Senate Standing Committee on Education

The Senate Education Committee will come to order in 30 seconds. Good morning. There are 19 bills on today's agenda. Item number two, AB7 has been pooled by the author. Seven bills are on consent. Those bills are. Item number one, SCR 82. Item number five, AB291. Item number six, AB598. Item number seven, AB821. Item number eight, AB320.

Item number 11, AB642. And item number 12, AB542. Witnesses are asked to limit their testimony to two minutes to ensure the Committee is able to complete today's agenda in a timely fashion. Seeing as though we don't have a quorum just yet, let's begin as a Subcommitee with the first Bill. I see we have Assemblymember Ta here. Welcome, Assemblymember. You may begin when you are ready to present AB88.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. First, I'd like to thank the Committee staff for their work on this Bill. Really appreciate that. AB88 will ensure that dependence of active duty military members stationed outside California, but maintaining a California residency will be eligible for Cal Rent and a Middle Class scholarship program.

Military service Members who are California residents may sometimes receive government orders requiring them to relocate outside of the state for extended period and their families often accompany them. Senior parents are still officially residents of California. The student qualifies for in state tuition rate at our college and universities.

However, under current law, students are ineligible for Cal Rent or the Middle Class Scholarship Program if they temporarily reside out of state. AB88 would only apply to a very specific group of active duty service Members. This Bill does not appropriate any additional fund for the Cal Rent program.

It simply allow dependence of active duty California military Members to access the rent. I'd like to introduce Seth Reeb with various organizations to testify in supporting of AB88. I respectfully ask for your aye vote, sir.

Is it okay for me to call it?

Give me one second. I see we have a quorum. Assistant, can you please call the roll?

[roll call]

Great. The assistant notes a quorum has been established. Apologies. If you could please continue with your presentation.

No worries. Thank you. Chair and Members, my name is Seth Reeb with Reeb Government Relations.

I am here on behalf of the American Legion Department of California, AMVETS Department of California, the California State Commander's Veterans Council, the Military Officers Association of America, California State, California Council of chapters and the Vietnam Veterans of America California State Council in strong support of AB88.

This bill is about fairness, consistency and honoring the realities of military life. When a California service Member receives orders to relocate outside of the state, their family, through no choice of their own, are uprooted. Their children may finish high school outside of California, but they remain California residents.

These are students who would otherwise be eligible for financial aid if their parents hadn't answered the call to service. We hear from military families who feel like their children are being punished for their parents service to this country. These students did not choose to leave California. Their parents did not choose to be deployed.

Yet they're shut out of some of some opportunities as their peers. Not for any academic reason, but because their parents, their parents were fulfilling a duty to this nation. AB88 reinforces existing federal protections by affirming that a service Member can maintain California residency even while stationed elsewhere. It ensures this is applied consistently across all campuses.

We thank the Assembly Member Ta for bringing this Bill forward and respectfully urge an aye vote on AB88.

Thank you for your testimony. Are there any other support witnesses here in room 2100? If so, please use the microphone outside the railing and please only state your name, organization and position on the Bill. Seeing nobody getting up, we will now move on to lead witnesses in opposition.

If there are any, the two lead witnesses may come forward and use the microphones at the table in front of us. Are there any other opposition witnesses here in room 2100? If so, please use the mic at the railing. Seeing nobody getting up, I will now bring the discussion back to members.

Do any of our Members have questions or comments? Yes. Senator Choi?

Thank you Chair, Assembly Member Ta, thank you for bringing up this very important bill that I will be supporting. Military service members, active volunteer service for the country and their deserving children anywhere they may be. If they are located in California, they should get the benefits as much as we can support for completing their education.

So therefore I'll be supporting. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Senator Choi.

Yes, Senator Ochoa Bogh

thank you Madam Chair. Member Todd, thank you so much for bringing this measure forward.

I think as a state there's so many ways that we can, still need, are open to helping our veterans and their families who sacrifice so much for for our freedoms and for this amazing country and especially as 4th of July is coming up this week.

I just, I think this is an incredibly patriotic themed bill and happy to support it. Happy to move it. If Senator Choi did not move it yet, as of yet and would love to be added as a co author if possible.

Yes, I really appreciate that.

Thank you. Senator Ochoa Bogh, any other questions or comments? Alrighty. If you would like to close Assembly Member?

Really, really, really appreciate all the Senate support. And I respectfully ask for aye vote.

Great. So we have a motion by Senator Ochoa Bogue and the motion for AB88 is do passed to the Senate Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. Assistant, can you please call the roll?

[roll call]

Great. And we will put that vote on call. Thank you so much, assemblymember. Seeing as though we have a quorum, if we could get a vote on the consent. Yes. And we have a motion by Senator Choi. Assistant, can you please call the roll.

On the consent calendar? [roll call]. Great.

And we will put consent on call. Great. Excellent. So we will now move back on to our authors. I see that we have Assemblymember Jackson here to present AB 90. Assemblymember Jackson, you may begin when you're ready.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to start off by thanking you and your staff, and we will be accepting the amendments from the committee. AB 90 is a bill that has--I have reintroduced this year to provide even greater flexibility for California Community Colleges to create a plan on how to offer overnight parking for students facing housing insecurity.

This bill would require the local governing board for community college districts to determine if the community colleges within their district will establish an overnight parking program. This is more of a regional approach where districts themselves can create their own programs as they see fit and then determine when it would be appropriate for them to implement it if necessary.

The idea is is that we know that housing continues to be another, a top priority for the state, and we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to be able to do it, and last year, unfortunately, this bill was not successful, but students remained homeless and still slept in their cars in unsafe places, and so at some point we got to figure out on how to get to yes instead of finding ways to not do something, and so with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Assembly Member Jackson. We will now move on to lead witnesses in support, if there are any. The two lead witnesses may come forward and use the microphones at the table in front of us. You don't have any? Okay. Are there any other support witnesses here in Room 2100? If so, please use the microphone outside the railing.

Good morning. Kim Lewis, representing the California Coalition for Youth, in support.

Good morning, chair and members. Tracy Rosenberg, on behalf of Oakland Privacy, in support.

Hi, Senate Ed Chair and members. My name is Angela Estrada, and I'm from Public Advocates, in support. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now move on to lead witnesses in opposition, if there are any. The two lead witnesses may come forward and use the microphones at the table in front of us, and you will each have two minutes and you may begin when you are ready.

Good morning, Chair Perez and Senators. I'm Elliot Stern. I'm President of Saddleback College in Mission Viejo in Orange County. It is not easy speaking in opposition to a bill that purports to do anything about homelessness, but I do so today with the backing of my fellow CEOs of community colleges because what the bill represents, even with amendments, even with complete extraction of the CSU system, is still an unfunded mandate.

Moreover, the bill ignores the good work that we've been doing at our community colleges to advance the way in which we respond to unhoused students and homelessness in general, and replaces it, supplants it, with something that would take us backwards in the way we respond to students, as if sleeping in your car, sleeping in a tent is an acceptable solution to homelessness.

At Saddleback College, we have a basic needs center, as do all of the community colleges, thanks to the funding that you have provided. At that basic needs center, we provide two responses to unhoused or imminently unhoused or housing-insecure students.

First, we have vouchers for short stays up to a week at an Airbnb, at a youth hostel, or a motel to get them through short periods. We also do urgent need grants in case someone is about to be evicted or if they need a deposit to get into housing.

These measures have been incredibly effective for us and they're an adequate and modern response. Moreover, if there's a long-term need that we can't meet, we partner with community agencies, as do all the community colleges, to make sure that those long-term needs are being addressed.

Moreover, homelessness is almost always associated with other needs, so getting a student out of their car and into our basic needs center means that we can address food insecurity, we can address technology needs, transportation needs, health needs, mental health needs. We can't do that if students stay in their car.

Now, in total, I spend about $500,000 a year just for the urgent need grants and for the vouchers that I spoke of to respond to homelessness. If this bill were enacted and my board decided to opt in to the plan or was so coerced into opting in to the plan, it would cost about $500,000, an equal amount for my college to provide 24-hour policing for that parking lot, which is absolutely necessary to provide safety and security, particularly for colleges under Title IX and Clery.

So it would take what we currently do and replace it with a backwards move. It would take the effective responses that we currently make toward homelessness and replace them with less effective measures. I say to you that this is 2025. In 2025, I hope we don't do unfunded mandates, even if soft mandates.

I say to you that this is 2025 and we no longer respond to the unhoused by saying it's good enough to sleep with your head on a steering wheel. This is 2025, we have effective responses, we're doing them at the community colleges, and we ask for opposition to this bill because it's the right thing to do, because our students are precious human beings who deserve not to go backwards in responses to homelessness. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And reminder, please keep your comments to two minutes. Thank you.

Thank you. Dr. Mark Fields from College of the Siskiyous. I'm the Vice President of Academic Affairs there and I represent the Vice Presidents of Academic Affairs throughout the state, and we're in opposition to the bill for a number of reasons. College of the Siskiyous is located in far Northern California.

If you've never been up there, it's a very rural county, 40,000 residents and accounting the size of some states, and with that said, we have a lot of challenges up there. We have snow up there, so if students were to sleep in their cars, they would have challenge with the snow. We have wildfires coming through.

We address our student housing problems through having dormitories. We have 174-bed dormitories thanks to the Legislature last year or a couple years ago, funded additional dormitories. So we're building a second set of dormitories, and that's our best way to address the student housing needs in Siskiyou County.

Allowing students to sleep in their cars, as said before, does not address that basic need that they have. For a short time I was homeless myself and lived on my car. I can tell you that's not the best experience. Our college, like most colleges, close at 10:00 p.m. at night. Most community colleges close at 10:00 p.m. at night and then we don't have the services of restrooms, of food, and of law enforcement.

We, California, being a very small town, doesn't have the police force to patrol our campus at night, so even if we were to ask them to come out, they may not have the resources to do that. As a former police officer, I can tell--I was a retired police officer before I went into higher education--as a former police officer, I can tell you I've been to calls for people that were sleeping in their cars that experienced--they were sitting ducks, basically.

They experienced crimes such as sexual assault and robbery, and we don't want to put our students in that position. So moving forward, we don't support the bill. We think that there's better ways to address the homeless problem, especially the building of student housing. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other support witnesses here or any other opposition witnesses here in Room 2100? If so, please use the microphone outside the railing.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Tristan Brown, CFT, a Union of Educators and Classified Professionals. Apologies to the author and the committee. We're actually in support. We just missed the earlier opportunity. Thank you.

Good morning. Nune Garipian, on behalf of the Community College League of California, representing the state's 116 colleges and 73 districts, in opposition. Thank you.

Good morning. Rebekah Kalleen, on behalf of the Community College Facility Coalition, in opposition. Thank you.

Good morning. Ashley Walker, with Nossaman, on behalf of Citrus College, Mt. San Antonio Community College District, and North Orange County Community College District, in opposition.

Good morning. Michelle Underwood, on behalf of the Association of California Community College Administrators, in respectful opposition.

Anybody else? Alrighty. Thank you to all of our support and opposition witnesses. We will now bring the discussion back to members. Do our members have any comments or questions? Senator Ochoa Bogh.

I guess I'll start. So, my dear colleague, Dr. Jackson, welcome to the Committee on Education in the Senate. I am grateful that you're here, and I think you remember some of my comments from previous years.

You know, when it comes to this particular idea and theme, I think it's important to note that, you know, as electeds, when we hear of a need in our district or in any space, we have that need, that urgency to want to just incredibly fix it right now, and what is that immediate assistance going to help with that solution. But this one goes a little bit further than that.

And I talk about this in my town hall, so I talk about what is an idea to a solution and whether or not let's walk it through to see if it actually is the right way of mitigating what we're trying to solve.

As you probably already know and many of the audience who has followed housing in the State of California and within the space of education, I've been incredibly supportive of ensuring that we have funding, that we expedite the ability to build housing on campus because when the state mandates that we have a growth enrollment in our community colleges, in our CSUs and our UCs, then it behooves the state to also ensure that we're funding the ability to build that housing required to house those students so that it doesn't impact the local supply and impact the cost of housing within those communities as well, which has happened in many of our very highly dense universities in our state.

Those communities surrounding that, the housing is incredibly impacted, and I think that there's a discrepancy here in education, in our desire to grow our universities but not actually accommodate our students to live on those campuses, and that is, I think, a flaw in the whole system in the way that it thinks, especially coming from a realtor perspective.

You know, we know about the supply and demand. If we don't, if we have a lot of demand and not enough supply, the prices skyrocket, and it also caters to people who are going to take advantage of that and really take advantage of our students.

This is why at Berkeley we have students that are living in scummy places, you know, with five people in a two-bedroom apartment, and so--I'm giving context because I want everybody to understand that, well-intended in the sense that we want to house our students. We really do and we should. That should be our responsibility.

We're going to provide education, we're going to expect enrollment growth by our universities--we better provide that housing, and so we've done everything that I can that has gone through this in front of me to support that effort.

Now this is why I don't support this particular measure, because in the context of it, it's great ideas like we want them to be housed, you know, or not housed, but, you know, have the ability to stay somewhere, quote, unquote, 'that might be deemed safe,' but the reality lies in that it isn't safe, especially when we're talking about the elements.

You know, California has, you know, good weather for most of the year, but in areas like my region, you know, in the Inland Empire, I have the high desert, I have the low desert where it's extremely, extremely hot. We also--I also have the mountain communities, and not that any of my community colleges are in the--not that I'm aware of--are in the mountain communities, but you have the elements. Now, what happens when we allow our students to stay on the parking lots as last resorts?

Then we're talking about, well, these kids are going to--not kids, not say kids--but students are going to be needing facilities, restrooms, right? Because we don't want them going out in the environment and using the restroom out in the environment, so for health and hazardous purposes, we're going to have to facilitate the ability to have these buildings open, have bathrooms open available to them. We're going to have to talk about ensuring that they are safe.

So security is going to have to come and then they're going to have to be able to patrol to ensure that nobody's being broken into, into this space, especially if we're talking about young women. They become incredibly susceptible and vulnerable in these, in these scenarios. We're talking about--what's another thing?--ensuring that there's an emergency call.

If they don't have a cell phone, they need something that they have to immediately access assistance to, and the liability then falls--if something were to happen, then these universities, these colleges are now susceptible to saying, 'well, why didn't you provide this?' You know, after the fact.

It's not just opening to the, to the, to the ability for them to park, but the liability that comes and the responsibilities that befall on these community colleges because if something, God forbid, were to happen, they would be looked at as like, why did you not provide X, Y and Z?

And if we're not going to fund this effort, we're not going to give them the ability to accommodate all of these needs, you know, why not open an RV park place for community colleges and have the state fund something like that, you know, open land and so forth?

But there's so many liabilities, I don't think it's the solution, and it might curtail more effective ways--'ah, well, if they, if they have the parking and the colleges are providing, you know, X amount of services, there's no need to go other routes.' It might dissuade.

You know, it's like kind of ameliorates the need, the urgency of doing what is right and it negates the efforts that the community colleges are already doing trying to accommodate housing, whether it's with vouchers, whether it's with building or--you know, I'm not sure what other measures there would be--but I don't think it's a solution.

I think it's a band-aid, but it's not a solution, and the liability that goes with it, I think, it will be a disservice to many of our students to say, 'hey, you know, for now we're going to let you do that.' It's just, it's a warm fuzzy, but it's not an actual solution.

I'm going to do everything I can to support my colleagues in efforts that will give the funding to build and give and streamline the process so that we can actually continue to build on our campuses. That is my commitment to the students in California, especially when we're going to require our schools to grow and incentivize our students to come in. Let's work towards that end, but on this one, on this one, my dear friend, I cannot support in good faith.

I know it's from your heart, I know it's with an effort to really help our students, but I don't think it actually fixes the issue at the root of of the problem, which is actually housing, building housing on our campuses for our students. So with that, ma'am, Madam Chair, I'm going to respectfully not able to support the bill. It's not personal, but it's--it's just the, the idea, sir, that I will not be supporting today.

Thank you, Senator Ochoa Bogh. Senator Choi.

Thank you, chair and Assemblyman Jackson. Unfortunately, I don't think I can support this bill either, although I did vote yes when I was in the Assembly. I think this is identical bill for--I don't know what has happened. I thought it has passed but must have been defeated--veto was for whatever reason, was not implemented because you have brought up this same issue.

I think all the important points have been already raised by Senator Ochoa Bogh as we hear that your well-intended, sympathetic approach, something is better for them, for needy students when there is no place for them to go.

So maybe you thought that would be a lot more safer for them to be in the security area, but as we heard from our president from Saddleback College, did you know that I was a former faculty of Saddleback College? You didn't know that. I set up Korean language program in the total of three years.

I hope it is still continuing. I found my successor, another Dr. Choi, but I don't know. I did not follow up on that. I commuted once a week to the campus. I used to live in also Mission Viejo. Now I live in Irvine. As Saddleback--Preston has stated, I think that approach is a lot better.

Five hundred thousand dollars is effectively working very well, basic needs center providing food service, either motel, hotel, or Airbnb, the decent place, but temporary parking space, that will create all kinds of issues as we heard: liability, security issue, sanitation, bathroom, food, you can name it.

And then also that may even entice for the people, 'hey, there's a basic needs will be solved if I move from my apartment, which costs $2,000 a month, or maybe $200 I can maintain on the parking lot.' So it is--even though that's well-intended, but the outcome may be the other way, creating more problems.

So I think we need to find a more permanent solution. I mean, as an educator myself, I label because all my life I've been teaching community colleges and USC, UCI, among many other colleges, universities. I sympathize how education is important. I could have been ended up on the street myself because I came with $50 in my pocket.

But the education, I did my best to provide myself, busboy, street vendor--you name it, I have done it, while also attending Louisiana State University. So I know the value, how important it is. Under whatever difficult circumstances, I would encourage for students to do their best to complete their education, which will open up a different door.

I never thought I would be the Senator of the State of California when I was washing dishes, so I know the value of that. So we need to provide every means we can, but I don't think this is the best solution even though you are trying to help them, but in essence, for the long-term, I think that the resource $500,000 that I hear even to provide the security alone can double the basic needs service that currently the Saddleback is providing.

So I think for now this bill, rather than using the local resources or state funding, if there's any for that locally, it might be, probably it would be unfunded mandate if that is implemented. So I think we need to save those resources for the more permanent solutions. I hope you'll understand.

Thank you, Senator Choi. You know, I want to go ahead and just comment, I think, on a couple of things because I know that there's been some concerns raised, and you know, Assembly Member Jackson, I appreciate you accepting some of the committee amendments that I think directly address some of the concerns that have been raised.

You know, we recognize that there's a homelessness crisis that's happening across our college and university campuses, and a lot of that has been driven by the fact that we're in a housing crisis here in the State of California, and so our students of course are going to feel it too.

I myself, you know, stayed on some friends' couches for a couple of years during college and was housing-insecure, and I think that is the experience of so many students that are enrolled, whether it's in a community college or in a four-year university. We know that safe parking programs are not long-term solutions.

They are a stopgap for the fact that, unfortunately, it does take significant time and resources in order to build the kind of housing that we need, and we've also seen that there are several bills moving through the Legislature this year to achieve that very concept.

I know Assembly, your Assembly colleague, Assembly Member Rick Chavez Zbur, is working on a bill to make it more flexible to provide exemptions, particularly for community colleges to be able to build more housing, which is absolutely the direction we need to start moving into, but we know that there's many challenges that we face in doing that, right, and there's also cost as well as time associated and many of our students need help right now.

At the same time, I also recognize that not every college has the resources to, you know, necessarily meet this demand, right, and to provide these services. It depends on access to bathrooms, depends on the design. As Senator Ochoa Bogh brought up, you know, whether or not it's a covered parking lot or an uncovered parking lot to keep students safe from elements, all of those things have to be brought into consideration.

That's part of the reason, you know, why we had proposed our amendment to make it so that the college is able to consider, the district is able to consider whether or not they would like to do a safe parking program. That's a decision that they can make.

They can go ahead and do an assessment as a district to determine whether or not this is a viable option for the district, and we also removed the minimum requirement, the minimum requirement. Originally there was a number included and now it is up to the college to determine what that number is.

We know there are several colleges throughout the state, even very small colleges, that are already hosting safe parking programs, and some of them are very small programs. It's only for maybe ten cars, 11 cars, 12 cars, because that's what works for them based off of their facilities and based off of their staffing capabilities.

And so, you know, I think the amendments that you accepted better help support those colleges that are doing the right thing, that have made that assessment and chosen a pathway that works for them, and allows them to decide if they do want to move forward with such a program, how to best design it for their campus.

So I recognize, you know, some of the concerns that have been raised by the opposition. I think we realize that the one-size-fits-all approach with some of these things is not going to work, and in addition to that, this is not a long-term solution at all, by any means.

Our students absolutely deserve affordable housing, and I think we're trying to work on creating a pathway to get there, but in the meantime, the reality is for so many of our students is that they are homeless and they are living out of their cars, and as someone who was once one of those students and understands what that feeling is like, you know, that that can be a big game changer for them, right, in making sure that we're providing them a little bit of ease as they, as they try to navigate that situation.

So I think given the amendments that you've accepted, Assembly Member Jackson, I think it's done a good job of addressing, you know, some of those issues. I know you're heading to Senate Judiciary next, and I know that they'll be talking with you further about some of the other parameters within this, but appreciate the work that you've done here and the effort that you've led, so--and you being mindful and taking into account the feedback of the committee consultants. So thank you, and I will turn it over to you to close.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I mean, obviously, building housing is the ultimate goal that we want to strive to do, and I think, though, that the reality is is even if we approve housing today, there will still be students sleeping somewhere in dangerous places while that housing is coming into fruition.

And one thing that we're taught as social workers is to really think in terms of an ecological approach, and an ecological approach just means that understanding the whole life, the whole lived experience of a person, and so we can't just say that, you know, the best thing is for housing but we still haven't addressed what's happening with this student right here. And we can't just say, you know, 'well, they won't be safe here.' Then the question is, well, where would they be safe then if not on a college campus?

So I think we keep trying to look at snapshots of a person's lived experience, but not understanding that if not us, then who will help them? And I think that there is no doubt--and I've made it very clear, it is actually in the bill itself--that this is supposed to be a last resort, and so to think that this is supposed to deem it acceptable--and anyone who would assert that is just lying. It's just not true.

And I don't think there's hardly anyone who can argue that any bill that I do is one that's based upon the facts, which is safe parking, overnight parking is the best practice to get them stabilized and then get them the services that they need. You can't help people if they're not stabilized, and so there's a number of things that were said that are just false.

And, you know, I really find it offensive, to be honest, that anyone would assert that we're trying to normalize this, that we're trying to make this above any other thing, that is--all the research shows is a better way to do it. And everyone knows by now--this is not the first time I've done this bill--everyone knows that this is supposed to be a last resort. Everyone knows that--unless you just didn't read the bill--and so I think at the end of the day is we always find ways of saying no.

Let's finally say yes, because if we really want to do what's in the best interest of these students, this is not the perfect one, but unless you have a bed for them right now, unless you have a voucher for them right now, there is no doubt that this is the alternative other than them fending for themselves. So at the appropriate time, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Assembly Member Jackson. So we need a motion on the bill. We have a motion from Senator Laird. Alrighty, and the motion for AB 90 is do pass as amended to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

[Roll Call].

Thank you. We will put that bill on call. Thank you, Assembly Member Jackson. So I see that we have Assembly Member Muratsuchi in the audience to present AB 477. Assembly Member, you may begin when you are ready.

Good morning.

Thank you, Madam Chair and senators, I'm here to present Assembly Bill 477, the Fair Pay for Educators Act, to help close the pay gap that our teachers and our essential school staff are facing. AB 477 will set education funding targets with the goal of giving school employees a 50% pay raise over the next 10 years.

California is facing a school workforce crisis with many educators simply unable to afford to live anywhere close to where they work. With the number one reason that young people are giving as to why they are not interested in becoming teachers, and that is because of the low pay for teachers.

This wage gap has been growing over the years. Over the last 45 years, college graduate salaries have grown three times faster than than that for teachers. Today, a California teacher earns just 76 cents for every dollar that their similarly educated peers make.

Nearly 2/3 of young adults surveyed list salary as the top reason why they are not interested in becoming teachers.

And as for our essential school staff, our classified staff, which we rely upon to run our schools and to take care of our kids, we know that in too many cases, classified employees can make more working at a fast food restaurant than working as a classified school employee.

We must close this wage gap to attract and retain the next generation of educators. This bill is sponsored by teachers and classified staff. Let's pay our teachers and essential school staff what they deserve.

Here to testify in support of this bill is Juan Ramirez, Vice President of the California Federation of Teachers, and Carlos Lopez, representing the California School Employees Association.

Good morning, Madam Chair. My name is Juan Ramirez and not only am I the Executive Vice President of CFT, but I have a 24 year teaching experience providing essential education for kindergartners as well as second through fourth graders. Working in education is a passion.

There is no other way to describe what gets an educator out of bed every morning to see the faces of our students. That passion overcomes plenty of obstacles and we take on those obstacles and our reward is the thank you that comes out of our students wearing a cap and gown. But some obstacles we cannot overcome.

The wearing down of our soul from commutes that span not just miles, but entire counties because we cannot afford the rents where we work. The lack of resources and classroom materials to effectively teach, the overcrowding of our classroom because no one applies to fill a vacancy or or our colleagues quit in frustration from burnout.

While California has made big strides to increase our education funding, there is far more work to do lack of funding has kept wages of educators well under the rest of the labor market which makes people second guess a career choice in education.

In 2022, California graduated only half as many new teachers as it did at its peak in 2004. The Learning Policy Institute reported that about 8.5% of teachers in California appear to be leaving the profession each year and another 8% leave the current school to move to another.

This turnover rate were highest in schools serving higher number of students from low income families and in those serving in large concentration of students of color. AB 477 sets a new funding goal for California to tackle these problems.

Following the advice of State Board of Education President Linda Darling Hammond, teachers play attracts and retains effective educators as they lead to better student outcomes. I urge you to support AB 477 today and help our schools have the funding they need to fix our staffing crisis and help the students most in need. Thank you.

Hello. Good morning Madam Chair and members. My name is Carlos Lopez with the California School Employees Association which represents over 250,000 classified Members across the State of California. Classified staff perform essential services every single day for our students.

Feeding, instructing, transporting millions of students across the state and ensuring that they have clean and safe schools in which to learn and thrive. There really is no class without classified employees. Yet our classified wages have fallen below the cost of living and many of our members struggle to stay in their position to make ends meet.

I've been working with classified employees for years and most of them would just like to be able to quit their third job and just be able to stay on two jobs. The clear funding goals laid out by AB 477 will help districts recruit individuals, talented individuals and retain their experienced classified staff.

Having fully staffed schools with long term classified employees will ensure that our students receive the highest quality services possible. And AB 477 is a major step to making that possible. So we urge you to vote yes.

Thank you for your presentation. Are there any other support witnesses here for AB 477? Please use the mic at the railing.

Good morning. Zhang Lohr with the California Teachers Association proud co sponsor. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning. Megan Bar on behalf of Oakland Unified School District in support.

Good morning. Orilia De Reyes on behalf of ED Trust West in support.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members, Janice O'Malley with AFSCME in support.

Good morning. Sandra Barreiro on behalf of SEIU California in support.

Good morning. Ben Murphy on behalf of Public Advocates in support.

Good morning. My name is Bernice Joseph, I'm international science and politician.

Good morning. Michelle Underwood on behalf of the California School Funding Coalition in a support if amended position to look at that intent language around salaries. Thank you.

Good morning. Cordell Hampton with the Association of California School Administrators in a support if amended position. We agree with the objective to increase LCFF base grants across grade span levels, but have concerns with the tent language regarding teacher salaries. Thank you.

Great. Anybody else? Alright, we will now move on to lead witnesses in opposition. Please use the mics at the railing and you will be given two minutes each. Okay, that's all righty. You may begin when you're ready.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members, Jeff Vacca, representing the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools, feel a little bit like the proverbial guy who drops the you know what in the punch bowl this morning. I want to express our grateful. We're grateful to Assemblymember Muratsuchi for his long standing support of the Local Control Funding Formula.

We've supported three previous bills that he has authored to set new aspirational targets within the LCFF. We have had concerns about the intent language in AB 477 since the bill's introduction. Like our colleagues at AXA, we had a support if amended position when the bill was in the assembly.

The amendment, the recent amendment to the bill to give it the title of the Fair Pay for Educators Act has really magnified those concerns. And it's not that we are opposed to fair pay for educators. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We simply don't feel that the Local Control Funding Formula is the appropriate place for that conversation in that it conflates the purpose of the LCFF, which was to be student centered and to provide additional focus on the students with the greatest needs. It conflates that with really what is a conversation about funding adequacy.

We have engaged with Assemblymember Muratsuchi, who has been very supportive over the years on that conversation about funding adequacy. And, you know, obviously it's a difficult conversation. There'll be more opportunities to do that. But at the end of the day, the LCFF is simply a distribution mechanism for any increased funding.

And we simply do not agree with the notion of restricting the use of increased funding, even in intent language, for what was intended to be locally based priorities that are student centered. For those reasons, we are respectfully opposed to the bill.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the committee, Sarah Petrowski on behalf of the California Association of School Business Officials, I would like to align my comments with those from my colleague from Riverside and just add that CASBO has long supported a school finance system that fully funds the costs of the state's high academic standards and the.

Needs of all of our students. Our concern with AB 477 stems from tying the increased funding to one use which we see as undermining a core tenet of the Local Control Funding Formula. The ability of local communities to determine how funds should be used to support student needs through the local control and accountability plan process.

We are very grateful to the author for his long standing support of the Local Control Funding Formula and pushing for increased funding. But we respectfully ask for a no vote.

Thank you. Do we have any other opposition witnesses here in the room? If you could use the mic at the railing.

Good morning. School Boards Association in respectful opposition for the same reasons outlined by my colleagues at the table. Thank you.

Peggy Delgado Fava, Board Trustee for Pleasant Ridge Union School District. Funding for salary should be at the local level. Thank you.

Anybody else? Alrighty. Thank you to all those who spoke. We'll now turn it back to our members. Do we have any questions or comments? Senator Ochoa Bogh.

Thank you. So big one here. Big one. But I am listening to both the intent which is to ensure that we have well paying teachers to ensure that we have the workforce in our retirement. We're talking about teachers right now. I'm trying to figure out where do I start? Where do I start on the premise on there.

So let's begin with the budget that we are currently allocating as a state towards our education as a whole. Which is approximately and correct me if I'm mistaken, but it's around just over $19,000 for state funding per student for pupil. And the federal is approximately right now estimated was during our budget discussions around 6,000.

So it's a total of about $25,000 per student that our schools are currently receiving. So $25,000. With that we have the LCFF question or the allocation of this funding that's supposed to be student centered was very strategically designed back in what? 2010-14-13. Okay, so back in 13. So let me begin really quickly.

We have 365 days out of the year. Our teachers are working. What's the academic year right now?

100 and 185.

180. So about 180. That's approximately six months. About 868 months. It's hard. I'm just trying to figure out the math here. So we have about 180 days, 365 days out of the year. Personally I've always said we need longer school years, but personally. But we're talking about 180 days out of the year makes it very hard.

And then we're talking about $25,000. Approximately. We have the LCFF that is student centered. If it's not within the- the- oh, here's the other question I had.

I'm going to put it out there because where does Mccarty's Bill fall into this Assemblymember Mccarty, who said that by 20, I believe it was 2035 teachers, where the state was to or state was supposed to pay, I think like a 50% increase. It was Mccarty's Bill. Two, three years ago, actually.

That was my bill. That was my bill.

Oh, McCarty's.

No, that was my bill.

That was your bill. So Mccarty also had one too. Right.

He might have been a co author.

A co author on it. So what happened to that particular bill?

I believe we held it on the Senate Floor.

Okay, alright. I thought it was. I apologize. I thought it was Mccarty's Bill and I thought it had been signed into law which put aspirations as to what teachers needed to pay.

So I wanted to make sure that we knew that if the LCFF base is not where we're supposed to address the funding part of it for of our teachers, where should it be aiming for?

Because I know, and I'm trying to figure out where this falls into the negotiations that happens at the local level with the teachers salaries with this bill and with the local negotiations allowing them to allocate the $25,000 per year per pupil. Where does it fall? Where should it fall?

Okay, well, you know, as I think the former local school board members know, that, you know, usually between 80 to 90% of a local school district's budget is funded by the state.

And- And so, you know, the intent of- the intent language of AB 477 does clearly state this is in section 342238.017, subsection B, it is the intent of the legislature to use the funds in order to increase salaries to close the wage gap and improve recruitment and retention of school staff subject to local bargaining.

So, you know, I- I this bill fully recognizes that salaries are ultimately collectively bargained at the local level, but then most school district funding comes from the state.

So, you know, I have much respect for the opposition, but I see this more as like an aspirational target to not only increase the base grants, which I know the opposition supports, but you know, to have a win win situation school districts, you know, we're going to aspire to have more funding at the local level.

And with the reality that most of a school district's expenditures goes to salaries and benefits, that the intent is to increase school staff salaries in order to close the wage gap and to attract and retain good teachers and essential school staff.

So, you know, I think you're setter, you're asking how this all plays out relative to our system of state funding with local control, locally bargained salary schedules. So I hope that helps.

Not quite. Okay, but we'll work on it. I get where you're going and I understand the intent. I'm just trying to figure out, based on the opposition's arguments that where. Where would be the proper place? Because I know the local bargaining in it. We don't want to take that away. That is, that is the.

And the bill respects that. We're also talking about unprecedented amounts of money that the state is now currently investing. Right. So where would that be? Where? If it's not, if we don't want to adjust the LCFF formula or if we- if we adjust the local funding formula and it inhibits the ability to become student focused, where would.

Where do we accommodate the increased salary base? Where would that be? Where would the appropriate place be to address that need?

Madam Chair, with your permission, Senator Ochoa Bogh. In recent years, there have been a number of efforts that are focused on the adequacy of school funding getting down to facts prior to process.

The last time the state went through that process, which is very much research driven, it demonstrated that in order to fully fund schools at the level that would allow us to provide all of the programs that we want for students, but also to compensate staff employees, teachers and classified employees at the level that would allow to close those wage gaps, would take $26 billion above what was being provided by the time, at the time we're about to begin, or the state is about to begin the third round of those conversations about getting down to facts, I think that provides a more appropriate venue for those types of conversations than to put what is clearly a worthy goal into the Local Control Funding Formula.

There's no easy answer because to generate that amount of increased funding, you have to get into a conversation about revenues, inevitably, which the state has typically not wanted, to increase revenue generation through increased taxes, et cetera. So it's challenging, it's difficult.

We simply don't think that LCFF Local Control Funding Formula is the place to put that language into statute and create that expectation, notwithstanding the reference to local collective bargaining.

Okay, that's helpful. And we have our. You have the whole budget for education committee right here. So that's why I'm asking is. I'm glad you're here, Senator Laird, because he has a huge history and I trust his perspective. So in realms of this- of this, the feedback and the opposition and the concerns.

Madam Chair, if I may, would love to hear some feedback from our- our- our committee, one subcommitee, one chair, as to where is the appropriate place for conversations as far as base funding allocation. Where should we be seeing this?

Senator Laird, would you like to respond and provide some context?

No, but I'll do it. I was going to speak anyway, but I really appreciate this because I, I think the discussion is really, until we figure out how there'll be more revenue to the system, having a discussion of how we would spend that revenue before we have it is very difficult. And I appreciate the aspirational part.

And Senator Cortese has his own aspirational bill, which I have supported with the idea that we tried to signal that we want to do that.

But until the voters choose to maybe revise the commercial side of property taxes or something else, I don't see in the current structure where there will be revenue to put additional things into education.

And so, and if I can make a semi snarky comment, when I was Secretary of Resources, I worked with Eric Garcetti all the time, the mayor of LA, who had these wonderful goals that had to be made good long after he left.

And he would just constantly do these goals that he was not going to be around to do. Now he's working hard to be around for eight years to help with the goal. I get that. But I think I'm willing to support this on the aspirational level.

But I am fully cognizant of the fact that unless we address the revenue issue, this won't have the impact that the author is desiring for it to have.

Madam Chair, if I may.

Yes, Assemblymember, thank you.

I know that this is the Policy Committee and not the Fiscal Committee, but given that obviously the issues are going to be intertwined, I just want to direct your attention to the Assembly Appropriations Committee analysis that actually highlights, number one, the fact that in 2013, my first year in the legislature, we actually set.

There's a precedent for setting aspirational LCFF funding targets. We did that in the 2013 budget that was championed by then Governor Jerry Brown to restore the budget cuts that we suffered during the Great Recession. And we actually reached those funding targets, those aspirational funding targets.

But the important point that the Appropriations Committee and Assembly raises is that since 2013-14, LCFF base grant rates have increased annually by an average of 3.9%. Whereas funding the rates set by this bill would require an average annual increase of 3.7%.

So I know that a 50% increase may sound very ambitious, but actually, as the Appropriations Committee analysis points out, if we assume the historic trends in the growth of K12 education funding since the inception of the LCFF, this bill, as the Appropriations Committee writes in their written analysis, this bill could be fully funded within the Proposition 98 General Fund guarantee by fiscal year 2020-2036-37 which is the target year of this bill.

We have that in our notes, Madam Chair.

Yes, senator.

So once again going with that understanding that if trends continue, if trends continue and it's aspirational within the base, the. Then. Does that work within the fiscal. Because these are, these are the financial folks and this is why it takes so much, so much credibility in what they're saying is because this is what they do.

They work on numbers. They work. This is, this is the world that they live in. So that's why when they have concerns, it's going to be concerning for me, because we can have these aspirational goals.

But if the people that are actually working in that space, that are working the numbers and trying to make things work in this space, I want to make sure that they can make that work because it's not within, well, it is within the purview of the state to come in and say this, but we have to make sure that we have the system in place to make it work.

And so having said that, I would love to hear final thoughts on whether or not with that in mind that it is aspirational. Would it work? Work?

So let's use Riverside County school districts as an example. Senator, we have 23 school districts in the county. 19 of them are currently in declining enrollment. That alone impacts the amount of revenues that they receive.

So all of those districts have made significant progress in recent years in terms of increasing the amount of compensation for the employees on both the certificated and, and the classified side.

But the reality, given the cost of living adjustment that is in this year's budget of 2.3%, we have a number of districts where essentially they're getting a cut moving into the next fiscal year, even though they're getting, from the state's perspective, more money, quote, unquote.

So that's the context under which they would begin the conversations in collective bargaining, where quite appropriately, the employee organizations would note the cost of living adjustment, perhaps begin the conversation at that level where the district is having difficulty even reaching that amount because of the current fiscal condition of the district and the state.

And so those are, you know, really difficult decisions that have to be made by the governing board, by the district leadership, in consultation with all of the employee organizations.

So I don't know if there is a good answer on whether that would work over a 10 year period because, you know, notwithstanding what I think we all agree is a worthy goal, it's ultimately going to be driven by the economic and fiscal conditions of the time, which we simply can't predict, you know, over a one year period, much less a 10 year period.

I hope that's responsive.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? You know, I'll just add on as we wrap up. I appreciate you, Assemblymember Muratsuchi, for bringing this forward. I think we all recognize that so many of our school teachers, our school staff, are significantly underpaid. And this has been a challenge for a very long time.

I have so many friends who worked as teachers that have left in the last five years, particularly after the pandemic and simply, I mean, because they are overworked and underpaid. And you hear that story over and over again.

In fact, our friend, Assemblymember Mike Fong, his district director, who's one of my best friends and was a teacher for almost 13 years before she left to be his DD and that was a big part of the reason.

It is a huge, huge workload and pay has not matched the many challenges that teachers are now dealing with in the classroom that frankly oftentimes go even beyond teaching. Having to now look out for students mental and social and emotional needs as well as well, all at the same time, as well as trying to teach children.

So appreciate you bringing this forward. I do think it's healthy for us to have these conversations about how we go out about achieving some of these bigger goals.

If we do want to be intentional about raising teacher pay, if we do want to be intentional about raising the pay of our school staff, we do have to set goals and we do have to have a conversation about whether it's raising revenues or reallocation of dollars.

You know, those are the discussions we need to have if we ever want to get there instead of just continuing to acknowledge that we have a problem without creating a pathway to work towards that. So I appreciate your bill in that it is aspirational and it sets out a timeline that looks very into the future.

But I think it also kind of demands of us to have this conversation about how would we make something like this work. And those are the tough conversations that we need to have. So my recommendation is going to be, you know, an aye vote.

I'm very supportive of this and appreciate you bringing this forward so that we can continue having these healthy discussions and really keep our eye on the prize, which is making sure that our educators, that our school staff are being well compensated and that their wages represent the value of the work that they do every day in the classroom.

So thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much for your comments and I appreciate everyone's questions and comments. I just want to wrap up by- by you know saying, bottom line is this bill is about getting our school districts more money by increasing the base grant, which is something that the opposition had supported in previous versions of the bill.

And we just added the intent, the goal, the aspiration that we need to close the pay gap that our teachers and our classified school employees are facing so that we can continue to attract and retain the best teachers and the best classified staff that we can get. We've done this before.

The assembly appropriations analysis lays out how it's more than just aspirational. We have achieved these LCFF funding targets before. We can do it again. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. And we need a motion on AB 477. We have a motion by Senator Laird and that motion is do pass to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

[roll call]

And we will put that belong call. Thank you, assemblymember. Next up, I see that we have Assemblymember Kalra here to present AB 347. Assemblymember, you may begin when you are ready.

Good morning and thank you, Madam Chair. AB347 is the compassionate learning advancement for science students, also known as the CLASS Act. Under current law, students have the right to opt out of dissection assignments, but many are not made aware of this right or offered an alternative assignment.

AB347 will strengthen existing law by providing students with a written notice that will inform them about their right to opt out and will ensure students receive a comparable or a comparable assignment to achieve similar learning outcomes. Lastly, upon request, students will receive information about where the animal is sourced from and the chemicals they'll be exposed to.

This is also important information for the educator to know what kind of chemicals that they are exposed to. While current law allows students to opt out of animal dissection, they often feel obligated to participate because they may not be informed about their right to opt out or fear they'll get a failing grade if they don't participate.

Anatomy and dissection are an essential scientific teachings. However, with the advancements in educational technology, alternative methods become more widely accessible and affordable for educators to offer comparable assignments.

These alternative methods, such as a synthetic frog model or frogipedia, an application for mobile phones or tablets, offer a practical alternative that still allows students to participate and learn about anatomy. These methods can also be reused year after year, resulting in cost savings over time for our schools.

We especially saw these alternatives in practice during the pandemic when no one was doing animal dissection, but those courses were still being taught throughout our state. I would like to clarify this time that under current law, agricultural courses are exempt and will continue to be under this bill.

By providing students with a written notice, AB347 will empower them to make informed decisions and if they choose to opt out of animal dissection, the bill would ensure they're given an alternative assignment. Students have the right to an education and should not be penalized for exercising their student rights.

I'm proud of the fact that this bill passed off the Assembly floor with a strong bipartisan vote. Here to testify in support are Sienna Roth, a former student at Aliso Niguel High School, and Samantha Crow, Associate Director for Teach Kind Science and a former Professor of Biology.

Thank you. You may begin when you are ready and you have two minutes each for your presentation.

Great. Thank you so much. Honorable Chair and Senators, thank you so much for your time. I'm Samantha Crow, Associate Director of PETA's Humane Science Education Division, and I taught college Bio for about 12 years. Animal dissection is not a magical way to get students excited about science.

In fact, it disenfranchises compassionate students and can often turn them away from the sciences. Animal dissection is not mentioned or required in any curricula that covers California students. Not a single one. No US medical schools use animal dissection and experience with it is not expected or required of incoming students.

There are many superior methods and materials to support student proficiency in the life science standards that are more effective and equitable for all students. Non animal methods better prepare students for higher ed. Better prepare them, you know, rather than animal dissection, these methods have in depth layering of all anatomical parts. They have correct coloration.

They even have simulations of body systems so actual physiology that you can learn. None of which is possible with an animal cadaver. TeachKindScience recognizes educators professional judgment, of course, in selecting instructional materials as well as their responsibility to choose materials that are both safe, humane, cost effective, inclusive, and aligned with social, emotional, learning and trauma informed education.

Please help students become better scientists and help educators honor students rights by voting aye on AB347.

Hi, I'm Sienna Roth and I have firsthand experience with opting out of animal dissection. Thank you so much for having me here. During my senior year at Aliso Niguel High School, my anatomy and physiology class was doing dissection. I asked for a different assignment because my personal beliefs do not align with the activity.

I was immediately met with opposition. My teacher and one of the school administrators asked why I was in the class if I wasn't going to dissect and suggested that I drop the class.

Not only did they not inform me of my right to opt out of dissection, but they encouraged me to leave a class that would help me get a head start on my future career as a nurse. We should not have to choose between our education and our ethics.

My school was not aware of their responsibility to inform me of my right to opt out of dissection, which is why there needs to be a written notification and a uniform complaint procedure. This will ensure students are doing the assignment that allows them to learn best.

Dissection is an outdated learning tool that doesn't teach to the needs and learning styles of all students. I was able to use the Getting Nerdy paper model and I scored significantly higher than my classmates on the dissection test.

I understood the material better and a lot of my classmates told me they wished they had done the alternative assignment too. They said dissection felt gross, sad, and unnecessary.

I was lucky to have so much support and opting out between my mom helping me find connections and resources, PETA TeachKind informing me of my legal right to opt out of dissection, and the incredibly supportive assistant Superintendent working with me to make sure this doesn't happen in the future of my district.

However, as supported as I was, I had to jump through hoops, attend many meetings, and take time out of my busy student life to advocate for rights that should have been integrated long before I I started the class.

My younger sister took a science class similar to mine the next year and while her teacher offered the alternative assignment, when my sister took advantage of it, her teacher pushed back and said what? It's not like you have to eat it.

This issue is not anywhere near resolved even in my school where I was able to make direct impact. I do not want other students to have the same experience I did.

Teachers should know their responsibilities and parents and students should be aware of their rights so that everyone can learn in a way that best reflects their ethics as it pertains to animal dissection.

Thank you. Do we have any other support witnesses here in the room? Please use the mic at the railing.

Hello, Chair, Members. Nicholas Sackett for proud co sponsor of the bill Social Compassion in Legislation. Thank you very much.

Good morning Chair Member Sam Nasher on behalf of the Los Angeles County Office of Education in Support. Thank you.

Good morning. Karen Stoud, on behalf of the Animal Legal Defense Fund in support.

Great. Anybody else? All right. We will now take lead witnesses in opposition. You may come up front, use either of the mics, and you will have two minutes to speak. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Tom Getlin and I'm here as an employee of Carolina Biological Supply Company. Which is a Member of the hands on Science Partnership, which is a trade Association of 13 companies who, like Carolina, supply curriculum and supplemental science instruction to K-16 schools and beyond.

We are also devoted promoting hands on active science learning for all students. Carolina Haasp and the National Science Teachers Association strongly urge you to oppose the passage of Assembly Bill 347 and have addressed correspondence with an outline of our reasoning, which I'll provide a quick synopsis of here. Four points we oppose because it's duplicative of existing law.

Current provisions in Education Code 32.255.1 already provide appropriate avenues for students to opt out of dissection activities in favor of alternative means. We oppose because it would incur unwanted costs to schools.

Last year the California Department of Ed Finance Committee opposed similar legislation because it was estimated to cost up to $4.3 million to fulfill the requirements of the Bill.

We oppose because it creates an unfair bias against dissection and it could eliminate and prohibit science teachers and students who want to participate in dissection and learn in a manner they both enjoy and are engaged in. And we oppose lastly because it imposes an undue influence on students in schools to move away from active hands on learning.

In 2013, California was one of the first states to embrace and adopt the new Next generation science standards. NGSS shifted the focus of instruction from rote memorization of scientific information to the cultivation of critical thinking through hands on three dimensional learning.

California is facing dire shortages of qualified STEM professionals, with the hands on critical thinking skills that dissection activities develop and what California employees are seeking. AB 347 could effectively eliminate this aspect of learning by July of 2018.

Further, while it encourages other alternatives to dissection, let me suggest that virtual learning, the use of synthetic animal specimens or digital dissection are not active three dimensional learning and are more expensive than what we provide.

For these reasons, we urge you to oppose the passage of 347 and encourage continuation and increased enforcement of California Code 3.2.255.1 which provides alternative avenues for students to opt out in favor of other alternative means. Thank you for your consideration and in time.

Thank you. Do we have any other witnesses in opposition to this Bill, please use the mic at the railing. Seeing nobody getting up. I will now turn it back to Committee Members. Do we have questions or comments.

Thank you Madam Chair. So on the cost. You know, it's interesting So a couple of things. I will be supporting the Bill.

And the reason why I'm going to be supporting the Bill and I saw the opposition is that I think when it comes to the cost, I'm not sure there's so many ways that this can actually the disclosure and one thing could be in code.

But as with many items in place that we've seen in California, I've seen it in public safety, I've seen it in labor. We have a lot of code, we have a lot of meaning, things in code, laws in place. But the problem that California has had many a times is the lack of enforcement.

So even though that might be the case, schools might not be executing the right. And a lot of the times, and we see this in so many spaces, so many spaces, it's not the fact that we don't have things in law, it's the fact that they're not necessarily enforced.

And then when I ask questions as to the enforcement process of it, it's like, why isn't it being enforced. It's been law. Why hasn't it been enforced. Well, sometimes it's because the agencies that are supposed to be enforcing these particular laws per say, are not aware that they're not being enforced.

Or number two, they don't have the workforce to be able to enforce it. Or number three, they don't have the funding that the state has not given to actually enforce the laws that we currently have.

So even though this might be in statute, it might not be enforced because of a variety of reasons, on the cost factor, on whether or not this could potentially, and why it was vetoed perhaps in the past because of the cost. There's also now, thank goodness, digital, you know, which in my opinion, I'm going everything digital.

A lot of the things that I'm doing I want to see about providing means to do it digitally, which is less costly for everyone in that sense, but also allows us to ensure that we are informing folks that needs to be done, needs to be enforced. So that's what I'm doing.

The other thing I think is that the beauty that we have right now with science and technology is that so many of these things that you know, could be hands on is also being done digitally, can be done digitally.

And the innovation going around right now when it comes to science and technology in science and in the medical field is just amazing. What you can do digitally. It's almost scary, actually, and how advanced and wonderful that is. So it provides for options for many of our students. And this is a much different generation than myself.

You know, I just had my birthday 53, and I look at this young lady and I go, her world will be completely different than what I have experienced and will experience in the next time that I'm alive and my time ends here. But their world is going to be completely different.

So the technology that exists right now in the world is going to be how they study, how they perform the work that they do. And I'm so grateful that you have a heart to go into. Was it nursing? Yes, nursing. We are desperate in California for nurses.

There's going to be so many means by which you will be able to get experience in your education. And I think we need to modernize the ability to do that.

And I think this Bill allows us to use some of that technology that will be applied to your learning in the future to be able to ensure that we as adults create a system that actually modernizes and accommodates the different variety of views and abilities to inform.

And it is for those reasons that I will be supporting the Bill today and also for humane purposes.

You know, some of us are, you know, want to be in science of some sort, but might not necessarily want to see those little creatures and someone as a little kid who wanted to be a veterinarian as a little kid, have great compassion. And it's hard.

It's hard when you don't have, you know, that hard to be able to do that. But there's other means. Thank goodness technology's here and we have to embrace that. And so with that, I will be happy to support your Bill and will be happy to move it when appropriate, ma' am.

Excellent. Any other questions or comments. You know, Assemblymember Kalra, I'll just say in talking with my staff, but my own staff shared with me their experience of panicking while doing a dissection. So I think it's a very common thing that happens for students that go through this process, but it's also an important learning component.

But as Senator Ochoa Bogh noted, we have lots of technology now to be able to actually avoid using that, whether it be virtual components that many of us had to use during the pandemic, during COVID or even plastic components, which I've also seen as well.

So, you know, appreciate your work here and think that this is very common sense and could in some ways even provide cost savings for school districts as well. So I will turn it back over. To you to close.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I think that you exemplify part of the reasoning behind this is first of all the humane aspect of allowing individuals to have that choice and understand it and get an alternative instruction. But also, I think this is an entry point. These courses are an entry point into the sciences.

Whether someone goes into nursing, medicine, other kinds of scientific fields, we don't want to turn students off at the entry point. If they want to dive deeper into it and have more advanced courses, that's just fine. But as indicated, even medical schools don't do animal dissection.

I mean, there's definitely ways to learn about these materials without having to dissection. And I appreciate Senator Ochoa Bogh, who's in line in the traditional bipartisan support for this legislation. We had 68 votes off the Assembly, 411 of which were Republicans. And I really appreciate the nuanced, detailed reasoning behind it.

And we also have the more visceral responses like Assembly Member of Flora just saying it's gross. So we have a whole wide range of why people get to where they get on this legislation. But either way, I appreciate it. Respectfully. As for an aye vote.

Thank you Assemblymember. So we have a motion from Senator Ochoa Bogh and The motion for AB 347 is Do Passed to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Assistant, can you call the roll?

Senator Perez. Perez, aye. Ochoa Bogh. Ochoa Bogh, aye. Cabaldon. Choi. Cortese. Cortese, aye. Gonzalez. Laird. Laird, aye.

Thank you. I am going to need to head to EQ, so I'm going to pass the gavel over to my Vice Chair and we'll be back shortly. Thank you.

Good morning. We have Assembly Member McKinnor, so we're going to continue with file item number 14, AB 694. When you're ready, Madam.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. AB 694 seeks to address the significant staffing challenges facing the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, DOSH, within the Department of Industrial Relations, DIR. These staffing challenges are hindering the Department's ability to conduct essential workplace safety inspections and protect California workers.

This bill requires DIR to contract with the University of California to conduct a comprehensive study on the causes of staffing shortages within DOSH and identify solutions. The study will focus on streamlining the hiring process, adjusting the qualification standards, and improving workforce development. It will also access ways to attract a more diverse workforce and ensure that the necessary positions are filed in a timely manner.

AB 694 aims to improve workplace safety oversight and help build a more effective and efficient safety inspector workforce. The study will include input from key stakeholders, including labor unions, worker advocacy organization, and academic institution. Today my witnesses are Laurie Wallace, United Steelworkers member, and Beth Spitler, California Farmworker Coalition. Thank you.

Thank you, Assembly Member McKinnor. We'll now continue with your support witnesses, and we'll begin with Laurie. Beth.

Thank you, Vice Chair and Committee Members. My name is Beth Spitler. I staff the California Farmworker Coalition, which builds power within grassroots organizations so that farm worker coalitions can set policy that impact agricultural workers in California. We are one of three co-sponsors of AB 694, alongside the Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health and California Labor for Climate Jobs Coalition.

The California Farmworker Coalition is co-sponsoring AB 694 because workers in California's agricultural fields are feeling the real and dangerous consequences of the chronic understaffing and language inaccessibility at Cal/OSHA, as protections passed by California's Legislature and Cal/OSHA's standards board go unenforced.

As you were just speaking about. Cal/OSHA's chronic understaffing issue has reached crisis levels according to the latest data released by the Department of Industrial Relations, with the December 2024 vacancy rate of 43% among field enforcement inspectors.

To end the years long crisis, we must address the underlying causes of these vacancies, the current minimum qualifications and lack of viable workforce pipeline pathways that create barriers to entry for experienced and dedicated California workers who could fill these positions. AB 694 will address these issues by requiring Cal/OSHA to contract with UC Berkeley's Labor Occupational Health Program and UCLA's Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program.

These academic partners have extensive knowledge about workplace health and safety and will bring together an advisory committee of experts to research and recommend the policy and administrative changes needed to increase and diversify Cal/OSHA's inspection workforce, including a training program that will create a pathway for people without bachelor's and master's degrees. This proposal answers frontline workers pleas for a well staffed enforcement agency with inspectors that represent California's workforce, and we respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much, ma' am. Please proceed when you're ready.

Good afternoon, esteemed Committee Members. My name is Laurie Wallace. I'm a process technician oil refiner from Phillips 66 in Wilmington, California and a member of the United Steelworkers Local 675. I would like to share my experience in light of AB 694. Phillips 66 announced the closure of our refinery site at the end of last year.

This December, processing units will cease operation, and many facing this transition, including myself began exploring how our years of on the job expertise in this industry, particularly in health and safety operations, and how that could benefit statewide process safety management, AKA PSM. The roles at Cal/OSHA typically require a college engineering degree, despite the extensive practical experience and specialized training that industry workers can provide.

The demanding schedules for industry workers, including rotating shifts, mandatory overtime, make it challenging to pursue further formal education for our industry workers who often hire in with just a high school diploma and a with the promise of a career all the way till retirement. Cal/OSHA's requirement of a degree for years of service or as a PSM manager prevents highly skilled workers from leveraging valuable knowledge for important opportunities like PSM at Cal/OSHA.

We for me personally, as soon as my refinery announced that they were closing, I actually wanted to look into Cal/OSHA. And it was really important for me to use my 17 years of expertise to possibly help the state, the communities, and other workers with this very important issue to me. And I don't even qualify. My 17 years do not qualify for me to even apply. And that was very disheartening. So this is something that's very passionate to me.

There are a lot of workers right now that are looking for different opportunities. We're not only able to help just each other in our specific refining expertise, but the communities. At my refinery alone, I have two tanks that have a five mile blast radius. So who better to understand the inner workings of how to protect the community around me as well as how to protect the workers and how to understand things that are going on for Cal/OSHA PSM than me?

Thank you very much, ma' am. You're just over. No, no, no. I didn't want to interrupt because I know you were, you were expressing your heart. Okay, so we have our lead support witnesses who just testified. Now we're going to continue with any witnesses in support of AB 694 here in room 2200. Please proceed to the microphone and state your name, your position, and the organization that you're representing only. Thank you.

Cassie Mancini on behalf of the California School Employees Association in support.

JP Hanna on behalf of the California Nurses Association in support.

Tristan Brown with CFT here in support.

Janice O'Malley with AFSCME California in support.

Michael Young with the California Teachers Association in support.

Wilfredo Cruz with USW Local 5 in support.

Sergio Arranaga on behalf of USW Local 326 in support.

Catherine Viera Houston, United Steelworkers District 12, in support.

Norman Rogers on behalf of Local 1945 in support.

Irene De Barraicua on behalf of Líderes Campesinas in support. Thank you.

Okay, wonderful. We've now continued with our witnesses in support. We completed. We're going to continue with witnesses in opposition. Are there any lead witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Do we have any additional just members that just want to express their opposition here in room 2200? Seeing none. We'll bring it back to the dais. Any questions, comments?

Okay, so I do have some comments and some questions, Member McKinnor. So it's my, so as mentioned earlier, I completely agree. When I sat in Labor, I actually was very eye opening to see how much we don't enforce because we don't fully fund the Department and then we have the workforce shortage that we do not have in that Department.

So that is one of the key things that have bothered me because we literally pass new laws because we're not enforcing what we currently have. And it's just, we're just adding and adding and those, and it really does impact the businesses and the companies that are actually trying to do the work.

But we just add more requirements on them because of the folks that are not good players that act in good faith and in goodwill and then we're not enforcing those. And so anyway, I completely agree with the intent of this particular measure. But the question I have is that it's my understanding that the issue with Cal/OSHA and the staffing that it may be premature because of the findings from a JLAC approved audit that is supposed to be released sometime this summer. And that the bill provides funding for two UC union based think tanks.

So this is an objective perspective of daylight coming in and it's supposed to come out with the findings this summer. So how would you respond with the fact that it's already in place, they're already coming out with the recommendations of what needs to be done this particular summer. This particular summer. And that this bill wouldn't be actually signed until end of September, maybe coming into practice in January. But we already had this in place.

Well, we want to make sure that we have staff, look at the staff in Cal/OSHA. Being the Chair of PERS, I've noticed that at the state we have a lot of positions that are open. So in my tenure, I want to do a deep dive into why these positions are left open, why we're hiring temporary workers. And so on this one, I want to make sure that we have something in place just in case. Just in case the findings aren't what we think they should be.

We will make sure that we want, this is a study bill. So we want to make sure that the University of California and DIR have a chance to take a deep dive and look at this because it's a problem. We cannot have these positions open and we cannot continue to hire temporary.

And we want to make sure that people with 17 years on a job can have an opportunity to work there. So these studies are very important. We're starting here, but I'll be looking at, looking across the state and looking at why we have all these temporary positions.

Okay. And so... And I'm not sure who the question would be led to, but I'm just kind of curious, how does this bill fall into with the audit, the JLAC audit that's coming up?

Would you like to hear from the Vice Chair of the Audit Committee?

I'd love to hear. Yes, please.

Let me make a comment I was going to make anyway. That audit, to back up, was hotly contested in the Committee about whether we should even go ahead with it. And it was one of those rare moments where I went into the hearing thinking I'm not going to support this audit.

And after the discussion, I thought, I in good conscience cannot do anything but support this audit because the delay in wage cases and the number of wage cases was so unfair because they're working people that are struggling and that money really means something. And it was just going to be hanging out there for a year or two.

And the question was at the heart of the debate why they didn't have the resources or why they weren't focusing in the Department on resolving these wage claims. And it seemed to be a very, a mix of things. I wouldn't necessarily fault them for hiring temporary workers because, at this point, they're so far behind, they've got to do whatever they can do.

And I think the question would be that the author more or less answered is, if this audit comes out while the bill is still moving, are there ways to consider taking some of the recommendations that might come from the audit and incorporating them into this bill. And it would only be my hope that they synchronize that way.

This is the year that we go longer. So we're going into the second week of September. And I am willing to work with the author's office to double check when we think this audit might actually come out. But that would be the best way to handle it. And I know the author and I know that. How do I say this politely? If there's an ankle, she's biting it until we get to an answer. And I think her bill is to force that situation, and the audit might support that, and she might be able to incorporate that. And so I am, that is why I move the bill.

And I will double check on when the audit comes out. Because I have done bills. When we had the EDD problem in the pandemic, I just took some of the recommendations and put them in a bill so that we would have an emergency plan ready, a recession plan for EDD, on how to staff up and do things. And if there are things that come out of this that are related to that, that might be something the author would entertain in absorbing into this bill.

Okay, perfect. That was my question because I read that there was an audit, and I know that something needs to be done because there is severe shortages on the workforce there, and it's not being fully funded. And so something needs to be done. So when I saw the bill and I realized that there was going to be be an audit, I thought, how do they intertwine or how do they work? So, see, this is why Senator Laird is my trusted colleague.

But I did learn earlier in the hearing that you were born in the year I graduated from college, so that was a bit disconcerting.

I was born in 72. Full disclosure. It's online. You can Google it. I don't mind sharing that with the public. But this is why Senator Laird is a trusted. He's got institutional knowledge here. So, any other comments or questions? Okay. We have a motion by Senator Laird. And Member McKinnor, would you like to close?

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much, Member McKinnor. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

File item 14, AB 694, McKinnor. Motion is do pass to the Senate Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Thank you very much. We'll place that on hold for our absent Members. And thank you for coming today. So we have Member Ávila Farías. Is it Farías or Farías? And we'll proceed with file item number 15, AB 917. You may proceed when you're ready, ma'am.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. I'd like to start by accepting the Committee's proposed amendments and thank the Chair and the staff for their hard work on this Bill. AB 917 will ensure that deserving educators and school employees in all school districts and County Office of Education have an opportunity to achieve permanent employment status.

This Bill will require local education agencies to grant permanent status to certified employees in school districts and counties with an average daily attendance of less than 250 and the regional occupancy centers and programs operated by the County Office of Education or joint powers of authority.

This is already—this is already required for schools with an average daily attendance of more than 250. Due to process for teachers plays a critical role in protecting against racially discrimination and requiring fair and impartial procedures for employment decisions. AB 97—117—will attract and retain potential educators, provide them with a career stability, and diversify California's education workforce.

Testifying with me today in support of AB 917 is Michael Young, Legislative Advocate with the California Teachers Association.

Thank you, Assemblymember. Michael Young.

Welcome, Mr. Michael Young. Oh, sorry. The Chair is back.

Totally fine. You may—you may continue. So, thank you.

I'm Michael Young with the California Teachers Association, one of the sponsors of the Bill. As the Assemblymember stated, one of the goals of the Bill is to grant permanent status to teachers in small school districts and teachers in ROCPs that currently don't have that right.

Typically, what you see is the teachers get permanent status after two years. But today, there are teachers in small school districts, for example, that are working for 15 or 20 years that remain in probationary status. The Legislature has been moving towards parity regarding teacher permanent status in the last few years.

This body granted this right to adult ed teachers in 2023. You granted the right—or extended the right—to teachers and ROCPs operated by single school districts just last year and during this teacher shortage, it's really important in order to recruit teachers in this climate.

It's important to ensure that teachers have access to their due process rights under the Education Code. This provides, as the Assembly Members say, stability, improves workforce retention, increase diversity in the workforce.

Regarding some of the flexibility issues for ROCPs, while it's true that ROCPs are required to offer CTE pathways in emerging industries in their region and these pathways can obviously change, thus changing their staffing needs.

Existing law, as stated in the Assembly analysis already states that these changes in curriculum are authorized reasons for—to initiate layoffs procedures—that are in existing law, thus granting those ROCPs flexibility. I would also note that this Bill doesn't change or limit the existing layoff procedures by school districts.

This year alone, over 3,000 layoff notices went off to teachers. And while many of these were rescinded, districts can and do exercise their flexibility and this would also extend to small school districts. So, ultimately, teachers deserve not to be in probationary status for decades. They deserve their due process. And we, we urge an aye vote on the Bill.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Do we have any other support witnesses? Please use the mic at the railing.

Cassidy Mancini, on behalf of the California School Employees Association, in support.

Sandra Barrero, on behalf of SEIU California, in support.

Thank you. Anybody else?

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

Great. Looks like we don't have anyone else. We'll now turn it over to witnesses in opposition, if we have any. Alrighty.

Thank you. And you will have two minutes each to speak.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. I am Rich DuVarney. I'm the Tehama County Superintendent of Schools and I'm speaking on behalf of the Small School Districts Association and the County Offices of Education. And we respectfully are in opposition to Assembly Bill 917.

So, current law regarding school districts and county offices with an ADA of 250 or less was negotiated between Education Management and Labor in 1983 as part of the Hughes Hart Educational Reform Act of 1983. This flexibility has been allowed since, since to address the changing needs of a student population that creates unique staffing challenges.

The Legislature has repeatedly recognized that super small districts and county offices of education need flexibility to appropriately address the needs of their students within their limited capacity and resources. We have districts in California with as few as five students districts. AB 917 will force small LEAs not to only pink slip every teacher every year—so isn't that great for morale—it will limit the courses and programs available for students.

Given budget constraints and limited resources, a small LEA can't risk hiring a teacher who may not be serving any students in three years due to changes in populations or in need.

We respect—with respect—to small COEs, AB 917 would drastically limit their ability to adjust staffing for the unique special needs, transitory, and high-risk populations that they serve. There is precedent through education code to treat small LEAs differently. Small LEAs are exempt from the Budget Reserve Cap. Rural districts are exempt from the late start time and necessary small school districts receive additional state funding to support their operations.

This is an appropriate acknowledgment of the operational, personnel, and budgetary circumstances that small LEAs face and are adept at navigating.

We simply ask that you continue to let us be good stewards of the flexibilities we have now that have been in place for years and some for decades. AB 917 will force small LEAs to limit options and services for students and families and break an agreement that has stood for several years with good reason.

So, for this sake—for the sake of our students—especially in rural areas in isolated and high-need settings, I respectfully urge you to oppose AB 917. Thank you.

Thank you for your presentation. If we have any other opposition—oh, sorry, yes.

Good morning. My name is John Ward. I am an Instructor and Teacher with Valley ROP, which is located in Reedley, California. Valley ROP is a JPA servicing seven school districts throughout the Central Valley of California.

We currently have 80 full-time instructors with an additional 80 to 85 part-time instructors providing instruction on various career pathways throughout their schools. My program, I teach criminal justice and CSI at Sanger High School. I have approximately 150 to 200 students a year that works closely in our program, both with the Police Department and the community.

I've been teaching full-time with Valley ROP for almost 17 years now. And coming from a teacher standpoint, I respectfully oppose this Bill. I've never once, over my 17-year career, worried about a contract coming up for the next year.

Yes, we have a contract for each year and at the end of that year, we get a new one. I'm not worried about a permanent position. I feel like I have a permanent position already with Valley ROP. I truly believe this Bill is not necessary.

If this Bill is passed, my biggest fear would be that not only a budgeting crisis would come along, but also, it would eliminate and not expand full-time positions. I also think with the budgeting issues, we would probably lose a few of the pathways, as well as the pathway instructors.

In closing, I would like to please take in consideration our testimony when making your vote on AB 917 today and I thank you for your time.

Thank you for your presentation. We will now turn it over to any other opposition witnesses in the room. Please use the mic at the railing.

Good afternoon. Dan Merwin, on behalf of the California School Boards Association, in respectful opposition.

Good morning. Brianna Brens, on behalf of the California County Superintendents, also in respectful opposition.

Madam Chair and Members. Jeff Vaca, representing the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools, in opposition.

Layla Alicon, on behalf of the School Employers Association of California, in opposition.

Madam Chair, Jeff Frost, representing the Orange County Department of Ed as well as the Central Valley Education Coalition, in opposition. Thank you.

Good morning. Dorothy Johnson, on behalf of the Association of California School Administrators, respectfully opposed.

Caitlin Zhang, on behalf of the San Bernardino County District Advocates for Better Schools, in opposition.

Good morning. Michelle Algol, on behalf of California Association of School Business Officials, in opposition.

Good morning. Leilani Aguinaldo, on behalf of the CTE JPA Coalition, in opposition.

Yuri Calderon, Executive Director of the Small School Districts Association, in opposition.

Peggy Delgado Fava, Board Trustee, Pleasant Ridge Union School District.

Good morning, Lee Angela Reed, on behalf of the California Association of Career and College Readiness Organizations, in strong opposition. Thank you.

Anybody else?

Fabrizio Bavaro, Superintendent of Valley Regional Occupational Program, in opposition. And I'm also available to answer any questions.

All righty. Seeing as nobody else is approaching the mic, I will now turn it back to the Members of the Committee. Do we have any questions or comments from Committee Members? Senator Ochoa Bogh

We need more Republicans in this, in this Committee, with different perspectives. So, just to start off, thank you for bringing this measure forward. I know we haven't had much opportunity yet to meet and have a chat, but I do appreciate the fact that you're Spanish speaking. So, I was super, super excited to learn that.

And by the way, she's like perfect sounding Spanish speaking, so I was really, really impressed. Having said this, I have concerns. You know, one of the things that I'm really—I listen very carefully to, to support the intent of the bills and I—then I listen very carefully to the opposition to see what the concerns are.

Especially because, you know, when you're the opposition or the super minority, you don't have a very amplified voice, per se.

And so, I'm very careful, especially with rural communities, our ROPs that are very, very unique, they don't fall into the mainstream mode of education and models in that, you know, I have small districts in my district. I serve the high desert, low desert. I have the mountain communities which are very, very small.

And when the state comes in and puts these expectations that more—that bigger schools—have the capacity to accommodate, it's, you know, they're still severely impacted. When we had the, you know, trying to mandate electric buses, it doesn't work for the mountain communities the way that they, you know, they don't have the students, the elevation.

I mean, there's just so many things that impact our small school districts. And so, I'm very, very protective of—and an advocate to ensuring that I have a very, very open ear to what the concerns are and the accommodations. And so, some of the concerns that they have there, especially with our ROP programs, are small districts.

They need the flexibility. And though well intended, right, well intended, we want these egos when it comes to the programs that they're serving, such as ROP programs that fluctuate in professionals coming in and meeting those needs, depending on what the workforce requirement is in the area, which also fluctuates with, with technology, with economics.

There's just so many factors that impact all of that. They have to be keenly aware and in tune with the local companies that are in the area that makes it so that they don't know what may be important in the industry in 5, 10, years.

And so, I think many of the teachers are coming into that space, especially in smaller areas, are coming in knowing that, you know, and if they're, if it's something different that they're looking for more permanently, for longer periods of time, then this may not be the particular space for them.

And therefore, when I see bills such as this, well intended, it doesn't meet the design of the programs or even the numbers that they're serving in those particular areas. So, those are some of the—just the high-level general, and it's not unique to this particular.

We've seen other bills that are coming in with that same intent and I also oppose those bills just because it doesn't fit the model. And so, when I look at the teachers that are coming in, they full well know that this is what they're coming in, this is what they're signing up for.

And for us to come in and say this is what you're going to do, I think it infringes in their ability to be one, autonomous and meet the needs of the student population, the demographics that they're serving. And correct me if I'm wrong, but am I on the right? Okay, so.

And this is me visiting those ROP programs in my district, sitting down and talking to them. And they are very unique. They are, but it's the model that they have. They can't do very much. So, though well intended, ma'am, I will not be able to support the Bill today. And, and, it's—but you're not the first.

So, it's not personal, it's just the idea because I am very respectful, very respectful of our ROPs, very respectful of our small rural communities that are very unique and they're trying so hard. They're on survival mode most of the time when it comes to trying to accommodate their needs versus what the state thinks that they should be doing.

And so, it's a fine level.

And this is why I, I'm so, you know, the underdog, you know, making sure that I advocate for the underdog and have a voice, you know, my voice is here today is their voice saying it doesn't work for us and it put us—it puts us—in a precarious situation where it does have a direct impact on our students and the programs and the teachers are going to be available for them and opportunities.

If anything, we need to encourage a system that allows flexibility so that we can have more programs and more teachers coming in. And I'm always looking for those ideas as well with them. You know, tell me what, how can we help you become more, more productive?

So, with that, I'm going to respectfully oppose the Bill today, but look forward to other avenues of how we can help our small school districts, our rural areas, and our ROP programs have more programs, more, more means by which they can bring in those opportunities for our students, because the only ones that fail are our students, if we fail them. So, thank you.

Thank you, Senator. If I may, Chair, respond. It is a pleasure. I know we have not had a lot of interaction to engage outside of this forum, and I'll make sure that we do get to know each other, because outside of our party affiliations, I actually think we align on our community values a lot.

And I'm hearing what you're saying, and that's what legislating is so hard in California is because my community doesn't look like your community. And we're building a rapport and trust with one another, because I know that is very important to you, because I've heard this on the dais already of having a track record.

So, I hope today is the beginning of, you know, you learning who I am and vice versa, and making sure that, in the future, we are able to collaborate and understand.

But I do feel in this Bill that I have been thoughtful because I've been in public policy for nearly 30 years and a space I occupied was public education. I'm coming off a county board of education. So, I did public policy for my county and got in the weeds around education.

And it is one of my passions because we all know the education is the pathway to solving a lot of our socioeconomic problems. And so, thank you to all that serve on an education committee, because I think this is probably one of the most important committees the State of California and the hardest place to occupy.

So, thank you for being there. And in my background in education, I've gotten to see the inequities, because if you, whether you know Contra Costa or not, and serving not as a Legislator, but serving at the California Housing Finance Agency, I got to learn all of California through my housing policy.

And so, I know your community really well. But I think this Bill creates an opportunity. Who I'm trying to protect is our employees who come to a school district who serve in your community, but through this process, usually, unfortunately, tend to be people of color.

Our brown and black communities that don't get an opportunity to continue to serve and educate our children because of this loophole. And I'm trying to block that loophole to give everybody a pathway to continue to educate in your community. Whether it's big or a small district, it's really not the focus.

The focus is creating this opportunity for our committed employees. And in your rural communities, it's even much more difficult to recruit quality teachers and educators in that space. So, my goal with this is to create that pathway for them. And we also, in the legislation, created a pathway.

I'm not taking away anybody's rights and overregulating. They still are able through budget constraints to go do their due process, issue their pink notices. It's not taking that. I think that is a distorted perception that we are taking something away from them. They're still due to budget cuts.

We all know we have to make hard decisions, unfortunately, in all spaces, not just education. So, it still allows your small school districts to make those decisions.

But we are also allowing a pathway that when they're making those decisions that we honor and respect those employees who have dedicated so many years of public service and education to your children that they have a first opportunity to be able to stay with your school district. But that being said, I don't also take anything personal.

We're here to work together and leave our jackets in the back of whatever our party identity is. We're here to solve problems, and children are our priority in the State of California. And so, I don't need you to ever apologize for having a viewpoint that may be different from mine.

What I look to seek is to understand your viewpoint and find a common ground where we may align. And so, I appreciate your perspective, and I hope that now sharing my perspective that you might be open to hearing where this is beneficial to your rural community.

And not only do I know it from an academic and a policy making—my husband grew up in the Central Valley, so I know the Central Valley very well because half my children's family lives in the Central Valley. So, I am very thoughtful and sensitive to how very different it is from the Bay Area, so.

So, in that spirit, I appreciate your comments, and I do look forward to working with you, whether it's on this Bill or a future bill. But I hope that you're open to a different perspective how I'm viewing this policy.

Always, and I am so excited to meet you, and I look forward to—we're going to be bonding. I think we're going to have a lot in common and super, super excited to have you and welcome to the Legislature and welcome to the Senate.

Thank you.

And Committee.

Oh, and I'm sorry—and Michael, I'm sorry. If I may, my technical witness can also speak to some of your concerns. I think they're very valid and important. So, Michael may, if I may, Chair, defer to him as well.

If you wanted to respond, I'll give you a minute.

Sure. And your comments were perfect to touch on all the bases. And I think you're right when you say that for small districts and for ROCPs, we're not taking away their abilities to have flexibility, right?

These districts continue to be able to lay out teachers or issue those RIF notices if there is a change in their curriculum or if there are changes in the programs that they offer, if there are regional changes to the emerging industries that they provide the CTE programs for, they can continue to have the flexibility to make the staffing decisions that they need to, to address the needs of students and the population of the schools.

However, the one thing that we're doing here is saying that, as you said before, is that these educators have their due process rights. It shouldn't be a surprise that employers are going to come up here and say, please don't make it harder for me to fire people, right?

Like that's not a stunner. From our perspective and from the teachers who we represent overwhelmingly, they're saying, actually we don't have a guarantee that our job is going to be here tomorrow, so, maybe we should, you know, fight for those due process rights that other people have and the Legislature has moved to ensure purity in this space before for ROCPs and small that are operated in school districts.

The Legislature has provided this, this right last year. We're simply, as the Assemblymember said, we're trying to close those loopholes for places where educators don't currently have this right to make sure their due process, their due process right—their due process rights, excuse me.

Because I agree with what you're saying. Sometimes there is a need for variation between smalls or larger rules and RLCPs that could make some sense. However, I don't know if that's true for due process. For electric buses, I can't speak to that. That's not my area of expertise.

But when we're talking about due process rights, that should be a fundamental right that all teachers have, regardless of where they work.

Thank you. Seeing as though there's no other members, I think I will go ahead and you know, just close by saying, Assemblymember, I appreciate you bringing this Bill forward. I, you know, think ensuring that we're providing our school staff the ability to, to become tenured employees is incredibly important and powerful. It helps with staff retention.

And we know that that's something that's really, really critical when we talk about our children's education is ensuring that we're having that kind of consistency and, you know, really incentivizing people investing long-term into a school district. So, appreciate you bringing this forward and I will turn it over to you to close.

Thank you. I appreciate everyone's time, and I really hope that the testimony today allows a different perspective. Another point that I would like to add is that children right now in the State of California, K through 12, 60% are Latino children, but yet, our demographics and our educators do not reflect what's in our school district.

And this Bill will also encourage again, as I stated earlier, to have more educators that look like the demographics of our children attending school. That could also create pause for reflection. But today, I would be humbled to earn your support for this Bill and request an aye vote.

Great. So, we need a motion on that Bill.

I will be happy to do a courtesy motion.

Okay, so we have a motion for AB 917 and the motion is do pass as amended to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Assistant, if you can call the roll.

[Roll Call]

[Roll Call].

Great. Thank you, Assembly Member, and we'll put that bill on call. Alrighty. I see that we have Assembly Member Soria here to present AB 1111. Assembly Member, you may begin when you are ready.

Thank you, chair and members. AB 1111 is a bill that I introduced after having met with several of the school districts that I represent in the three counties that I represent in Assembly District 27, and I heard their stories about the issues that they were encountering as they were putting together their procurement plans to adopt the EV mandate that California--that we adopted actually just a few years ago.

And so AB 1111 attempts to add additional flexibility to the California zero-emission school bus mandate by allowing additional flexibility when determining feasibility of switching to zero-emission buses and modifies an existing incentive program to allow districts that are struggling to make the switch to zero-emission buses to receive buses from other districts.

Just two years ago, the Legislature passed this landmark legislation calling for most of California school buses--bus fleets--to be zero-emission by 2035 and all school buses to be zero-emission by 2045, which I supported. The legislation sought to make new strides in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of other toxic air contaminants emitted by these buses while recognizing that some school districts were not ready and would need more time for the zero-emission technology to meet their needs.

However, in the time since the law went into effect and districts have started to plan their own switch to zero-emission vehicles, it's become clear that we did not account for the full ramifications of converting these bus fleets. I introduced, again, this bill because the stories that I heard from the dozen superintendents from my school district and the issue really rose to the top as a main challenge in adoption.

While the original legislation allowed for extensions of the 2035 deadline for certain districts, it did not account for the lack of electric infrastructure available to school districts or their capacity to maintain and repair the zero-emission fleets.

Additionally, the changes in the school bus market have reduced availability of the non-zero-emission buses as school bus manufacturers have shifted their operations away from supplying diesel and natural gas buses because that market would essentially be eliminated in the next ten years.

This has left districts in my area without any options to maintain their current fleets if they need more time either to build out their charging infrastructure or for improvements in technology to help meet the needs of longer bus routes. This has especially hurt the small and rural school districts like the ones in my district where busing is crucial to educating our students.

Families can frequently be 30 minutes to an hour drive out from a school, from the school their children attend, and depend on reliable bus service to balance their kids getting to school while they go to work.

I've heard from many superintendents in my district that they want to make the switch to zero-emission, but due to the limitation of their electrical infrastructure or the finance available, they are facing significant challenges in making not only the plan but also implementing the switch.

In the meantime, they need new buses to replace the ones aging out of their fleet so that they can still get our kids to school while they prepare to meet the mandate. AB 1111 will help these districts by increasing the flexibility for their districts that need it the most.

So it does this by expanding their--which schools can receive certain longer term waivers from CARB, allowing for infrastructure, maintenance, and repair limit to be part of CARB's consideration of feasibility when considering the waiver applications and allowing school districts who are currently required to destroy their old buses to receive funding for zero-emission buses to instead transfer those good buses to a district that is in need. Here to testify with me in support of AB 1111 is Kurt Kollmann, a board trustee from Merced Union High School District.

Good morning, Madam Chairperson and members of the committee. My name is Kurt Kollmann, and I am a school board member from the Merced Union High School District. I want to thank you for the opportunity to present on AB 1111 and also to thank Assemblywoman Soria for carrying this vital piece of legislation.

Merced Union High School District is a geographically large district which covers over 700 miles. We enroll over 11,000 students that come from ten different feeder districts. The vast majority of our students, 80%, are socioeconomically disadvantaged, with 73% identifying as Hispanic and around 12.2% identifying as White.

As you can imagine, we are such a large district, area-wise, and we serve so many distinct communities. Our transportation program requires long routes that exceed the ranges of most EV bus models currently on the market and before factoring in the effects of either climate or terrain.

We also use our buses to provide much more than just home-to-school transportation. As a high school district, we constantly have students attending events such as study trips and athletic events. This occurs year-round with a minimum of 20 to 30 trips per week per site.

We have frequent--I'm sorry--we recognize that the requirement to purchase zero-emission buses doesn't take effect until 2035, and we are currently hopeful that the technology continues to improve between now and then.

However, we are raising the issue now because there are concerns that if things do not significantly improve over the time, we will be in a place where operating our transportation program won't be feasible at all, and while some might suggest that adding routes, expanding our fleet so that we would operate on one set of buses in the morning and another in the afternoon, or that we would simply charter out our activities, would not be financially feasible as well. By expanding the reasons why LEAs like mine can apply for a waiver from the 2035 purchase requirements--

You're almost at two and a half, sir. Sorry.

I'm good. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah.

Okay, so now we have a second witness? Yes, please.

Good morning, chair and members. My name is Dan Merwin, and I'm here on behalf of the California School Boards Association. We are proud to sponsor AB 1111 and are grateful to the Assembly Member for authoring this bill. Existing law requires that LEAs only purchase or contract for zero-emission school buses starting in 2035.

Existing law also recognizes that the technology may not be feasible for all LEAs by that time and establishes a waiver process that is overseen by the Air Resources Board in consultation with the Energy Commission and Department of Education.

Unfortunately, a waiver may only be submitted if an LEA cannot service a home-to-school route due to both terrain and route constraints. Last fall, CSBA conducted a survey of superintendents across the state regarding their confidence in meeting this requirement. The results showed that 66% of superintendents were not confident they could comply.

Our survey also asked districts that have adopted zero-emission school buses, those who have real-world experience with this technology, what kind of challenges they've faced. The most frequent challenge was maintenance, followed by cost, and a number of charging and infrastructure related issues, including working with your local utility providers.

AB 1111 is informed by the survey and would expand the reasons why an LEA can submit a waiver. AB 1111 does not change the requirement that a collection of state agencies must find that waiver to be reasonably demonstrate that zero-emission technology is infeasible in that LEA's use case, keeping in place the backstop that was established in the original legislation.

AB 1111 does not seek to undo the transition to a greener state, but rather acknowledges the significant challenges that many LEAs will face as we do. The ability to provide transportation is crucially important to many LEAs, particularly those in rural areas with large territories and which often have a higher proportion of low-income families.

One study found that offering transportation decreases the probability of being chronically absent by 4%, particularly for socially economically disadvantaged students while the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration states that students are about 70 times more likely to get to school safely when taking a bus than when going on a car, and school transportation is of course mass transit, which is something we should all strive to protect. For these reasons, we respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Now we'll continue with any other witnesses here in Room 2200 in support of AB 1111. 1111. 1111. Had enough ones there.