Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 on Education

I'm going to call Senate Budget Subcommittee One on Education to order, and we happen to have a quorum present. So before we get to our agenda, I'm going to ask that you please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

We have a quorum. Thank you very much. Today is the fourth of the hearings of the budget subcommitee on the proposed budget this year, and we have four items in front of us. The first one is on the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program. The second one is on attendance recovery. The third is on instructional continuity, and the fourth is the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant program.

We will take public comment after these four items, and as usual, I will judge how many people there are here to do public comment to determine if there is a limitation of a minute or two or where we are on that.

And so with no, and let me just remind everybody at the outset, since we only are taking testimony in person, if there's anybody that's listening that cannot be present in our meeting and wishes to weigh in, they have the opportunity of submitting comments to the budget and fiscal review committee or to the website for the committee so that we want to hear what you're thinking, even if you can't be here today, so know that you can do that.

We're going to move to item number one, issue number one, the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program. It's an update. And we have Sabrina Adams from the Department of Finance, Michael Funk from the Department of Education, Edgar Cabral from the Legislative Analyst Office. And I believe we have somebody else that will be here to answer questions if we need it. And so, let's begin. And we'll go in that order. We'll start with the Department of Finance.

We'll go to the Department of Education, and then we'll go to the Legislative Analyst's office. So, welcome to the committee.

Good morning, Mister Chair. Committee members, Sabrina Adams with Department of Finance. The Expanded Learning Opportunities Program provides funding for before, after school, and summer school education and enrichment programs for students in transitional kindergarten through the 6th grade. Beginning in the 2023-24 school year, local educational agencies are required to offer expanded learning opportunity programs to all low-income students, English language learners, and youth in foster care.

Local educational agencies with the highest concentrations of these students are required to offer expanded learning opportunities to all elementary students. The Governor's Budget does not propose any changes to the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program funding or its requirements and sustains the ongoing commitment of 4 billion Proposition 98 general fund for this fiscal year. That concludes my remarks, and I can answer any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you very much. We'll move on to the Department of Education.

Good morning, Mister Chairman, committee members. My name is Michael Funk. I'm the Director of the Expanded Learning Division at the Department of Education and I'm here representing our State Superintendent, Tony Thurmond. Just for the record, I've given over 30 years of my life to expanded learning.

Twenty years in the Bay Area, actually partnering with San Francisco Unified and Oakland Unified operating programs, partnering with community Members and families, and have had the privilege of serving the last 12 years at the Department of Education and being part of this incredible expansion of expanded learning statewide through the ELOP. So, in its third year, the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program has dramatically increased the opportunities for agencies and communities. I've had interactions with superintendents across the state.

I've spent a lot of my time, usually weekly, talking with superintendents. Three years ago, it was typically a superintendent who would say, "We don't have the capacity to implement this. We've never done expanded learning. I'm not sure what to do."

And in the process of coaching and dialogue and working with them and starting with what their families and students needed and deserved, as opposed to starting with what are the barriers, what are the rules? We were able to find many of these superintendents to now become a huge proponent of this program and the funding. And I've had it said to me that this has been the most transformative funding for my community that I've seen in my career in education.

I actually have several superintendents that have said that. Not too long ago, staff from Finance, LAO, CDE, state board, went to Folsom Cordova Unified. They had nine school sites before ELOP that were funded by the afterschool education safety program. Now, they have 23 school sites offering full services for their students and their families.

They report that many of their parents have finally been able to stabilize their work and provide support for their families because they have a safe place for their students to go every day after school where transportation is provided, and not only is it just a safe place for them to go, but they report a transformative learning environment where their children are getting exposed to new opportunities, ideas and caring adults from the community.

Last summer, I visited Fresno Unified School District, who has one of the most robust summer programs that I've seen in my career. I asked their Superintendent, Mister Bob Nelson, to tell me what the program means to him and he wrote me this message.

"I think some of the critical things why ELOP is so important are being able to Fund the best kids-centric nonprofits in our community, providing economic viability for our town by virtue of the fact that we are providing a safe, comfortable, and loving place for kids to thrive where their parents have the freedom to stay working. We are also creating a natural pipeline of new teachers and leaders from the classified staff and community educators who are serving in the expanded learning program."

In our case, where our students are not naturally given the opportunity that privileged kids have would have in terms of camps or distance experiencings, we can provide this directly using ELOP funding. It gives us the combination of being able to provide academic support to make up for some lost time in the classroom, as well as just doing amazing things that keep kids coming back to buck.

The trend of chronic absenteeism in an environment of declining enrollment and chronic absenteeism, this program is largely paying for itself, and that's of course speaking to their district finances.

We actually have a report filed with the legislature, produced by WestEd, that looks at our expanded learning data over the last several years that reports that children who attend the program 60 days or more, which, by the way, is a vast majority of the students, their school varies by grade, but their school attendance increases dramatically compared to students of the same demographic that attend the same school.

So we know that in many cases, children who are deeply engaged in expanded learning have a deep relationship with caring adults in that program sometimes come to school just so they can go to the afterschool program. Finally, I'm not sure what our colleagues at the LAO will say today, but it has been proposed that the mechanism for funding ELOP be adjusted, possibly based on actual attendance, and I would offer the following comments. Many LEAs are doing exactly what the CDE administration and the legislature have recommended.

They are blending and braiding other funding with ELOP, such as ACES, 21st-century community learning centers, and other TK and K programs. So to extrapolate attendance simply based on ElOP would be impossible because of the blended funding that we're encouraging. Secondly, the legislature did not give CDE authority to capture attendance by design. CDE will not - CDE will likely capture attendance in the future, and we're working on that, but the data is not available now to make that calculation.

And finally, part of this hearing is, of course, about attendance recovery, and the trailer bill also allows for attendance recovery to be part of ELOP in the future. Funding at the level of current attendance does not allow, does not provide capacity for growth in the program because you have to have staffing level to accommodate for growth. So increasing attendance will be necessary for the new attendance recovery component to be included.

I have much more to say, but I'll conclude my comments there and be available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, and even though attendance recovery is a piece of this, we do have our next separate item on attendance recovery. So, let's go to the Legislative Analyst. They'll turn it on if you just get it.

Good morning. Edgar Cabral with the Legislative Analyst Office. I'll just keep my comments brief. I think, as mentioned, there is no specific proposal here regarding ELOP or the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program in this budget. I think to Mister Funk's comments earlier about proposed changes. I think in the past, we have suggested, recommended that the funding in the program be based on actual participation in the program rather than funding, which currently works. Essentially, it's all attendance of low-income students essentially.

I think there is a lot of flexibility in the program. We do think it's important for the legislature to actually know how the funds are being spent. A lot of the funds can be used to, for example, be providing a lot of enhanced expanded learning programs.

I think I will say that our office has concerns about the vastness of that flexibility because we don't know that that's necessarily - if we knew what those spending was, that that would actually be the kinds of expanded learning activities that you might have expected when you funded this program.

So we do think whether you make changes to the policy at all, we think getting better information on how many students are participating in the programs, how those funds are being spent is important for the legislature to understand the effectiveness of the program moving forward.

Thank you very much. We're going to move to questions. I'm going to begin with a couple, and then I'll give my colleagues, hopefully by then, a chance to follow up. And I essentially have two questions, and this program is structured so that there's basically two tiers based on 75% participation or more.

And as we see when we get to attendance later, the thing that has saved some of the local education agencies has been the rolling three year or being able to pick because it softens the immediate impacts. But here, it's 75%, and if you drop below 75%, you immediately go from $2,750 a student to $1,800 a student, and it might be one student below 75%.

And we are about to add the pre-kindergarten and kinder into the computations, which could well change many districts and knock them between the tiers, and so my question was whether there'd been any consideration for anything that might soften the immediate impact of knocking people dramatically right as the numbers come in that show where they are. And, I don't know, maybe we'll start with finance and let everybody see if they wish to take a crack at that.

Sabrina Adams, Department of Finance. The Governor's Budget proposal does not include any changes to the current rate structure. So. Yeah,

Well, no, that's actually my question. Is, in many ways, why, if it's gonna suddenly knock a bunch of people, and whether there's any contemplation of softening that blow, if there's bunches of changes because a number of people come into the county. But I'll take that as your answer, that you don't contemplate that the Department of Education.

So there's. We've been in some conversation with assembly education staff, and there is a current Bill, AB 2112, that calls for the department to convene a workgroup that includes various leadership from across the state, including the legislature, parents, families, school district people, community-based partners, to convene that workgroup or use existing workgroups to address several items related to elop and report back to the legislature by, I think it's November 2025.

And one of the items on that list is a stabilization of rate two, which is what you're talking about, below 75%.

So we haven't dug into this, basically, under this budget.

Under this budget, there's no -

That's the point. The funding starts July 1, and we would be convening a group when it's way after there's been a big change in the bump, and people might have really lost funding due to that.

I would concur. It is a significant issue.

Does the Legislative Analyst have a comment on this?

Yes, I think we do agree. This is a part of the program that I think can create a lack of stability for districts. We had recommended a completely different approach to how you funded, where you're just funding based on not having the two-tiered structure, one-tier. Another option is just to actually just pick a number for the second tier. I think what's happened also is it's not just down, but also up.

So, for example, we had one year where we always using the prior year data, so we had the initial rate, then the prior year data attendance went down a lot. So that actually freed up funding. The tier one cost less, so the tier two rate went up, and then when attendance goes back up, then there's not as much money left for tier two. Tier two is sort of like you back into whatever's left under the program.

So another option is just to set a number and have that built-in and to have it, for example, creating a relationship between what tier one and tier two are, considering that they have different requirements and setting that in statute. That would create less for the state, less predictability, that it's always going to cost exactly 4 billion. But at the local level, that creates a lot more predictability.

That doesn't address, I think your concern, though, of what about folks who are in and out of the threshold. That still obviously is an issue. It changes not only their rates but also the requirements of the program for them.

Somebody stepped to the podium. But let me ask you first, are you from the Department of Finance?

The Department of Education.

Department of Education. So, if you're backing up your person here, why don't you come and sit down before suddenly every single person in the audience feels entitled to stand at the podium?

Hi, Elizabeth Dearstyne. I'm the Director of the School Fiscal Services Division, and we allocate the ELOP funding. Current law -

I'm not sure that's on what's or you're close enough, one or the other.

Elizabeth Dearstyne with the direct - I'm the Director for the School Fiscal Services Division at CDE, and we're responsible for allocating ELOP expanded learning opportunities program funding. Current law does provide a three-year hold harmless to prevent LEAs from dropping from weight run to rate two. So there's already built-in protection.

That wasn't evident in our agenda from any of the comments thus far.

It just started. This 22-23 is the first fiscal year -

And excuse me for having to ask since I don't know about this, or I'm just hearing about it for the first time, is that in statute?

It is.

Okay.

I can provide you with a citation.

No, I would love to know that because that's very relevant given the fact that numbers are going to change dramatically. Then let me ask my second question, which is related to the first, and I know the Department of Education was required to do data collection or have a report on this, which, of course then is very important because the issue of the tiers and everything is based on the data collection.

Have there been problems or in collecting the appropriate data to allow the decisions to be made between the tiers? And I don't know who from the department -

I'm happy to comment on that. So, let me just take a moment to clarify what data is required per education code. By statute, CDE has the authority to collect actual LEA expenditures.

And you haven't sat through a hearing before because I had a campaign against acronyms. You started launching into them and so, and it was a person from the Department of Education last year that used four acronyms in one sentence. That caused me to finally say, "Okay, that's it." So that everybody can understand. Mister Cabral caught himself and defined the acronym before he got too far into it. So you're fine. I don't think that'll happen going forward. Just be aware.

Based on the statute, the California Department of Education.

Very good.

Has the authority to collect from local educational agencies expenditures for the 21-22 and 22-23 Expanded Learning Opportunities Program on after June 30 of this year, 2024.

But there was one report you had to submit by February 1.

I'll get there.

I thought you had ended. I'm sorry. Keep going.

So, we have the instrument prepared and ready to send right after June 30, 2024, to get the expenditure data. The report you're referring to was for the Department of Education to have school districts and charters report on if they have third party providers they contract with providing programs to transitional kindergarten and kindergarten students offsite off of a school campus. That was the report that was due February 1. There were some complications getting the data from the districts.

I can tell you that after conferring, the report was finalized this week, and we expect it to be published on the website today or tomorrow.

This is the one that was due by February 1.

That is correct.

Just checking.

That is correct.

Okay then.

And I would, if I may, one more thing. So I think the data that might be more interesting to address the issue of tier one, tier two numbers of students is actually part of a current bill, AB 1113, which is giving the California Department of Education authority to collect providing access to students in ELOP into CALPADS. So we're working on that. Currently working with the assembly side to put that into place.

And as a refresher, the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program has two requirements for a local educational agency to offer the program, and that's defined in Ed code as to use culturally and linguistically appropriate and effective methods to make sure families are aware that they have this opportunity. And the second is to provide access. And providing access is defined in education code as a signed enrollment form by a parent or guardian for the student to have access to the program.

So this bill is looking for the department to actually capture how many students have been provided access in the program and have that as part of CalPADS. So that is in process.

I think one thing to say is that for a refresher coming the other way, the reason the report was due on February 1 was so when we had a hearing on April 4, we would have full benefit of that report and have the ability to talk about it here.

And so I think that we would reserve the right to have our staff review that report once it's posted and decide if there were questions that we would have liked to have asked here with everybody present, that we address them to you so that we can make sure that we just have a full understanding before we get to, to making a decision.

I fully understand and willing to come back at your request.

Okay. Any other comments on that before I move to Senator Wilk? Seeing none. You've been very patient. Thank you.

Well, actually, your second question was a question that I wanted to ask because it's kind of hard to have a hearing when you have new information. So I appreciate you asking that. Looking forward to seeing the report.

Thank you. And then I don't have any further questions, but I'll make a closing comment on this item, which is that I would hope that if there was anything, the disclosure that there's a three-year hold harmless was new. That up to that, I was feeling like I would hope that you would listen to the discussion we had and decide when you come back with the May revise if there's any adjustments that need to be made in the program to make sure.

And while there might be an immediate disruption that is prevented by the hold harmless, it doesn't mean that there would be the statistics that show that there's a disruption on the way, just that there's a hold harmless and that that might cause a reason to take a look at it and look to see if there's some adjustments that we should make in the program as part of the budget. And I think we would just stipulate to the fact that this is a very valuable program.

And there is a thing in our agenda packet later on about sort of the TK and kinder counting and the value of the programs and getting people in, and we'll talk about it there. But it also reflects on this item because if people aren't counted right and are being stimulated in a good way by those other programs, it reflects on this as well.

So, anyway, I appreciate the discussion, and just we'll take into account, hope you will take into account this discussion in case there's any adjustments that need to be made headed into the May revise. So we're going to move to issue number two, which is attendance recovery. And we have Alex Shoap from the Department of Finance, and sitting in for Aaron Aredia from the Department of Education is Elizabeth Dearstyne, who's also up here.

And please send our good wishes to Mister Aredia because he's absent for a very good reason. And then we have Michael Alferes from the Legislative Analyst's office. So, with that, let's begin with the Department of Finance.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Senator Wilk. Alex Shoap with the Department of Finance. So, the Governor's Budget instructional continuity and attendance recovery proposal is intended to provide one, increased instructional options for students when they are unable to fully participate in traditional classroom instruction for limited periods or are absent from school and then two, streamlined opportunities for local educational agencies to better support students and recover attendance based apportionment funding when students do miss school.

So, I'll provide some more detail on the attendance recovery part of the proposal, and then my colleagues will speak more about instructional continuity in the following panel. So, as mentioned previously, attendance recovery proposal is intended to provide streamlined opportunities for pupils to make up lost instructional time and offset absences, including for chronic absenteeism, and for LEAs to recover apportionment funding based on attendance. So, the proposal is voluntary. LEAs can choose to implement attendance recovery programs. Students can choose to participate in them.

LEAs would be able to generate average daily attendance in 15-minute increments in order to recover up to 15 days of attendance per student, provided that certain conditions are met. So these include providing instructional content that is substantially equivalent to what the student would have received as part of their regular classroom-based instructional program, having instruction provided under the supervision of certificated staff, and then meeting 20-to-one student-teacher ratios and 10-to-one ratios for kindergarten and transitional kindergarten.

So under this proposal, LEAs could offer attendance recovery programs before or after school on the weekend, during intersessional periods, and they would be able to leverage existing programs such as Saturday school or expanded learning opportunities programs to deliver instruction to students electing to participate. That concludes my remarks. Happy to take questions.

Thank you very much. We'll move to the Department of Education. It turns on after you press the button.

It's on. Go ahead.

Good morning, Mister chair. There's not a red light. Thank you. Good morning, Mister chair. Members of the Committee, I am Elizabeth Dearstyne, Director for the School Fiscal Services division on behalf of State Superintendent of Instruction Tony Thurmond. CDE appreciates the administration's proposal to be responsive to challenges local educational agencies have faced coming out of the panel and the impact low attendance rates have had on learning loss, chronic absenteeism, and funding.

In the last several years since the pandemic, there have been several legislative changes in the instructional time and attendance reporting requirements, areas that local educational agencies have had to implement with little to no planning time. Since the proposal adds a new method to generate average daily attendance, local educational agencies will need enough time to understand the requirements and update their internal policies and procedures and attendance software systems.

We've had initial conversations with student information system vendors that local educational agencies use for attendance tracking and reporting, and it's unclear whether or not the changes required by this proposal would be implementable in the upcoming school year. Both from the perspective of implementation for local educational agencies and compliance monitoring after the fact through the annual audit process.

Without sufficient time to prepare for implementation, local educational agencies may struggle to adopt compliant programs and as a result, face an audit penalty during the annual audit, or simply be unable to implement the program in the 24-25 school year. We look forward to continuing to provide technical assistance to the Administration and the Legislature on these proposals as the budget process continues, and this concludes my remarks and I'm available for any questions you might have.

Thank you very much and we'll move to the Legislative Analyst. Welcome.

Good morning Mister chair and Members of the Committee, Michael Alferes with the Legislative Analyst Office. So we have several concerns with this proposal. Most significantly, given the current budget situation, we think the state likely cannot support costs associated with this. We want to emphasize that there isn't any funding included in the budget for this proposal, though as proposed, it would be effective immediately in the budget year and would have associated costs since it allows local educational agencies not leas to generate attendance for funding purposes.

We don't have our own estimates of the proposal, but we expect that the proposal would have significant long term fiscal impacts to the state, though even in the short term, districts that are funded on the current year levels of attendance, as opposed to their prior year or prior year average, would see funding increases immediately to the extent that they operate these programs and have students participate.

Also for charter schools, since all charter schools are currently funded under current year levels of attendance, they would see increases immediately in the budget year as well.

A related concern is that although the proposed language specifies that the intent of the proposal is to have students recover attendance for days that they were absent, and that students cannot generate more than 15 days of attendance through participation in these programs, we don't see anything in the language that actually limits the amount of attendance that students can generate be limited by their actual absences that they've had during the school year.

We think that this creates the potential for students to generate more than 180 days of attendance throughout the school year. For example, a student can attend school for 170 days, participate in this program for 15 days, and be credited with 185 days of attendance, even though the school year is only 180 days. So, if the Legislature is interested in adopting this proposal, we're just recommending that the students attendance that could be generated through this program would be limited to their actual absences.

We also have a few other implementation issues that we'd like to raise, which start on the bottom of page seven of the agenda. One issue is that the proposal essentially creates two attendance recovery programs with different requirements. So, under the governor's proposal, new attendance recovery programs would operate before or after school and during intersessions, while the existing allowable Saturday school would operate on the weekends.

For example, Saturday school makeup classes currently do not have any cap on the number of days of attendance a student can generate throughout the school year. This proposal would have 15 day caps, and the current Saturday school program also does not have any comparable student to teacher ratio requirement that is proposed for the attendance recovery programs. We recommend providing a more consistent set of standards such as realigning current Saturday school requirements with the proposed attendance recovery programs requirements or consolidate both into one program.

Secondly, we'd like to highlight that the overlap attendance recovery and other programs that operate before and after school and during intersessions such as the Expanded Learning Opportunities program, which the staff analysis references, where districts could use their expanded learning Opportunities program funding to support attendance recovery programs. Given that students would generate funding through their participation in attendance recovery, we don't see the need for districts to use their ELLP or expand learning opportunities program funding for attendance recovery.

The last I'll highlight, the governor's proposal provides significant discretion to local educational agencies in deciding the type of instruction that will be provided through their attendance recovery programs. The Legislature may want to consider setting more specific expectations for instruction provided in these programs. For example, the Legislature could direct local educational agencies to focus their before and after school programs for high school students on helping them keep up with their existing coursework while intercession instruction could prioritize credit recovery when deciding the level of specificity.

That's a hard word. However, the Legislature would want to weigh the benefits of the.

I think we need to get an acronym for specificity.

I'm so glad you've decided to come back to the Committee, Mister.

Want to weigh the kind of trade offs of having specific requirements with loss of flexibility that may reduce the adoption of these programs. Those concludes our comments. Happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you very much. I have a few questions, and they get to some of the issues that came up, and I was going to make sure that the Department of Finance agreed with the legislative analysts that there's no money in this before I declare it as a fact. But it's. I wondered if you had calculated the cost for this program, to know how much it will cost districts to do this, and whether you agree that there's really no money provided for it once it kicks in July 1 if this was approved.

Correct. There's no additional funding provided within the Governor's Budget proposal for this proposed program, and we do not have a specific estimate at the current time as to any potential future costs.

Just for the record, that would be very helpful. And then there's we have in our agenda packet a story of a family from San Bernardino county that was referenced in Cal Matters on, on how the after school programs have been a lifesaver and have probably caused that kid, one of those kids, to come back to school in the way they weren't. And it appears that that might not be calculated in this.

How does it relate, sort of, if people are in afterschool and whether that factors into what you're proposing for attendance recovery.

So I think I would maybe reiterate the overall intent of the proposal. Just be able to provide more options for local educational agencies to provide this instruction to students to recover that attendance funding. As far as the interaction with any after school programs, we're not proposing any changes to any sort of extended learning programs or Saturday school.

I think I would note that the ability under this program to recover attendance in 15 minutes increments could provide additional flexibility to local educational agencies should they want to provide instruction, core instruction as required under this program during after school, while also being able to still offer those extended learning programs after school without sort of missing.

While I consider myself very schooled, I do not know if schools now record attendance in 15 minutes increments for even after school and other stuff and report it. Is that done already or is that new in this?

I don't believe so. I would defer to the Department. It is. You're right.

I'm sorry. I couldn't hear what you said.

Correct.

It is new. Okay. All I can say is to save about 15 people walking to the microphone during public testimony, that is an additional cost that is not accounted for, it appears. Does the Legislative Analyst have any comments on exchanges we've just been having?

I can add just comments related to expanded learning. I think part of the question, I think, seems to be, you know, I think to Mister Funk's point earlier, the expanded learning program is not growing. It's a $4 billion amount.

So if that spending has already been accounted for, districts already have plans to spend that money to do what the Administration is proposing with this flexibility means you're going to change what you're doing with your existing expanded learning program and shift that funding to this attendance recovery program. Now, I'm not sure.

I think based on some of the most recent spending, some of that, there might still be districts who are not spending all of their ongoing allocations, and so they might be able to then direct some of that funding to this purpose. But just again, I don't think we think this is a necessary component of it. Attendance recovery, by definition, increases your ADA. So you're going to get more funding for doing this. Why we need to say, use expanded learning funding as well. We don't think that's a necessary component of the proposal.

Well, that's a good tee up for what my last question was, and that is, since the pandemic, the attendance recovery has been fairly stubborn. It doesn't seem to be able to be dented in a significant way. And so my sort of question is, how do we know that this proposal is sort of going to address the root causes that are causing attendance not to recover, that are sort of the reason why we're having this discussion.

How do we know that if we were to adopt this, it's going to move the needle? When it seems like not many things have moved the needle in the last couple of years, the Department of Education person keeps nodding, so I don't know if you want to go unless you're falling asleep. Who wants to go first? Between you and finance, I'm just following.

I'm just following along with the conversation.

Okay. Department of Finance, how do you believe this is addressing the long term root causes that bring us to need something for attendance recovery?

Sure. I don't know that I could speak very conclusively to the broader root causes of chronic absenteeism. I think as far as this proposal goes, again, we just want to provide an additional option that would provide that flexibility to local educational agencies. So with the 15 minutes requirement, as far as I think for Saturday school as an attendance recovery option, it's required to meet minimum day requirements in order to generate ADA. So I think this would provide additional times before or after school. Right.

Intercessional periods, weekends, and then, you know, would not require the LEA to meet those minimum day requirements all at the same time. So as a way to improve the flexibility to address the attendance recovery, chronic abstinence.

Let me ask the Legislative Analyst, do you have any comments on how this does or doesn't address the root causes that bring this to us?

Yeah, I think from our perspective it doesn't address it sort of this is saying these absences exist. Here's just a different way to generate ADA for it. Now we're setting some conditions that we want this to meet some requirements so it creates, so that it's helping students learn. Right. I think the we do have, we have seen here first, just going back to attendance itself, we have seen an improvement in terms of the comparing attendance to enrollment since the pandemic.

We have seen, we are not anywhere near where we were during that pandemic year. We had significantly lower attendance rates than we do now. We're still not back to pre pandemic. So that is still an issue. But I think that is part of the challenge and part of why we raise the points regarding what do you want this program as a state? What do you want this program to do right now? It's very flexible.

And we would say if you're going to create this flexibility, we want to make sure that it's leading to student learning and student progress right now. And I think one of the questions is like, what is the point of this program and how do we want to use it?

And so that's why we talked about, my colleague, Mister Alferes talked about, for example, what is this program like for high school intercession versus during the school year, if what's going on and students are absent and then they're behind and they're failing courses, we don't want them to giving attendance recovery in the summer is just letting them fail and then afterwards putting them in a summer program to make up the course.

Maybe we would want to prefer that that is more of what you want to do during the years to help support those students so that they can get better grades during the year. Right. That seemed like that would be in that case in the case of high school, that's a more helpful thing. And maybe an elementary in middle is not as particularly important. But I think trying to get it to what is it that we want?

This provides so much flexibility that I think those kinds of questions are answered and we really just leave them to school districts to decide how they want to implement them.

Before I make a comment, overall, let me ask if Senator Wilk has a question or a comment.

I don't have a question. I do have a comment. One, there's no data, so I don't know how we're going to. And it's open ended, so I don't know how you even quantify that. And again, there's not going to be any money, and I'd hate to see any cuts to the extended learning opportunities program. I would really love to say ELOP, but I'm not going to. So that's one. But two, we're trying to do all those things.

But the problem with absenteeism, from my perspective, is it's societal challenges that I think is really unfair to dump on schools, to have the responsibility to do that because of the breakdown of the family. Unfortunately, we might have to go in that direction. I wish we didn't have to, but while these things are worthwhile, I'm not sure it's going to be enough. Frustrating.

Well, thank you. And you actually teed up my closing comments fairly well, because I think based on this discussion, that I will just be charitable and say I don't think this proposal is fully cooked and it really needs to be tied to what it's resolving and in a way that we might be able to measure it.

It would be nice if we had a sense of how much it cost and whether school districts can do this at a time that the proposal now was for a fraction of 1% increase in the Local Control Funding Formula. And I would like to know that we are addressing the root causes of. Because the Administration has been smart to identify the fact that we have an attendance recovery problem. It's just like, how are we seriously going to address this to get at it?

And it's interesting, given the fact that there's been these discussions about moving to an enrollment system from average daily attendance and under Proposition 98, the little disgust thing is it doesn't really work. Some school districts would lose an aggregate of $5 billion and some would gain $5 billion. And unless we, we had money to hold harmless to losers, we would just be shifting money and creating bigger problems.

And one of the arguments for keeping the average daily attendance system, which most school districts don't particularly care for, is that it provides incentives to make the school districts try to get kids in class. And right now that is one of the most important incentives that's in the whole toolbox is if people know that they can get kids into the classroom, they will get paid. It's a financial incentive that wouldn't exist with an enrollment system. And so I think that's important.

And just the summary would be we really would like to address this. We would really like to make sure that we're dealing with trying to get back to pre pandemic in attendance. I'm just not sure this is together enough with any confidence to say that's what would be happening if we adopted this proposal.

So I hope that the Administration would use the time between now and May 15 to address those questions, that if this stays in the budget, that we know about the costs, we know what would actually be an outcome, we'd know how we could measure an outcome. That would be an important thing. So I appreciate the discussion, and we'll see if people want to comment it when we get to public comment. So thank you very much. I appreciate it.

And we're going to move to issue number three, which is instructional continuity. And we have Katie Lagamarsino from the Department of Finance. We have Elizabeth Dearstyne sitting in once again for the Department of Education. We still have Michael Alferes from the Legislative Analyst Office. Welcome to the Committee. And we will go in that order. So we'll start with the Department of Finance. Thank you for being with us.

My name is Katie Lagamarsino with the Department of Finance, and I'll be speaking to the instructional continuity piece of our proposal. One of the principal goals here is to ensure that students don't miss out on critical instruction and learning while they're absent from school. Without additional instruction, students who miss even one day of school can fall behind on learning. And for students who may be further behind their peers, this impacts their chances of success in school and beyond.

Our instructional continuity proposal does a few things. First, it streamlines the process for LEAs, local educational agencies to continue providing instruction to students that are absent from classroom based instruction through an instructional continuity program. Instructional continuity provides limited term options for students to generate attendance credit through synchronous or asynchronous instruction and through completed coursework.

To recover average daily attendance, or ADA through an instructional continuity program, students must be under the supervision of a certificated teacher, which is consistent with current attendance generating rules. As compared to current short term independent study agreements, the instructional continuity agreements would be more limited in scope, and could be signed at any point throughout the school year. Though the language encourages local educational agencies to sign them at the beginning of the school year when possible.

In terms of day limitations, students could generate up to 15 days of attendance through participation in an instructional continuity program per year, though that maximum is extended for students in exceptional circumstances. We also proposed changes to the emergency attendance apportionment funding process for local educational agencies, also known as the J13A application. Here we make changes.

There intended to ensure that disruptions to student learning are minimized and elite local educational agencies are not overly burdened during an emergency.

It doesn't qualify as an acronym, but believe me, it's obtuse. Sorry to knock you off your game.

Specifically, we make clear that independent study program requirements are not required for instruction during an emergency situation that occasions the submission of a J13A and we change the provision that says a plan has to be in place for independent study or online instruction within 10 days, changing that to requiring instruction be provided within five days and make it clear that the quality of instruction should be at least equivalent to instructional continuity programs established.

Finally, we provide 6 million one time Proposition 98 General Fund for two county offices of education to conduct research on models of instruction and student information systems. Of the total, at least 4 million would be provided to a County Office of Education to research best practices for using hybrid and remote models of instruction, as well as to support school districts instructional continuity programs.

The selected County Office of Education would need to make their resources and research available to the public through a website that links to the Department of Education's website and through widely available and free trainings and convenings for local educational agencies and teachers. And up to 2 million would be provided to a County Office of Education to research local student information systems to identify opportunities for more nuanced tracking of student absence data, with a particular focus on absences due to emergencies.

The selected County Office of Education must provide recommendations to noted entities by January 1 of 2026. This concludes my remarks. I'll be happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you very much. We'll move to the Department of Education.

Thank you. Good morning, Mister Chair Members of the Committee. I'm Elizabeth Dearstyne, Director for the School of Fiscal Services Division on behalf of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, CdE appreciates the administration's proposal to be responsive to challenges local educational agencies have faced. Coming out of the pandemic and the impact low attendance rates have had on learning loss and funding.

While this proposal adds another program that local educational agencies can utilize to claim attendance for apportionment, it also adds another layer of complexity in an environment where local educational agencies already struggle to understand and adhere to the current attendance reporting requirements. In addition, instructional continuity similarity to the current independent study program has potential to create more confusion for local educational agencies than intended.

As I mentioned in the previous panel, we share the same concerns about the timing for implementation and local educational agencies ability to implement in the upcoming school year. We look forward to continuing to provide technical assistance to the Administration and Legislature on these proposals as they move forward through the budget process, and this concludes my remarks and I'm happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you very much and then we'll move to the Legislative Analyst.

Thank you Mister. Michael Alfredos with the Legislative Analyst Office. So we have comments associated with all three pieces of these proposals. We'll start with the instructional continuity. Our overall comments on instructional continuity is that this additional flexibility that this would provide compared to current short term independent study could be possibly beneficial for schools and for students. Though if the Legislature is interested in adopting the proposal, we would recommend delaying the implementation for at least a year.

The proposal would require the California Department of Education to develop rules and regulations around instructional continuity programs, and local educational agencies will not be able to generate funding for instructional continuity until they adopt policies that are in line with the rules and regulations that are set forth by the California Department of Education. This process will likely take some time to see through, and local educational agencies would not be able to offer short term independent study programs to students in the meantime.

As the traitor Bill Language removes all exceptions for short term independent study. The latest implementation of this proposal for at least a year would give the Department time to develop rules and regulations and for local educational agencies to adopt the policies in compliance. In the case Legislature is interested in adopting this proposal, we also raise some specific issues for consideration prior to adopting.

The first issue is that although instructional and continuity would be intended to be used for short periods of time, the language provides a broad exception for students to participate for longer than 15 days if they are facing significant personal personal difficulties that make them unable to attend school. There is no limit on how long instructional continuity can be used in these cases.

Additionally, since the requirement for when written agreements must be signed is anytime until the end of the school year, students can be enrolled in these programs for a long period of time without having understood expectations of the program and without having known key details that are included in the written agreements. We also on these issues, we recommend setting narrower exceptions to the 15 day cap. The Legislature may also want to set more specific rules for students who remain enrolled beyond the 15 day cap.

For example, setting a maximum cap for all students or requiring that written agreement must be signed by the student and parent or guardian prior to enrolling in an instructional continuity program that's expected to last more than 15 days. This would ensure that students with longer term needs are enrolled in independent study programs where local educational agencies are required to implement tier engagement strategies to better support students who are not completing their coursework.

Moving on to the emergency funding proposal, we think that the Legislature may want to consider whether requiring leas or local educational agencies to offer instruction to all students within five calendar days of an emergency, rather than 10 days as currently is feasible. Under emergency circumstances, providing instruction as soon as possible could mitigate possible learning loss and could benefit students emotionally by giving them the opportunity to interact with familiar peers and adults in terms of times of possible distress.

But in cases of major emergencies, offering instruction within five calendar days may be particularly challenging. On the last piece on the one time grants for county offices to do research, we just recommend rejecting this funding as due to the current budget condition, and the Legislature could consider providing funding for this purpose in future years as funding becomes available. And so that concludes our comments. Happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you very much. Let me just first ask the Department of Finance if you would respond to the three concerns the Legislative Analyst just outlined. Like what's your view on those.

Lina Grant with the Department of Finance. Can I summarize the three as I think I heard them? Well, I think I might have missed the first one, but I think the second one was around the broad exceptions for personal difficulties for student generating over that 15 day cap? Is that right? Is that the first issue?

The second issue is the timing of the written agreements that could be signed at any time of the school year so students could be enrolled in these programs without having signed the agreements.

Okay. I want to be sure to address all of this. Good morning. So on the broad exceptions for personal difficulties, we do provide in the language as proposed some examples of what those are, such as like homelessness, housing instability. We allow the personal difficulties to be broad enough to capture a wide variety of scenarios. And so we don't enumerate every single possible cause of an exception. We do require that it be tracked, monitored closely by the local educational agencies.

And it would be to the discretion of the local educational agency to determine whether that is a personal difficulty that justifies that extended over 15 day cap. And just on that note, we would encourage LEA's- Local Educational Agencies- to, if a student has a need to be enrolled in remote instruction or independent study, the traditional independent study program would be more appropriate for them than this instructional continuity program. This is really geared for more short term absences. And on the second piece, I'm going out of order, so apologize.

And although, let me just do a quick clarification.

So when you say short term absences, you're not talking about natural disaster short term absences, which I really thought was a part of this.

Sure.

This is one of those. So, yes, that could be a cause for a short term absence.

Okay, keep going.

Yep. On whether emergency funding for five days, providing education within five days, or offering instruction. So the way their language is proposed now is beginning in July 1st of this year, the proposal would change that ten days to five days. I believe on page 12 of our agenda, the LAO actually has a beautiful little chart of the kinds of how many LEA's are actually filed, J-13A's or the emergency funding application that last for more than five days, and it's only like 17.5%.

So the vast majority are under that five day threshold. So we think most LEA's would not, you know, be hindered by this requirement to offer instruction. One of the biggest concerns we've been hearing about actually offering instruction. Most LEA's who filed J-13A's I believe that are approved, have to have a plan for offering instruction, but no actual requirement to offer that instruction.

And so one of the things that this proposal would do beginning July 1st, 2025, is that it would require that offering to actually occur. So we understand that can be seen as burdensome, but we, in our proposal, remove the requirements of independent studies. So we don't say anything about what that instruction could look like.

Remove the requirement or remove the option?

We remove the requirements of independent study for that emergency instruction. Beginning July 1st, 2025, within five days, they have to offer instruction. They have to provide access to instruction or facilitate the enrollment of that student on a temporary basis in a neighboring LEA. And that can also be online instruction at the neighboring LEA or online instruction as provided. So its a pretty flexible requirement, and J-13A's are an optional application.

Most local educational agencies that face an emergency do choose to file them so that their attendance can be Held Harmless. And then on the timing of the written agreements that the LAO noted and that it can be signed at any point. One of the issues we've been hearing is that rather than providing any instruction, the written agreement is seen as kind of like a burden, even with the short term independent study guidelines. I think that written agreement has to be assigned within 10 days.

We've removed that to ensure that local educational agencies are actually providing that instruction and trying to remove an additional barrier. And so we think most LEA's will be able to provide that instruction within five days. We think removing kind of the what are seen as onerous requirements of independent study, those are removed. So really providing a lot of flexibility to ensure the students are receiving that continuity of learning.

Then let me make a comment a couple of ways. First, I speak every year at the regional conference of the school administrators in my district, and they were worked up about this proposal. Let's just say that. And flexible is not a word I heard in their description about it. So it sounded to me like it was their view this was going to be very hard and put a lot of additional requirements to be able to implement.

And I would ask that you take that seriously and you do it. And then as having a district that's disaster prone, you know, the slide on highway one that has closed it for 14 months in one area has split a school district in the middle, and unless they drive 4 hours, and now with the slip out in the north, they can't even drive 4 hours to get to the other part. It presents these hurdles.

And I have another place where 27% of the students were in a house that burned down in one school district, and you couldn't access the school. And, you know, and I also represent Pajaro, where the school that was flooded in the flood when the levee broke last year still has not reopened.

And in the notion of taking an entire student body and relocating them somewhere and doing it in a matter of days when you still can't access a lot of places in the district is really hard.

And Senator Wilk and I sit on the state allocation board, and we had an item in front of us yesterday about a one school district in Lassen county where the school completely burned down and the nearest option was 30 minutes away, with there not being total Internet access for the students in that district.

And so I think that while this is well intentioned, because the presentation initially said all the reasons why we need to have continuity, no disagreement. Then the proposal for how the continuity does seems like it still needs a lot of work.

And so for me, and I'll ask if my colleagues have any comments for me, please work with the stakeholders and try to address those concerns, because I think the shortness of this, some of the options, and I get that a pandemic or certain illness or certain other things would present, or unsheltered people would present even different things than the disasters. So just, I would ask that you work on this before we see it again. Let me ask my colleagues if there's any questions or comments.

No, I was. I'm the same way with you in terms of, you know, natural disasters or whatever. I've had numerous in my district, and the five days seemed really unreasonable. But again, I think they need to come back a better proposal.

Okay, well, thank you. We appreciate the discussion on this. And we're going to move to our last item, issue number four, learning recovery emergency block grants. And we have Hugo Solis Galeana from the Department of Finance, William McGee from the Department of Education and the Legislative Analyst's Office. And I assume since Mister Cabral is there, that's who's going to be here for the Legislation. So let's start with the Department of Finance.

Hugo Solis Galeana with the Department of Finance. I'll be speaking about the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant proposal that was included in the Governor's Budget. This proposal provides changes that the Administration believes are appropriate at this time. At this stage, coming out of the pandemic, to focus the use of unexpended one time dollars allocated by the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant over the last three years of availability on students who were most impacted and continued to need support.

Proposing these changes also allowed the state to resolve the Cayla J litigation. Specifically, the administration's proposal is made up of a few different pieces. First, on the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant. Local educational agencies receiving this grant will have to develop a needs assessment to measure which students are most in need of learning recovery support and target the use and expenditure of funds that are unencumbered as of July 1, 2024 on addressing those student needs.

As part of the assessment, schools will have to review metrics for English language arts, math, and chronic absenteeism across school sites. And at the local level, for student groups who end up very low and low status from the California dashboard and for all students who are chronically absent.

As you'll recall, the Block Grant provided $6.8 billion to local educational agencies in response to the emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to help school serving students in long term recovery from the 22-23 school year to the 27-28 school year.

Second, on the local control and accountability plan, the use of block grant funds that are unencumbered as of July 1, 2024 will have to be included in the local control accountability plans for the last three years of the grant, with the rationales and research justifying the actions showing how they are expected to support the students that have been identified as having the greatest need. So the years that would be affected are the 2025-26, 26-27, and 2027-28 school years.

Of the various things that would be required here, schools will have to identify planned expenditures using Block Grant funds within the descriptions of associated actions and analysis of the implementation of those planned expenditures and the local control accountability plan's annual update.

Third, on the Community Engagement Initiative component, the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence and the lead agency for the Community Engagement Initiative, which is the San Diego County Office of Education, would be encouraged to incorporate learning recovery work and to the training and resources they provide to local educational agencies. And yes, and finally, on the uniform complaint procedure process, we clarify that anyone can file a complaint, including a member of the public, regarding not meeting requirements of the Local Control Accountability Plan.

This concludes my remarks and I'm happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you very much. We'll move to the Department of Education. Welcome.

Great. Thank you and good morning to everyone. My name is William McGee and I am the Director of the Student Achievement and Support Division at the California Department of Education. Greetings to the Committee, staff Members, and community on behalf of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. I will talk about the programmatic areas of the learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant as finances cover the trailer Bill Language. As was mentioned, the block grant was sent out for $6,850,000,000 and it was sent out in two equal payments.

School districts, county offices of education, and charter schools received Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant funds released in two equal payments of $3,968,000,000, the first in November of 2022 and the second in April of 2023. The apportionments were paid to the county offices of education. The first interim expenditure reports are due December 15, 2024 to the California Department of Education and will allow for the local educational agencies to document their expenditure data.

The interim expenditure report will ensure that local educational agencies do not claim expenditures greater than the amount of their total block grant allocation, provide the amount of expenditures disaggregated by allowable use to ensure every dollar was expended, and is done so within the requirements of the block grant and that all data points provided are complete and calculated accurately. Local educational agencies are encouraged to utilize the Local Control Accountability Plan to communicate their strategic plan for how funds will be used to improve student outcomes.

A statute does not require local educational agencies to develop a plan. We have not yet collected examples from LEA's or at Local Educational Agencies as the first report is due December 15, 2024.

While the California Department of Education does not approve or deny funds or requests regarding proposed expenditures, the following are examples of inquiries that we have received from school districts on possible use of funds to support students and their community. Curriculum embedded with English language support, access to online digital programs subscriptions, literacy related trainings, computers, IT infrastructure high speed Internet for rural families, teacher retention, intervention teachers, assessment coordinators, psychologists and counselors are some of the inquiries that we've received.

So again, the report will be December 15,2024 and we'll have information about how this school districts have spent their money, and I thank you for your time and I'll be able to answer questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you very much. Then we'll move to the Legislative Analyst Office.

Edgar Cabral with the Legislative Analyst Office. We just have comment related to one specific part of this, which is a governor's proposal to clarify that the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant funds can be used for Mathematics Framework professional development activities. We recommend adopting that proposal. We think it's consistent with the overall broader goal of the block grant itself.

Let me ask. My only question was going to be about that.

So let me ask about that because the one thing was that was not a stipulation of the settlement. And so is it basically getting you to speak for everybody in finance? Was it basically the view of the finance that that's a good thing to do? And it helps this even though it's not required by the, the settlement.

Hugo Solis Galeana with the Department of Finance. The Math framework professional development aligns with one of the block grants goals of learning recovery in key areas such as math. And this proposal is necessary to maintain that progress, even if it isn't a stipulation of the settlement. The professional development would include actions that would help schools close learning gaps in math, including actions like training teachers, hiring math coaches, and contracting organizations to build relevant instructional tools.

Okay, then let me ask my colleagues if they have any questions on this item. Senator Min.

I have a bit of a macro question/comment, and I guess it revolves around this idea just stepping back. We're now two years into, back into in person learning. As we continue moving forward, I know that a lot of the LEA's that I communicate with, the concerns are shifting more away from learning loss recovery into just general teacher retention.

A lot of the problems that we're seeing around the state, and I guess I'm wondering if consideration is being given to, as we move forward, if we continue to face budget pressure, providing more flexibility for this particular pot of funding to be redeployed for other purposes. And that could be a question for Department of Education as well.

Lina Grant with the Department of Finance. I think you're asking if we can re-appropriate the funds that have been appropriated to the learning recovery block grant or emergency block grant to other purposes?

I guess that would fall on us, actually, that's my mistake. But is that something that you have discussed, I guess, is the broader question, because I know we committed these funds, but we in the Legislature now are dealing with, we're coming out, we're all talking about how we're going to freeze, delay and roll back funding. And so is this something where you have an opinion on the potential shifting of this towards other priorities? Potentially?

Sure. We within the Administration see this Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant as, while you said that most schools are not really concerned with the learning loss, potentially, potentially with following COVID-19 we do see that students performance on assessments that are provided, that they're still lagging behind COVID-19 pre, 2020 levels. And so we see that as a continued priority.

We have not considered shifting these funds in particular to any other program additionally, any other, any shifts this, as currently proposed, this language is part the language changes before you are part of the settlement agreement. And so any changes to that we would have to negotiate, revisit.

And just to be clear, I was not saying that learning loss is not an issue. I'm saying that we have a lot of issues with our schools right now, and as we're moving further and further in time, away from the point in time when students were learning remotely and all the challenges that that provided, you know, I hear from my leas that there are other concerns that for some of them begin to eclipse learning loss recovery. But thank you. Do you have any thoughts Department Education?

So I can tell you that we have talked with some of the school districts and asked them what they have been using the funds for. And some of them have been for like teachers on special assignment, certificate of staff to help reduce class sizes. So I think if I understood your question correctly, that school districts are utilizing the funds to support those goals that you're mentioning, along with also what Lina mentioned as well.

Thank you for the answer.

Then let me just make sort of a closing comment here. I appreciate the discussion and I think it is always hard for us to implement a settlement that we weren't a party to and weren't really consulted about and presumes what we are going to do on the budget. That is just always very difficult. And fortunately, this one is not far off from where we might have been anyway.

But just for the record, it's always nice to get a phone call when you're doing this, say, do you really want to appropriate a billion dollars for this? Rather than there just being a presumption that that's what's going to happen. So I appreciate this discussion. And as opposed to the other items, I'm not sure there's as much work there that needs to be done on this as we head to the May Revise any final comments on this from Members before we move on?

Then thank you very much. Thank you for being here. That completes our consideration of the four items that we had in front of us. But we do still have public comment. So let me ask for a show of hands of who wanted to make a comment in public. Comment 12345 is what I see. So then we'll allow for up to two minutes for public comment. And please move to the microphone and we will have comments on any of the four issues for up to two minutes.

Welcome to the Committee.

Good morning. Good morning, Chair and Members Derick Lennox, on behalf of the California County Superintendents, I'm going to speak to two issues the first is on Instructional Continuity and Attendance Recovery. Want to give appreciation for the administration's intent in addressing chronic absenteeism through more streamlined educational options. I think all of us are in favor of that, but completely agree with the Chair and the LAO's assessments about some of the challenges that our LEA's might face in adopting those.

We've had a quick succession of remote and virtual learning options over the last few years, all of them associated with different audit requirements and programmatic requirements, so we think a little bit more study would be quite valuable on that issue. For the second issue around the Emergency Recovery, I'll be speaking also on behalf of my colleague at the Association of California School Administrators as well as the County Superintendents.

And that is to say that for emergencies lasting five or more days, the proposed instructional requirements are often infeasible, as we've discussed here and I heard you all talk about, and that has a direct impact on the resources available for students in schools in those communities. I think it's important to remember that during these emergencies, schools often pivot to playing an essential role in the community in terms of reaching out to students, into families doing wellness checks, serving as hubs for temporary housing or for FEMA.

And a lot of that contact is occurring, but it may not be at the standards that are provided for in the Trailer Bill Language. And that's deeply concerning because we don't want to have a disproportionate, proportionate impact on communities that are already quite suffering or displaced during those emergencies. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Appreciate your comments.

Good morning. Hey, thank you. Thanks for this discussion, Mister chair and Members. Ben Nash, with the Partnership for Children and Youth. I'd like to comment on issues 1 and 2, ELOP and attendance recovery. As you've seen in your own districts and heard today, ELOP provides access to meaningful to relationships and enrichment opportunities and increases attendance and graduation rates for thousands more students across the state.

We strongly support schools in addressing challenges to increasing learning and recovery attendance funding, but we agree with the comments made today that there are ways to strengthen the proposal. First, we should make sure that attendance recovery is aligned with existing expanded learning programs. We shouldn't overburden schools with administrative hurdles such as creating and staffing multiple recovery programs. Instead, let's coordinate with existing programs of and staffing so that attendance recovery can happen more quickly with less cost and reach more students. And second, teachers should oversee instruction.

But we urge you to allow more flexibility. Allow community partners to work with teachers to provide enrichment opportunities that help keep kids coming and allow community partners to employ certificated teachers to help meet students needs. The Administration proposes changing the definition of expanded learning to allow districts to use them for attendance recovery. But expanded learning is so special because it complements but doesn't replicate school day. Changing the ongoing definition of expanded learning will not address the underlying causes of why students are not attending school.

This change could exacerbate the problem by discouraging schools from offering nontraditional experiences students and families need and deserve. Finally, I want to highlight middle and high school students. Older youth experience higher levels of absenteeism than elementary students, but ELOP is prioritized for TK through 6th grade students. We agree with LAO's earlier comments that ELoP can be used in creative ways to address challenges faced by students at different grade levels.

For example, expanded learning can help high school students apply for college and financial aid, support dual enrollment, linked learning, internships, and credit recovery. And to your earlier point, Senator Laird, we must address the root causes of why students aren't coming to school. We believe expanded learning is part of that solution by providing spaces where students want to come and learn outside of the traditional classroom. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Appreciate your comments. Welcome to the Committee.

Thank you. Good morning. Sierra Cook with the San Diego Unified School District here to make a comment on issue one, the expanded Learning Opportunities Program. Just wanted to emphasize that while the Hold Harmless that's in place does protect districts that might flip from receiving rate one to receiving rate two, it does nothing to address the instability that is baked into the formula for rate two itself. Rate two is dependent on statewide TK through Six ADA, which makes it inherently unstable, but particularly so in these years of TK expansion.

As reflected in the analysis or in the agenda, last year, rate two districts experienced a 250 dollar per student drop in their allocation. That was a 12% cut that was received only eight weeks before the start of the school year. And as TK expansion continues, we assume that this trend will continue as well.

This puts districts who receive rate two in the position of having to plan their program offerings, make relationships with community partners to provide those offerings, hire staff and plan their entire program without knowing how much funding they will receive. So we appreciate the discussion of the impact of those rate instabilities, but just wanted to elevate that unless rate two is stabilized, if it continues to decrease, districts that receive this rate will really struggle to meet the program requirements and provide high quality services. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your comments. Welcome to the Committee.

Good Morning Mister Chair, Committee Members and Committee staff Mishaal N. Gill, on behalf of California Association of School Business Officials, I will be just speaking regarding two of the issues. Firstly, about instructional continuity and attendance recovery programs. We have implementation concerns regarding readiness, clarity and regulations and timely integration into the existing programs. We would recommend delaying the implementation to better understand the guidance from the California Department of Education and alignment with the audit process. And secondly, regarding the changes to the emergency tenants instructional timeframe.

We opposed the proposed five days timeframe for LEA's to certify plans of offering instruction during emergencies due to the range of emergencies that may arise in potential collective bargaining implementations as well. And during this emergency, it's not just the students that are being affected, also teachers, admins in the whole community. So we would urge the Legislature to ask for a 10 day timeframe that is in existence right now. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Appreciate your comments. Welcome to the Committee.

Good morning Senator Laird and Members. My name is Anna Loakimedes on behalf of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Regarding issue one, the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program, we are a tier one school and we would urge the Committee to protect our Expanded Learning Opportunities Program funding and also to consider in light of the expiration of the federal esser, I'm sorry I cannot say the acronym off the top of my head.

In light of the expiration of federal COVID-19 funds and other potential budget reductions, as much flexibility as possible in both the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program and other grants is very important to help us creatively and flexibly move funds around to maintain services to our most vulnerable students. In regards to attendance recovery and instructional continuity, just want to echo and uplift the comments that others have made. We very much support the governor's proposal for attendance recovery, but do believe that more delayed implementation would be helpful.

We share the concerns about five days not being enough time in a true emergency. We believe that the 15 minutes increment. We understand that the objective is to create more flexibility. Our staff have shared that they actually think that would create far more challenges and that a 1 hour time frame would be preferable. And finally, that students with an IEP be allowed to participate with parental consent the same as other students. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Welcome to the Committee.

Good morning, Members Magaly Zagal with Greenberg Traurig on behalf of Aspire Public Schools, providing short comments on issue number one. Aspire Public Schools serves students across three different regions, Bay Area, Central Valley and Los Angeles. Aspire supports the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program funding and it's allowed them to add additional ongoing academic and enrichment opportunities for Aspire scholars. They look forward to continuing to use this funding, moving forward towards this purpose, and urge you to protect the funding. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We appreciate your comments and seeing no one else in line for public comment. Let me thank everybody that participated in the hearing today and made comments. That completes our business. If you were not able to testify today, let me just repeat what I did at the outset of the hearing, that you can submit your comments in writing to the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee or through the website.

Your comments and suggestions are important, and we want to take them into account as we move toward the May Revise budget and final adoption in June. So we've concluded the agenda for today's hearing. The Senate Budget Subcommitee, one on education, stands adjourned.