at San Bernardino Valley College.

And they're supporting, as is Sierrra Sands, a new middle college program in their very large district. Because of the need they have a standalone middle college. It's full, it has a waiting list, and they want to support more students. So we're finding this model with the supports, with everything we could package as successful. And we appreciate your support and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses and support in the hearing room?

Good afternoon. James Espinoza, principal of Middle College High School in San Bernardino and also President of the California Coalition of Early Middle Colleges. We are strongly in support.

Leticia Garcia, on behalf of the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools in support.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Committee Members, and Committee staff. Michelle Gill, on behalf of California Association of School Business Officials in support

Sandra Morales, on behalf of the California High School Coalition in support.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses in opposition in a hearing room? Are there tweeners in a hearing room?

Good afternoon, my name is Julie Duncan. I'm Superintendent of Tri-Valley ROP. I serve Dublin, Livermore Valley, and Pleasanton Unified school districts. We run a middle college high school program. And this bill, I want to just make sure that the trailer bill language we recognize, if we're going to do it broadly with early college as well. What are the minimum units to be considered for that 180 minutes ADA.

I want to make sure that all forms of the programs are supported by all indices county offices of Ed K-12 school districts ROPs with JPAs within those school districts. So I just want to make sure we're part of that conversation. There are many of us in the state that also have that. Thank you.

Thank you so much, colleagues. Any questions or comments? Yes, Assemblymember Muratsuchi.

Sounds like it's working. All right. Thank you very much Mr. Fong, I understand that you have a number of early and middle college programs in your district, and it sounds like a great proposal and concept.

However, I always want to make sure that there aren't any bad actors that take advantage of the opportunity to have less minutes without verifying that the students are actually being enrolled so that they don't just try to melt the system for ADA funding. Can you give some assurances as to how you know this proposal will ensure that the program will function as intended without the abuses?

That was probably addressed by a lot of the amendments, but I'll talk to Doctor, I'll let Doctor Moore address.

Thank you, Assemblymember Fong. In fact, this California Department of Education is ahead of the game on this. So much so that last spring they're planning to change their audit guidelines to audit. And if we don't pass, the existing schools will get a 25% fine because of just the interpretation of Ed code. So, yes, they will be audited. The existing audit takes place for all the schools, the standalone middle college, and early college high schools that audit checks their minutes. And they look at students.

I was a middle college principal myself, and they check our students. Are they enrolled in both? Are they meeting all of the high school and the community college requirements? But that audit had not been in place for programs, and that is becoming in place. So we want the audit that is moving forward. We also just need the minutes to be codified so that they can do both. But they will be audited.

Okay.

And I believe this bill will be moving to your Committee. So happy to clarify or put any more guardrails that you.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Any other further comments or questions? Assemblymember, would you like to close?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This bill will help prepare students for post-secondary educational opportunities and the competitiveness of the global economy. Dual enrollment programs are excellent opportunities for students to take college courses and earn college credits while still enrolled in high school. As schools plan to grow dual enrollment programs, AB 2019 will give certainty to students and schools who wish to partake in early and middle college programs to maximize funding and access to classes, including early and middle college programs in the current framework.

And adjusting instructional minute requirements will give more certainty to administrators and open new opportunities for students to get a step ahead in pursuing higher education. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you so much, Assemblymember Vince Fong, for working with our Committee staff and to, for bringing this measure forward.

So I can't vote?

And for bringing this very important measure forward. As we continue to work towards expanding dual enrollment programs, having accurate data is imperative and critical to help ensure the finite resources are going to programs that are fulfilling their legislative intent. I appreciate your thoughtful consideration to include the data component of this measure so that we can continue to make decisions informed by data.

And with that, I look forward to supporting this measure today. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item number one. AB 20019. The motion is do passed to the Education Committee. [Roll Call]

That measure has eight ayes and we'll keep the row open for additional Members add on and it's out. Thank you so much. Good to see you. Next up is item number 10 by Assemblymember Ash Kalra. Assembly Bill 2398. Welcome. We have a motion and a second.

Thank you, Mister Chair and Members. AB 2398 would require the California State University system to conduct an external audit of each of these campuses every three years. It would also require all audits of the CSU system or its campuses to be made available to the public. Currently, the CSU system conducts an external, system wide audit each year. It also conducts smaller, irregular audits of various programs operated by individual campuses. However, it does not currently conduct regular external audits of each of its 23 campuses.

While existing audits contain some information regarding each campus's financial status and activities, they do not constitute the full inspection that would be offered by a complete campus level audit. For example, while these General overviews reference instructional expenses and payments to employees, they do not include any detailed information about faculty salaries. Just last year, the impact of this data deficit was illustrated by a turbulent collective bargaining process between the CSU system and the California Faculty Association.

While CFA asked for a 12% raise, the CSU system said that it could only afford a 5% raise. However, an analysis by independent accounting Professor Doctor Howard Bunces concluded that in 2022, the CSU system had around 13 billion in net assets and 8.1 billion in mostly unrestricted reserves. Unfortunately, this difference of financial assessment was not immediately resolved, leading to a series of historic, system wide strikes across all 23 CSU campuses. Eventually, CFA and CSU system came to an agreement that included an approximately 10% pay increase.

AB 2398 will shed much needed light on the General financial health of one of our state's most crucial educational institutions. By requiring regular audits of each of the 23 CSU campuses, this Bill will help us make better financial decisions that will positively impact faculty, students and the CSU system alike, and hopefully avoid work stoppages that occur because of lack of transparency or lack of information.

With me to provide supporting testimony are Doctor Steven Filling, Professor of accounting and ethics at California State University, Stanislaus, and Brian Ha, Director of government relations for the California Faculty Association. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Good afternoon, chair Members Steven Filling, I noted I'm a chair. I'm a Professor of accounting and ethics at Stanislaus State. I'm also CFA's political action and legislation chair. I teach auditing. Auditing is about assurance. Assurance that information is correct. It comes with a cost in the same sense that the bar exam comes with a cost. There is a reason people take the bar exam to ensure that that legal education they received stuck.

Likewise, there is a reason for audits to ensure that the financial information presented is accurate and is at a level which enables accountability. As Assemblymember Kalra noted, at the moment, the CSU system is audited, but not the 23 campuses. He mentioned the $8.1 billion in reserves that the CSU sits on. When we asked the CSU about that, their response was, you don't understand. That's at the campus level.

It seems appropriate if their research are at the campus level, if their decisions are at the campus level, that the audits be at the campus level as well. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Mister chair Members Brian Ha with the California Faculty Association. I want to first applaud the author for carrying this Bill on our behalf. If you remember earlier this year we went on this unprecedented strike, the first in the nation. As the largest University in this nation, we were forced to go on strike because the numbers that we were bartering were apples to oranges. This Bill would allow an audit every three years.

We're just asking for a fighting chance so that we have the right figures, so that there is no games being played and we won't have to constantly threaten the institution to go on strike, because currently that's the only voice we have. So I'm here to address any questions from the Committee. And again, thank you for your time.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses in support in the hearing room? Are there witnesses in opposition in the hearing room? Are there tweeners in the hearing room

Waiting for that tweener? Thank you very much. Eric Bakke the California State University Chancellor's Office. Appreciate the analysis that was provided by the Committee. I think it accurately reflects the CC's commitment to transparency. We don't disagree that there should be accountability of our institutions, and we feel we actually already achieved that.

We provide annual reports through KPMG to our board of trustees. Typically in every May, we'll have the next one coming up here to reflect on the 2023 financials. But the process we apply as we look at the financial statements for each institution, and KPMG does an analysis and review of those audits or those financial statements to verify the assurance of the procedures and policies as well as the figures. So we feel like at this point in time, we're in compliance with the expectations of this Bill.

And at the moment, we do not have a position. Thank you.

Thank you so much, colleagues, any questions or comments? Assemblymember Boerner.

Yes, thank you for bringing this forward. I totally understand that the we, perhaps through the strikes, we can see that you are not satisfied with how the negotiations went, but especially looking at our budget situation going forward. And we're gonna have to make, we all know we're gonna have to make very difficult trade offs. So I'm very concerned about anything that adds in extra requirements of what's already done.

So if we did additional audits of each campus, and I know there's a question for aprops, but it's also a question of how the money is going to be, how should we be spending money and what would be the cost of increase of tuition. And I don't support anything that will increase the cost of tuition because students are barely struggling now. Right? So who's going to bear this cost? In the author's statement, I believe it says the CSUs could bear the cost.

I don't know how the CSUs can bear this cost because the cost is going to be exponentially higher if you do it more frequently and by every campus.

Thank you for the question and legitimate concerns. And I agree. I have publicly, I think many of, well, I don't want to say what other people have done, but I've very publicly opposed tuition increases at different moments in time. So I'm definitely sensitive to that. Couple of things. One is currently, the CSU does a system wide audit every single year. This would be a campus audit every three years, and it doesn't have to be done all at once.

So each campus can evaluate where they are in terms of their budgeting to determine when the appropriate time is. As indicated even by the CSU representative, there is some level of auditing, or at least of fiscal analysis done at the campus level. This would require an actual in depth audit. I believe it's observable if it's every three years and the campus is going to decide when they want to do it, as opposed to currently the entire system does it every single year.

And so the budget scenario, the budget scenario that we're in obviously makes it challenging for us to consider any additional costs. But I think that an audit will actually end up ultimately saving money.

Because if you're able to see where these reserves are, if you're able to actually see where money is going in an in depth manner and make it transparent, you can expose unnecessary costs, you can drive down costs, and ultimately you avoid work stoppages because everyone has the numbers out in the open and they can bargain fairly. So, you know, I think ultimately, by having audits, like, frankly, many of us serve on a lot of organizations, nonprofits, they do audits every year.

I don't think it's much to expect CSU campus, one of which is in my district, San Jose State University, to expect them to do an audit every three years, which I think is a pretty generous timeline.

So you're expecting the CSUs to supplant the currently yearly system wide audit with every three years, and that's how you're going to do the trade off in funding, is that what you're saying?

No. The CSU system wide audit is something they already do, so it's already accounted for. Now, if the CSU wants to make a master contract with that same external auditorium to audit each individual campus individually to save cost, they're absolutely have the ability to do that.

So the current audits, they do. Your Bill, please describe this to me, because that wasn't in the Committee analysis and it wasn't the Bill the way I understood it. So they're current audits that they do. They do the yearly financials, and then they do a system wide every five years.

No, they're doing it every year. I think the law requires every five years, but CSU is actually doing it every year.

So they're going to still do their system wide every year. You're going to add a by campus every three years and you're saying there's no cost increase?

Well, no, what I'm saying is that by doing an audit, there's the opportunity to actually have cost savings, because right now there isn't an audit being done. And part of the reason why you do an audit is to expose hidden, unnecessary costs, be able to drive down costs and what have you. I'm not suggesting audits are free.

Obviously, it's going to cost money for each campus to do it every three years, but I think it's well worth it to ensure that there's transparency in how CSU is spending taxpayer money and students money.

And what information do you think will happen in your version of the audits that has not currently happened by either their internal audits or their external audits?

One example the Professor noted is that the reserves, during negotiation, when there was a question about the $8.1 billion in reserves, the CSU said, well, most of those reserves are at the campus level, and there was not. If there. If there had been a campus by campus audit, then you can actually say, okay, this is where, cumulatively, where the reserves are. And specificity, this is where the reserves are.

So no campus, in their internal audit, specifies where the reserves are. They do an internal by campus audit every year. It's sent to the board of trustees. Right.

Well, then they can expose. They can make that.

That's currently what they do.

Then they can make that public.

That is public. It's on their website. It's in the Committee analysis. We have the link to it.

Yeah, through the chair.

Mister chair, may I?

Yes.

I think part of the issue is that there's a difference between internal audit and external audit. External audits are treated as a mechanism for assurance from an outside party who isn't interested in how things work inside the organization. Internal audits, to all their best efforts, are still done by people that are employed by that organization. There is a lot more credibility, face value in an external audit. People are a lot more careful.

And I want to note as well, that when we try to figure out what the cost change would be. It's not as easy as saying, well, the cost would be an additional 23 audits, because there is some level of review of what goes on at the campuses now, not an audit, some level of review that won't need to be done, because the people that audit the system can rely upon the audits of the campuses. So it's not as if it's going to be.

I understand that. I sit on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, I understand the difference between internal audits. We deal with that all the time. My question is the information about the by campus reserves that you're pointing out as your example of why we need this. That should have been clear in the internal audits, because those internal audits, my understanding is by campus, is that correct? I don't know who can.

Yeah, there are. There are current kind of generalized audits that are like 4-4 and a half pages that from each campus that are provided to the board, which I think is a far cry from an actual full external audit.

Okay. And what precedent. So what precedent do. Is there any precedent that you decided on three years versus what we have current laws? Five years. What was the precedent difference between 3 and 5?

Well, I think given the fact that the current practice is every year, even if it's codified as five years, the current practice is every year. I think three years is plenty of time and would provide accurate, up to date information. Half a decade is long, is too long, in my estimation, for a campus audit. And that campus audit feeds into the larger audit as well.

If I may.

Please.

And we go into bargaining every two to three years. So that's the number that we came up with. We thought it was feasible.

So that leads to my next question. Do we have any other precedent, and I think our chair of labor will know this. Do you have any other precedent for doing audits of public institutions for the purpose of collective bargaining information?

Yeah, I mean, are there examples where we've done legislation to create more transparency for the purpose of. Yeah, I've seen legislation like that.

In what area do you remember?

Also in collective. I don't know if you have specific examples. I'm trying to remember through.

Yeah, I know I didn't prep you guys with this.

Yeah, yeah.

It came up to me while you're doing your testimony, so sorry.

Well, my understanding is that in terms of collective bargaining, I can't recall an organization, but there's been other state agencies where there has been precedents that has been set, like the DMV. And in fact, this institution, this actually body, this Assembly actually conducted several audits few years ago, and they were able to identify several mishaps and we were able to find significant cost savings moving forward.

You want audits to, you want to correct processes, you want to correct procedures, you want to correct all these different things. Audits have a multipurpose. I'm specifically asking for taxpayers to fund audits for the purpose of collective bargaining and the precedent that that is based on or this is setting for this body.

I mean, there's been numerous occasions of legislation that places guardrails on negotiations that, you know, I've done one with Sag Afra that I have.

I was the Chair at the time. Remember what happened?

Well, no, but there's other, that's not the only example. I mean, I did one with the airline pilots. We've done it many times where we set up guardrails on negotiations because it's in public policy. It's in our public policy interests to do so.

Yeah. So this is where I am. I have concerns about all those things. This is, I think, your First Committee that is being heard in. I see your intentions, and I always want to have transparency. I think there are a lot of questions that I raise that I hope you will consider as you move forward.

So with that, I'll give you a courtesy aye today and hope that you work on these issues of why we're doing this, what is the other precedents, and then we can have those conversations.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any further comments or questions? Mister Low?

Thank you very much, Mister Chair. I just also want to commend the author and the sponsors in acknowledging the importance of transparency. But for Members of this Committee and this Legislature, who have longer tenure, to be reminded about the higher education master plan and ultimately guiding principle in the document that we should look upon ourselves in adequately funding public education versus that of fighting over crumbs, that's ultimately what we should really be focused on.

And this, of course, is going to help provide a greater trust and transparency in the process. But the overall picture that we should be taking a look at is the higher education master plan and helping to guide us on what funding looks like so that we can help ensure that there's equity all across, from workers and students alike.

Thank you so much, Assemblymember Low, and for your leadership and efforts around the master plan and working to continue to advocate on those efforts. Any further comments or questions from colleagues? Seeing none, Assemblymember would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And thank you so much for the robust conversation here today. Thank Assemblymember Kalra for bringing this measure forward. Continue to please continue to work with the CSU to address the concerns raised in the analysis and really appreciate you bringing us forward here today. With that, I look forward to supporting the measure here today. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item number 10, AB 2398. The motion is due passed to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

That measure has eight ayes. And we'll keep the row open for additional Members to add on. And the measure is out. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, colleagues, for robust meeting thus far. We're waiting for a couple additional authors. In the meantime, maybe we can go through the items for additional Members to add on. Please. We'll go through item number one, Assembly Bill 2019. Thank you, Madam Secretary, please call the roll on item number one. Assembly Bill 2019.

File item number one. AB 2019. The motion is due pass to education. [Roll Call]

That measure has nine ayes. We'll keep the row open for any additional Members that would like to add on. Next up is item number two.

File item number two. AB 2033. The motion is due pass to the Human Services Committee. [Roll Call]

That measure has eight ayes. And we'll keep the row open for any additional Members that would like to add on. I will go through the consent calendar, please. Okay, we'll do item number 9, 2349 by Assemblymember Wilson.

File item number nine, AB 2349. The motion is do pass to appropriations. [Roll call].

That measure has nine ayes. We'll keep the roll open for any additional Members that would like to add on. Next up is item number 10. Madam Secretary, are you good on item number 11, please.

File item number 11. AB 2458. The motion is do pass as amended to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll call].

That measure is eight ayes. We'll keep the roll open for any Members that would like to add on, and we can do the consent calendar. Please.

[Consent calendar].

Thank you so much, colleagues, and go ahead. This is on the consent calendar.

Irwin Erwin.

I said it has nine ayes and that measure is out. We'll keep the roll open for any Members that would like to add on for the consent calendar. With that, sergeants are calling the additional authors. Thank you so much to everyone for your patience. We'll go through item number one for any additional Members. Item number one, please.

File item number one, AB 200. 19. The motion is do pass to education Committee. [Roll call].

That measure has 10 ayes. We'll keep the roll open for any additional Members that would like to add on. Next up is item number two.

File item number two, AB 2033. The motion is due, passed to the Human Services Committee, Erwin. Erwin. Aye.

That measure has nine ayes. We'll keep the rope. And for any additional Members that would.

Like to add on file item number nine, AB 2349, the motion is due, passed to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll].

That measure has ten ayes, we'll keep the roll open for any additional Members that would like to add on.

File item number 10, AB 2398. The motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll].

That measure has eight ayes. One not voting, and we'll keep the roll. And for any additional Members that would like to add on.

File item number 11, AB 2458 the motion is do pass, as amended, to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll].

That measures nine ayes. We'll keep the row open for any additional Members I would like to add on. And thank you, everyone, for your patience. An author is on his way, so thank you.

Thank you so much, Madam Secretary. We can open the roll for any Members that would like to add on. Please, the consent calendar.

[Consent calendar].

That measure has 10 ayes, and we'll keep the roll open in for any additional Members that would like to add on. Next up is item number one. You're good, item number two.

File item number two, AB 200. Three, three. The motion is do pass to the Human Services Committee. [Roll].

That measure 10 ayes. We'll keep the roll open for any additional Members that would like to add on. Next up is item number 10.

File item number 10, AB 2398. The motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll].

That measures nine ayes. One not voting, we'll keep the roll open for any additional Members to add on. Next up is item number 11.

File item number 11, AB 2458. The motion is do pass, as amended, to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll].

That measure is 10 ayes. We'll keep the roll open for any additional Members I would like to add on, and with that we'll authors en route. So thank you so much for your patience. Thank you.

File Item Number three, AB 2044. The motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee. File item number six, AB 2184. The motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee. File item number seven, AB 2275. The motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee. File item number eight, AB 2305. The motion is due, passed to the Appropriations Committee assailee. [Roll Call]

Thank you so much. That measure has 11 ayes and is out. Thank you. Next one is item number one.

File item number one, AB 2019. The motion is due, passed to the Education Committee. [Roll Call]

Thank you so much. That measure has 11 Ayes and is out. Next up is item number two.

File item number two, AB 2033. The motion is do pass to the Human Services Committee [Roll Call]

Thank you so much. That measures 10 ayes and one not voting and is out. Thank you. Next up is item number nine.

File item number nine, AB 2349. The motion is due, pass to the Appropriations Committee [Roll Call]

Thank you so much. That measure has 11 ayes and is out. Next up is item number 10.

File item number 10, AB 2398. The motion is do passed to the Appropriations Committee [Roll Call]

That measure has nine ayes, one not voting and one no and is out. Thank you. Next up is item number 11.

File item number 11, AB 2458. The motion is do pass as amended to the Appropriations Committee [Roll Call]

That measure has 11 eyes and is out. Thank you. And now we are awaiting our two authors. Authors, please join us in the Higher Education Committee room. Thank you so much for your patience. Thank you.

Thank you so much colleagues, for your Assembly Bill patience. Next up is Item Number 12 Assembly Bill 2516 by Assemblymember Miguel Santiago. Welcome.

Thank you so much.

Hey, how are you? The chair would just indulge me 1 second to get my stuff out.

And if the chair is okay, I was also. I think you were briefed in advance. I would be presenting for Mister Vantes as well.

Correct, yes.

If he's okay with that, I'll do both.

Welcome.

Yes, we'll do your Bill first and then we'll follow up by Mr. Vantes as well.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you Committee Members and chair, for letting us present on AB 2516. And this Bill is a pretty simple, straightforward bill. The Governor would be able to appoint a bargaining union representative to the CSU Board of Trustees. The board, as you know, currently adopts regulations, rules and policy governing the CSU.

Currently there are 25 Members on there. There is one faculty, but there's not a representative that is a labor representative representing the bargaining units. I think this is incredibly important for a variety of reasons besides it's oversight that having faculty input and bargaining unit representation would be important given the 500,000 students and 25,000 faculty Members.

And Mr. Chair if it's okay I brought two witnesses to present as well. And I respectfully ask the committee for an Aye vote and look forward to a robust conversation.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

This chair and Members, Brian Howe with the California Faculty Association. Before I start, I want to address page four of your Committee analysis that says, Committee staff notes that unlike faculty Members appointed to the BoT, the bargaining unit representative would be allowed to sit in any Subcommitee of the Board responsible for collective bargaining negotiations. I was under the impression that the

Bill clarified under Section One, subdivision two, that the faculty member of the board appointed by the Governor pursuant to the subdivision shall not participate on any Subcommittee of the Board responsible for collective bargaining negotiations. So I understand there were some concerns coming from this Committee and if there is any way that we can address this concern, we'd be happy to a simple that amendment if that will rectify it. Thank you. And with that I would yield my time to my President Charles Toombs.

Thank you. Welcome.

Welcome. Good afternoon, Chair Fong and Committee. I'm Charles Toombs and I'm President of the California Faculty Association and Professor of Africana studies at San Diego State University. The goal of this Bill is for employees of the CSU, the people who spend every day working to meet our mission, to have a presence in the leadership decisions that come out of the board of trustees.

The Bill is a critical step towards ensuring that the voices of those directly involved in the day to day operation and success of our universities are heard at the highest levels of decision making. This representative will provide essential insights and perspectives on the working conditions, challenges, and needs of faculty and staff who are the backbone of our institutions. The talented employees of the CSU should be represented by at least one person on the board.

It is clear that there are few, if any, board actions in recent BoT history that would have made a difference by a single vote. Nevertheless, it should be clear that having a trustee who can bring their coworkers wisdom and counsel to the board is extremely important and needed at this time when our system is so diverse and it's so different than it was when the BoT was originally configured.

As our recent labor struggles revealed including the first system wide strike in 30 years, CSU leadership is often out of touch with the lived realities of the faculty and staff. Adding an additional unit trustee would be a first step toward remedying that and would enable better communication and collaboration between all that are involved in supporting this great system. This representative will provide essential insights and perspectives on working conditions, yes, but on other challenges that are way outside of the collective bargaining process.

It is a culture of how we live and work and contribute to the CSU that the board of trustees often does not hear in our 60 minutes public comments, which are often insulting to all of the unions who present at every BoT Committee meeting.

So that said, we think it's time that we look at the bot in a different way and that we have some more representation of the workers and not only those who are appointed by the Governor and the additional student trustees and faculty trustees.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses in support in the hearing room? Are there witnesses in opposition in the hearing room? Are there tweeners in opposition.

Good afternoon, chair and Members. My name is Adriana Gomez. I'm a legislative advocate at the CSU Office of the Chancellor, here to speak in respectful opposition to AB 2516 which would add a bargaining unit representative to the CSU Board of Trustees that is to be selected by the University Labor Council. The CSU recognizes the value of CSU employees and the important role that they play across our universities.

The CSU also shares the author's goal of ensuring that employees have an opportunity to express their voice on the board of trustees.

To that point, all CSU employees have the means and opportunity to participate in Board Meetings via written in person and virtual public comment. The Board of Trustees welcomes input from all staff and strongly believes that their voice is currently present and heard. I also want to touch on the point about the conflict with a collective bargaining unit representative mentioned on page four. Current code says a faculty rep cannot be on the collective bargaining committee.

However, with this Bill, the representative would not necessarily be a faculty Member. It could be someone from another collective bargaining unit. So we are concerned about conflict of interest. Employees there also have the opportunity to raise priorities and concerns that are unique to their unions through the collective bargaining process. The appropriate place to address those issues is in that process.

For example, earlier this year, the CSU and our labor partners were able to agree to terms on the expansion of paid parental leave and the creation of a salary step structure. These concerns were raised to the board.

Through the Committee on Collective Bargaining. Bargaining unit Members concerns and needs were heard, successfully addressed, and adopted in the labor agreements. The CSU deeply values the perspectives of our employees, understanding that they are foundational to the success of our students. For this reason, opportunities have and will continue to be provided to ensure that employees are authentically represented before the Board of Trustees. For these reasons, the CSU respectfully requests a No vote on AB 2516. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there tweeners in the hearing room? Colleagues, any questions or comments? Yes. Assemblymember Dr. Jackson.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. You know, as a past member of the Board of Trustees, I don't necessarily see a problem with having a faculty member on the Board of Trustees. However, we do need to make sure that it's explicit in terms of the various committees.

Ensuring that we are even going beyond the appearance right of anything that might be a conflict of interest or unethical.

So let's just make sure that we clean up any language. If the language is already in there, that's great. But if not, I think that's going to be important to make sure that we, the integrity of the process is made. But I believe those who are, I do believe that rarely, if any time, are there any really close votes when it comes to the board of trustees. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, they'll leave that up for the public.

But I think overall, just having one member, based upon the vast amount of other Members that are on the Board of Trustees, doesn't necessarily, I believe would be problematic. But that's my two cent.

Appreciate that. Thank you so much, Dr. Jackson. And definitely want to make sure that there's transparency and no conflict of interest. So appreciate those comments. Assemblymember Boerner.

Yes, thank you. I've actually written bills that have labor representatives put on boards, so I don't think there's a problem with putting a labor representative on a board. Your language is not explicit that any labor representative cannot serve on.

MOU Committee so you see faculty, but you could have a labor representative who's not faculty, right? Yeah. So that needs to be cleared up. Until I see that language, that's significant guardrails.

The other thing, which is maybe neither here nor there. The author and I talked about it. Was it yesterday or today? Yesterday. I don't know time. But 27 Members between this and the Cervantes bills is an unwieldy thing, and every vote is diluted with that, including the labor representative vote. What really should be done is a restructuring of how the Board of Trustees are done. So 25 is too much. I don't know how anybody makes a decision on 25. That's crazy.

Think about us like we're even here. You know, like 27 is diluting everybody's vote, and so we really shouldn't do that. What I really like to see, and I don't know if you'll do it, but what I'd like to ask is you go back, you and Cervantes get together, and you think, how do we really do this? The Governor already has a bunch of Trustees.

You can make any of the governor's trustees, you can put requirements on that so you're not adding to the votes and diluting the power more. That would be a more elegant solution to this problem. And say one of the governor's appointments has to be a labor representative, and then you have to put it in guardrail that that labor representative or faculty or staff member who ends up being on that board cannot be on the MOU Committee. You can't have that conflict. So that's what I'd suggest.

So with that, I'm not going to be voting on this today. I support the General theory because I think it's fine, but we should not be creating more onerous governance structures for something that's so important for the advancement of California.

Thank you so much. Assemblymember Boerner. Any further comments or questions? Seeing none. Someone would like to close please.

Yeah, I'll close, but I also just want to say, you know, I respectfully ask for an Aye vote, but I also just want to pause on, just to clarify that I will go with what the authors want in terms of creating something that doesn't appear to have a conflict of interest. That said, I'm going to give you my own personal views.

I don't see it as a conflict interest. I don't. Or even see it as unethical. I mean, it's pretty clear that you want to put somebody on there that's a labor rep. Why hide behind the

Fact that they would represent a labor voice, whatever that may be? I mean, I come from a system, when I was at LACCD, where you had shared governance, there was no one was shy about talking about labor voices, whether it was wages, whether it was benefits, whether it was anything else. I mean, I think that those are all part of what makes a stakeholder group. Now, that may separate from the opinion that the sponsors have.

But for my own airing out of opinions, I would be okay with them talking about wages or working conditions or whatever it may be, so long as it contributes to the education mission of the institution. Now, I remember being on the Community College Board, and folks at that time, board members previous to you being on where they did not want labor representation and on some of the maintenance and some of the maintenance bargaining units.

But then it became very clear, as we became engaged, that having an institution that is clean, having an institution where a student can learn and create that sort of learning environment, was important to the mission of that organization, which was to help educate students. And it wasn't until we began to talk to some of the labor partners within the different bargaining units that it became evident that their voices were important. Even if they did talk about wages.

Even if they did, we then, if you recall, created time in motion studies afterwards that helped contribute to making a better educational institution. I just want to pause on those two things. To say conflict of interest or to say potentially unethical. No disrespect, right? But because I don't think that it is. It's one thing if you were trying to hide it. It's one thing if you were trying to say, you know, we're gonna pull it up from underneath a rug or something.

But when we're clearly saying these are important voices, because it's a perspective that we want on there, I don't see it as anything but what we're trying to do, which is have that voice represented on there, which I believe will be a strong step forward into helping make an institution meet its mission to educate students. But I'm not saying that to argue against what we've agreed on.

But I just wanted to say that to air it out, because I don't want to mislead anybody to say, like, yeah, I agree that there might be a conflict of interest. No, because I'm trying to put somebody on there who's a labor rep, even if they do talk about things that contribute to the bargaining units, but at the end of the day, we know that they will contribute to making a better institution serve its mission, which is educating students.

Thank you so much. Appreciate their comments. Thank you so much, Santiago, for bringing this important measure forward, and as we look forward to continuing implications of expanding any oversight board, especially one as much responsibility as the CSU Board of Trustees, we know that bargaining units ensure that workers are treated with the dignity they deserve and with the rights under the law and their labor contract and the perspective of those workers who are so integral to the operations.

Every day, each and every day at our CSU campuses should be heard and should be considered by the board, not just in public comment, but as a equal member of the Board. So I look forward to supporting the measure here today. With that, Madam Secretary, please call the roll. I'm sorry, do we have a motion? Motion by. And second. Thank you so much. And with that, Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item number 12, AB 2516. The motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Thank you so much, colleagues. That measure has seven ayes, one not voting. And we'll keep the roll open for. Any additional Members to add on. That measure is out. Thank you. Assemblyman Santiago. Next up is item number four, authored by Assemblymember Cervantes and presented by Assemblymember Miguel Santiago, Assembly Bill 2070. Welcome.

Thank you so much, colleagues. That measure has seven ayes, one 'not voting,' and we'll keep the roll open for any additional Members to add on. That measure is out. Thank you, Assembly Member Santiago. Next up is Item Number Four, authored by Assembly Member Cervantes and presented by Assembly Member Miguel Santiago, Assembly Bill 2070. Welcome.

Thank you, and I very much appreciate the opportunity to present on behalf--and this bill similarly parallels, so I'll give you the quicker version if it's okay with the Chair. Simply put, this bill would increase faculty representation to the CSU Board of Trustees by requiring the Governor to appoint an additional faculty member to a total of two faculty members on the Board.

Thank you. And I very much appreciate the opportunity to present on behalf and this Bill similarly parallel. So I'll give you the quicker version if it's okay with the chair

Given today that there's only 25 members, faculty being one of the larger stakeholders of the institution, it only makes sense that you would add an additional faculty member because it's a very important voice in the CSU system. I would respectfully ask for an aye vote and look forward to another robust conversation. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Assembler Member Santiago, and welcome to your witnesses.

Hi. I'm Beth Steffel, Chair of the Academic Senate of the California State University and Professor of Design at CSU San Bernardino. On behalf of the Academic Senate of the California State University, which represents more than 28,000 faculty of the California State University on academic matters of systemwide concern, we're here in support of AB 2070.

At present, there's a single faculty trustee. The goal of this legislation is to add a second faculty trustee to the Board. CSU Administration notes in its letter on this bill that the CSU shares the author's goal of ensuring that faculty have an opportunity to have a voice on the CSU Board of Trustees. We're pleased that they also recognize the value of faculty voice.

It is faculty, those who interact daily with our students, who empower student success, who understand our students as individuals rather than as statistics, who possess a disciplinary expertise that are best enabled to provide wise counsel on curricular and policy issues.

That's a primary reason that here recognizes the role of faculty and the conduct of the affairs of the university. Our students are allotted two trustees in recognition of the need for their voice in board discussions. We believe that likewise, there is a critical need for voice of faculty in board discussions. Regardless of voting status, it should be evident that having an additional voice carrying the perspective of faculty would be appropriate.

It's clear that there are few, if any, board actions where a single vote would have made a difference. However, it should also be clear that having an additional trustee who can bring their colleagues expertise and counsel to board discussions can only enrich those discussions. It's also true that the Academic Senate of the CSU is allowed to present its report to the Board. However, presentation of a report is hardly fulsome participation in board deliberations.

Faculty have rarely, perhaps on two matters in the last decade, been allowed to present directly to the Board on policy issues. In fact, at the most recent board meeting, members of the Academic Senate Executive Committee were forced to join the queue for public comment to voice their concerns over a critical curriculum policy issue. Additionally, at the most recent board meeting, the Academic Senate Chair was denied opportunity to contribute to the discussion on general education curriculum.

It's just not the case that the current makeup and practices of the CSU Board of Trustees enables a thoughtful and informed discussion in decision making that results in the best outcomes for the CSU, for our students, and for the State of California. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Good afternoon, again, Chair Fong, Members. Steven Filling. I'm a Professor of Accounting and Ethics at Stanislaus State, a Past Chair of the Academic Senate at the CSU, and CFA's Political Action and Legislation Chair.

Faculty involvement in the affairs of the university is critical not only because faculty perspectives are grounded in direct and continuing interactions with students, but also because of our firsthand and comprehensive understanding of the educational environment we exist in. I've appeared at Board of Trustees meetings multiple times during my career at CSU.

I freely confess to ongoing frustration with trying to--as my colleague notes--force a statement on a complex issue such as general education curriculum and the impact that changes in that can have on our students in the 60 seconds. That just is not conducive to information flow, nor does it enable fully-informed deliberation on issues that affect literally millions of students.

An additional faculty trustee in the Board would effectively double the chance that the voice of the faculty is heard both formally and informally, and cannot but enrich the Board's deliberations. We respectfully request your support for this.

Thank you so much. Are there any additional witnesses in support in the hearing room? See none, are there witnesses in opposition in the hearing room? Welcome.

Thank you. Hello again, everyone. Adriana with the CSU Office of the Chancellor, here to speak in respectful opposition to AB 2070, which would add an additional faculty member to the Board of Trustees. Once again, I want to reiterate that the CSU values our faculty and the central role they play across our universities. As the support mentioned, we share the author's goal of ensuring faculty have a voice on the Board. The Board currently has a voting faculty member who represents faculty.

The trustee is nominated by the Academic Senate and appointed by the Governor. The faculty trustee sits on four influential committees, including the Committee on Education Policy, on Audit, Finance, and the Committee on Campus Planning, Building and Grounds. Through participation on these committees, the perspectives of faculty are consistently and authentically elevated to the Board.

To ensure faculty are part of each board meeting as the proponents have mentioned, the Academic Senate of the CSU, which is the official voice of faculty in matters of systemwide concern, also has a standing report in each board meeting. Beyond this report, faculty also present directly to the Board on Policy Matters and they routinely participate in board meetings via written in-person and virtual public comment. The Board encourages and welcomes input from faculty and strongly believes their viewpoints are consistently present and heard.

Once again, I'd like to reiterate that the CSU deeply values the perspectives of our faculty, understanding that they are foundational to the success of our students. For this reason, opportunities have and will continue to be provided to ensure faculty are authentically represented with the Board. This is demonstrated by the current voting member, the standing report from the Academic Senate, and other consistent opportunities for engagement. For these reasons, the CSU respects a no vote. Thank you. Requests.

Thank you so much. Are there any additional witnesses in opposition? Are there any tweeners in the hearing room? Seeing none, colleagues, any questions or comments? Assembly Member Boerner followed by Assembly Member Dr. Jackson.

Yeah. So one, I think with the CSU's Chancellor's Office, you have two members of your faculty who say they don't feel that on complex issues they have time. So I think it's slightly disingenuous that you say that they have enough time because they just told you they didn't have--or they just told us we don't have enough time. So I think there's something that can be done procedurally with that because I do think the faculty have so much--I mean, this isn't higher education institution.

Without the faculty, there's no higher education, right? There's a lot of bureaucracy and no higher education. With that, I'm going to echo some of the comments from the last bill, is I don't think it's a great plan to be adding more members. I see the parity between students and faculty, and maybe that was a mistake. Maybe when we ran the first bill, we should have had two. I bet the reason we did two had to do with even and odd numbers in voting.

So if this bill goes through and the other bill doesn't go through, you're going to end up with an even number of members and you're going to have a voting problem. What might be a much better process is to require one of the governor appointees be also faculty, right? Or require five of them to be faculty. I don't care. That's fine. I don't care. I think that faculty voice is really, really important.

I struggle with--and I don't have the same issue with this one because the faculties clearly can't be on the MOU Negotiating Committee, so I don't have so much of an issue with that. So I'd like the author, wherever she is, to really think about what other way we could do it that doesn't increase costs and finds another way to get the faculty voice on there because--and also, I would say, you would want diverse faculty on there.

You want faculty from many disciplines on there because you're dealing with so many different areas and the issues, say in the humanities, may not be the same issues and some maybe more are technical ones, you know, so I'll give it an aye vote today. I'll see what ends up coming to us on the floor, but those are the thoughts that I have that would make this bill really, really impactful, and so with that, that's the end of my comments. Sorry, I was funnier earlier today. I'm hot and tired.

Thank you so much, Assembly Member Boerner. Assembly Member Dr. Jackson.

For the member of the CSU, you were saying that the faculty already have a Governor-appointed representative on there. And how long is their term?

I believe their term is one two-year term.

Okay. Yeah. One two-year term like the student trustee. Alumni actually also has a representative, am I correct? It's been a while since I've been on the Trustees. And so now, sponsors of the bill, you are saying that you would like to make sure that there's two members on the Board, right? And can you explain the rationale of having the two or is it kind of like what we're doing with the student trustees? Or what is the--

Yes.

Of the Chair?

Please.

If I may, Chair?

Part of the rationale is that a lot of the business of the trustees is conducted in conversation. Having two people as part of that conversation instead of one obviously increases the chances that somebody might hear you. Another part of that is that having two trustees with staggered terms, as I think the student trustees work, enables a little continuity of action, continuity of information flowing there.

I mean, I definitely agree with the continuity, and I just want to make sure that I understood the reasoning behind there. I mean, you're right, there's so much discussion that goes on outside of those meetings that, you know, context and storytelling and all that kind of stuff plays a factor in terms of those discussions as well. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I understood. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Any further comments or questions? Seeing none, did we have a motion? A motion and a second. Thank you so much. Mr. Santiago, would you like to close?

Yes, I respectfully ask for an aye vote and would relay the comments of the Committee to the author. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Assembly Member Santiago, for presenting the bill here today on behalf of Assembly Member Cervantes. I'd like to thank the author for introducing the bill as well. As commented earlier, we should always seriously consider the implications of expanding any oversight board, especially one as much responsibility as the CSU Board of Trustees.

Fundamentally, I believe that is important for our boards to include the voices of those individuals that the institution serves, and increasing faculty representation will help to guarantee that not only faculty voices are heard, but also to uplift the voices of all the individuals that our faculty interact with on a daily basis, and with that, I look forward to supporting the bill here today. With that, roll call, please.

File Item Number Four: AB 2070. The motion is 'do pass to the Appropriations Committee.' [Roll Call].

Thank you so much, colleagues. That measure has eight ayes. We'll keep the roll open for any additional Members to add on. Thank you so much. Colleagues, we have one final item. Mr. McCarty, if you can join us in the Higher Education Committee, please. Thank you so much. A few minutes. Roll open for--He was just right here. Thank you, colleagues, for your patience.

All right. Welcome Mister McCarty, presenting our final Bill of today, measure item file number five. Assembly Bill 2152. We have a motion and a second. Senator McCarty, welcome.

This is a great bill. Thank you. Thank you Mister Chair and Committee Members on our last bill today, this is about service learning. We all know that college is critically important to getting a career in the State of California, but so is getting involved in our communities. So we have some campuses that do this already. We know that the CSU system, CSU Monterey Bay has a robust service learning program.

We went through this process last year in this Committee and this is a little bit more targeted. And this would ask the UC and CSU to have a pilot at their campuses, 3 at each system to help students expand student learning opportunities. We know this not only helps them with their career, but increases graduation rates and helps our State of California as well. With me today is a researcher on this topic that can lend some insight. Respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Thank you, Assembly Member Mccarty, thank you for the invitation Committee. Thank you for your time. My name is Doctor Luke Terra. I serve as the Deputy Director at the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University and serve on the board of the International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement. I'm providing testimony this afternoon as an expert in the field, but testimony that I provide is my own opinion and doesn't reflect positions of any of those organizations.

But I would encourage you to support AB 2152. In my limited time i'll just offer three quick reasons. First, this bill supports the public service mission of the UC and CSU systems at a time when we see public support declining for our nation's colleges and universities, this bill provides a way to strengthen the connections between our state universities and the communities they serve. Second, research suggests that a service learning requirement will improve student learning, increase retention and graduation rates, and benefit community members.

The research on service learning is robust and compelling. I'll just offer one short example that relates to the work of this particular bill. A 2017 study at a large public University found that students who took a service learning class had higher gpas and were two and a half times more likely to graduate within six years. So in a University that has, say, 3,000 first generation students, implementing a service learning requirement like the one proposed would mean that 400 additional students would graduate in six years.

Finally, the approach to this bill I see as both realistic and achievable. By piloting with campuses that already have the infrastructure in terms of dedicated staff and service learning centers, and you have a model, an exemplary one, in the campus of CSU Monterey Bay, to use as a template. For all of those reasons, I encourage you to support and appreciate the opportunity to be with you today.

Thank you so much. Are there witnesses in support in the hearing room? Are there witnesses in opposition in the hearing room? Are there tweeners in the hearing room?

Good afternoon. Mary Moyle with the CSU. And we have been in touch with the author on the bill. CSU is fine with part of the bill we can have the campuses provide information to students about service learning. However, we do have serious concerns with the part of the bill which mandates that students take a service learn course. As the Committee analysis notes, it's very challenging to add additional courses to students schedule, especially to students in STEM who have no real extra room.

Service learning courses are also very time intensive, sustained through both volunteer and classroom hours, and this can create challenges for students who work and who are parents. Finally, these courses are very costly, so they need funding for faculty Administration and in order to create the partnerships with community entities. So we want to say thank you for this time, and we hope to continue to keep working with the author on the bill.

Thank you so much. Colleagues any questions or comments? Assemblymember Quirk-Silva, followed by Assemblymember Irwin.

I have some comments and questions. There's a lot to like about this bill, but I do have some concerns about it. I have been around in education long enough to have actually had service learning students. As an educator myself put many hours in my classroom. So I saw this. This is not new. It's been happening for many, many years.

My concerns, though, are what we see now is our students who are working students who may be going off to their own jobs, maybe raising families to squeeze in these additional hours. I think I'm the only one on the Committee here who has adult kids who have all. Well, maybe not the only one. I see somebody Member Irwin, but who have adult kids who did go through CSU's and had to do service learning.

And the few things that I know is for the professors that embrace this, it's magic. They find placements for their students. They work with providers. But if you're mandating it, not every Professor is going to want to have that engagement. Finding the placements and so an example for me as an elementary school teacher, I got many students who came to my class, but it wasn't necessarily because they wanted to be elementary school teachers. It was because it was a placement that they could find easily.

So they would put those 20 or 30 hours in my classroom, but very well might be in criminal justice. So having the flexibility of a placement is important. But for somebody just to have to put hours into service learning because that's what required or mandating mandated isn't always the opportunity they're looking for.

So I would just, I think the task of really having the professors understand that they have to create relationships in the community in order to have these placements for their students is another part of the job that they'd have to engage in, or somebody on the faculty would have to do this, because in the end, students are many times young and they may know that they have these service learning hours to put in.

They wait three or four weeks, and all of a sudden it's August and then it's September, and now they have to get this placement and they're scrambling. So this is my kind of firsthand practical. So I'm going to support the bill today. But I do think that there has to be some real outline of how does this work, not for the engaged faculty, but for the faculty who may not really want to do it. How do they make this a positive experience? And there's got to be a lot of flexibility for those working students. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Assemblymember Irwin, followed by Assemblymember Muratsuchi.

For Assemblymember McCarty. On the analysis, it says that the UC Student Association is opposed to this and partially because it's an equity issue and there is a big effort at the Cal States to have kids graduate more quickly, and this could work against that. So I was just wondering if you had, if either one of you had a response.

Yeah, we had the same conversation a year ago. You may not have remembered that years a long time ago with the same group here. And one of the things that I brought up is they have an example of this in the CSU system, which is by far the most diverse for your education system in California, if not the country. And, you know, one of the most diverse campuses in the CSU is CSU Monterey Bay. They have it there for that population, very diverse, very low income.

And those students are doing quite well. And I think this is something that we can't do overnight. Just to somewhat address Assemblymember Quirk-Silva's question, we have a 10 year implementation period here, knowing that there's multiple, multiple years to work with the two systems to get it right. You know, this has been a priority that our Governor has been focusing on, on service learning, and it's something that, you know, we think can help the students and help California at the same time.

And I assume you're continuing to work with the students then? Yeah, and I really do see service learning huge benefits that, as I mentioned, but you do need to work to get a little bit more consensus.

Thank you so much, Assemblymember Irwin. Assemblymember Muratsuchi.

Thank you. Thank you. I have similar concerns. I noted also the UC Student Association opposition. The statement and the analysis is that many students at the UC already work multiple jobs outside of their academics and participate in extracurricular activities. Imposing additional graduation requirement would burden students who had already experienced the barriers. So maybe to the expert and then to Mr. McCarty, but how would this not disadvantage students that have to work to support themselves in college?

Well, just a hypothetical. At CSU Monterey Bay, I think it's 30 hours per year. So, you know, 15 hours per semester at the UC system, on the quarter system is 10 hours per semester. Even students who have to go to school do homework and work, it's not like we're at, this is 10-30 hours per week, it's per semester. So it could be blended in through what they have to do already for their homework and their classes.

And I think, you know, as CSU Monterey has illustrated, they've been able to integrate that without adversely impacting students proportionally. They're a very socially economically challenged student body.

Yeah. May I add to that, at Stanford, the way that we approach that is by incorporating these classes into existing requirements within a particular major. And so it's not adding an additional requirement, but rather embedding a service learning component into it. We think about the service learning as being a part of the overall unit that a student is earning. So if in our context, a unit is 5 hours, 5 hours means 5 hours of in class time, 10 hours out of class time.

We make sure that the service learning fits within that, so that it's not an additional load on time. And then the last piece is that for us, service learning does look like direct service where you're spending, say, 5 hours at a partner organization site, but it can also look like projects where you're creating a deliverable on behalf of an external organization, and that can largely be done on campus.

And so I think departments can be very creative in thinking about doing this in a way that creates good access for all kinds of students.

Thank you for that clarification. With that, I'll be fully in support of the bill.

Thank you so much. Assemblymember Essayli.

Thank you, Mister Chair. I like the Bill. It's not a theory. For me, this was real life. I went to Cal State, Cal Poly Pomona. I was in the Calc Honors College, and we had a, I think it was 50 hours service credit requirement and it was great. I was working at the bank almost, I think 30 hours.

I was going to school full time and I actually enjoyed the service credit opportunity because I got to do something fun and different and sort of break up the monotony of just going to school, going to work. And we have to ask ourselves, what kind of society do we want? Do we want to grow a bunch of narcissists who are self absorbed, thinking about themselves and how hard life is?

They need to get out of their bubble and go see what else is out there and go see how much people are in need too, and you'll have a better perspective. And I think college isn't just about getting credits and ticking boxes. It's about building well rounded members of society who are going to give back and they're going to have a duty in society. So I fully support this. If you want, I'll be your co author. And thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you so much. Any? Assemblymember Low.

Just to echo the comments that have already been made in addressing the issue, as this is a pilot, I saw also in legitimate history about other similar proposals of other Members of this Committee addressing the issue of service learning and public service. I also carried a number of pieces of legislation in the K through 12, but of course, due to fiscal challenges that didn't move forward to, but I want to commend the author and like to be added as a co author.

If the mayor would have me as well. If the Assemblymember would have me as well.

Thank you so much, Assemblymember Low. Assemblymember McCarty would like to close?

Yes, thank you. I really, I would take those two final comments pretty much as my close and yes, take them as co authors. And I think this has tremendous opportunity to help our student body and have more well rounded students, but also help organizations throughout California. And it's hard getting a college degree, but it's also hard sometimes getting a job after you have that degree. And so these kind of blend those two things together. And I think we focus on having an appropriate multi year implementation.

And I do look forward to working with the segments as well as the students to make sure that this is workable for everybody. Ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you so much Assemblymember McCarty for bringing this forward. And similar to some of my colleagues, I also participate in service learning opportunities as a peer mentor when I was at UCLA, and I feel that I greatly benefited from that experience. And I still remember the classes from Chip Anderson and Doctor Bruce Barbey and other folks at the UCLA School of Education. As we've heard, there's some issues that need to be worked out.

But I think a pilot is a prudent way to test this idea and to give the CSU and UC the data to consider broader implementation. And thank you for advance for working with our stakeholders going forward. And with that, I look forward to supporting this measure here today. Madam Secretary, roll call please.

Please file item number five. AB 2152. The motion is due pass to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Thank you so much, colleagues. That measure has eight ayes, one not voting, and we'll keep the roll open for any additional Members to add on. Thank you so much, colleagues, for a robust hearing. Really appreciate everyone's feedback and comments here today. And with that, we'll open the roll for any additional Members to add on for items number four. Madam Secretary, roll call please.

[Roll Call]

That measure has nine ayes, one not voting and one no. Colleagues, if you can, please bring your comments outside the room. The hearing is still going on. Thank you so much.

[Roll Call]

That measure has eight ayes, two nos, and one not voting. That measure is out. Item number 12. Thank you so much, Madam Secretary. With that, thank you so much, colleagues. Again, for a robust meeting. We'll keep the roll open for five more minutes for any Members that would like to add on. I appreciate all the hard work and efforts of our Committee. To my colleagues and everyone involved with today's hearing as the point information.

Our next hearing is on Tuesday, April 9, at 01:30 p.m. Here in room 127. And authors and stakeholders, please make sure they're engaging with our Committee staff early on in the process, on your measures. And with that, we'll keep the row open for three more minutes. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you so much, colleagues, again, for a robust meeting of the Assembly Higher Education Committee. And our meeting is now adjourned.